There are two things to note about the Republicans’ assignments for the Senate Appropriations Committee. It should be noted, first, that the Tea Party’s opposition to earmarking made it an enemy of most Republican members of the Appropriations Committee. Sen. Bob Bennett, a senior appropriator, lost his bid for renomination to the Senate. Appropriator Kay Bailey Hutchison went nowhere in her Texas gubernatorial bid and has announced her intention to retire from the Senate. As a result, a seat on the Appropriations Committee is no longer seen as a powerful position, but one that brings electoral peril. Senior Republicans (with the important exception of Lindsey Graham of South Carolina) did not line up to get any of the seven available seats. Under ordinary circumstances, freshmen wouldn’t even be given consideration to sit on the Appropriations Committee.
But, in this toxic anti-government environment, six freshmen were appointed to the committee. It is instructive to look at those freshmen.
GOP Sens. Mark Kirk (Ill.), Dan Coats (Ind.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Jerry Moran (Kan.), John Hoeven (N.D.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.) were named to the committee with jurisdiction over federal discretionary spending.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was also named to the panel.
Sens. Kirk, Blunt, and Moran are all coming over from the House of Representatives. They are not insurgents, nor are they in any way affiliated with the Tea Party Movement. They are part of the Establishment. Sen. Hoeven is a moderate. Sen. Coats is returning to the Senate after a hiatus, and he is a total Establishment figure. McConnell clearly did not want firebrands like Rand Paul, Mike Lee, or Marco Rubio sitting on the Appropriations Committee. Only Sen. Johnson of Wisconsin has Tea Party cred.
The Republicans talk a lot of trash, but the Establishment actually has to run, or help run, the federal government. And they don’t think that the federal government has no legitimate role in governing the country. The Appropriations Committee is where the federal government and its agencies and departments are funded, and it takes serious legislators to do that tough work. That’s why members of the Appropriations Committee tend to be among the most willing to work across party lines. McConnell understands this, and that’s why he staffed the committee the way he did. I mean, consider this nonsense:
Freshman Republican Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of three members of the Senate Tea Party Caucus, said Thursday he asked Senate leaders to name him chairman of an anti-appropriations panel. Paul told people who attended the group’s meeting Thursday that leaders informed him they had no plans to establish such a committee.
It’s evident that the GOP leadership wants to maintain some control over the ideological extremists in their midst, but only for the running of the government. As for the running of the courts? They put Sen. Mike Lee of Utah on the Judiciary Committee.