Liberal Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman of California just announced that he's giving up earmarks and says Congress should give up all earmarks for the next fiscal year:

"I think our best approach would be to suspend all earmarks for the 2009 appropriations cycle while we consider the right reforms for the earmark process.  As a result, I will not submit any requests to the Appropriations Committee for this fiscal year."

This is a big deal, since Congressman Waxman only supported anti-earmark amendments 4 percent of the time last year. Of course, that's twice as strong a record as the reported Republican frontrunner for the open seat on the Appropriations Committee.