Allegations of threats over earmarks could result in a House vote today on a reprimand for Rep. Murtha.   As the Washington Post's Paul Kane duly notes, earmarks are the source of much trouble on Capitol Hill:

The latest dustup has nothing to do with the war or Pelosi, however, and instead much more to do with congressional courtesy and special line-item spending measures known as earmarks. [Republicans have to tread very carefully in attacking Murtha, because they have at least a dozen members of their own who in recent years found themselves under federal investigation because of the way they steered earmarks to their own special interests.]

Rogers alleges that last Thursday Murtha approached him on the House floor and angrily denounced him for leading an effort to strip $23 million in funding from an intelligence authorization bill that is intended for the National Drug Intelligence Center, based in Murtha's hometown of Johnstown, Pa. Republicans believe that the money is wasteful and just an example of Murtha doing pork-barrel spending, while Murtha defends it as helping in the fight against illegal drugs.

But the incident moved beyond the drug center spending when, according to Rogers, Murtha threatened to pull any funding Rogers ever wanted from the Defense appropriations subcommittee, which Murtha chairs.

"I hope you don't have any earmarks in the defense appropriation bill because they are gone and you will not get any earmarks now and forever," Murtha shouted at Rogers, according to Rogers' account. This prompted a Rogers retort of: "This is not the way we do things here and is that supposed to make me afraid of you?"