The Hill reports that Senate Democrats are pressuring their Republican colleagues to follow the lead of Sen. Orrin Hatch "and withdraw earmarks from the omnibus spending bill after having voted as a party to reject the practice in the next Congress."

"If Republicans are truly as opposed to earmarks as they would have us believe, why don’t they all follow Sen. Hatch’s example and ask Senate appropriators to strip their earmarks from the omnibus?" Senate Democrats asked in a memo to reporters.

Hatch had announced on Wednesday that he'd withdrawn his earmarks from the omnibus bill following the Senate Republican Conference's vote to put a moratorium on the practice. The omnibus package is cobbled together from previous unfinished bills that had been crafted before the GOP earmark ban.

Democrats have sought to make political hay of the issue by questioning Republicans' commitment to earmark reform.

(See also related ABC News, Politico, and TPMDC stories.)