In a year, Georgia will lose decades of institutional knowledge in the warrens of Capitol Hill because of U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ retirement and the resulting domino effect.
The influx of newcomers will leave Georgia with diminished power over the future of the military and agriculture policy, among other areas. But seniority is not what it used to be, as congressionally directed “earmark” spending has been banned and highly centralized decision making determines how Congress functions – or doesn’t.
In this environment, interviews with members of the delegation and their close observers show, delivering on the state’s myriad priorities is hard to quantify, and influence is derived through webs of relationships.
The most departing clout lies with the Republican Chambliss, with 20 combined years in the Senate and House, and Rep. Jack Kingston, a two-decade veteran Savannah Republican with a key Appropriations Committee perch. Kingston is running for Chambliss’ seat but would still be a Senate rookie if he wins.
Also leaving the House are Senate-seekers Phil Gingrey, a six-term Marietta Republican serving on the influential Energy and Commerce Committee, and Paul Broun, an Athens Republican in his third full term who holds a subcommittee chairmanship on the science committee.
“I think that the media and the electorate devalue now the ability of the delegation to accomplish things on behalf of the state,” said Robert Hurt, a Washington-based lobbyist and former staff director for U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat.
“The public is going to have to do its homework and decide what is pork and what is policy.”
Wading into water issues
The delegation’s experience this year on the tri-state “water wars” and the expansion of the Savannah Port show the power of relationships and experience as well as Congress’ limitations.
Florida and Alabama legislators wanted to use the Water Resources Development Act to weigh in on the decades-long water dispute over how much water metro Atlanta takes from federally managed Lake Lanier and Lake Allatoona. The courts have sided with Georgia, but the decline of oysters in the Apalachicola Bay has Florida pointing the finger at its thirsty northern neighbor.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., added language that would require Congress to approve any Army Corps of Engineers water plan change of more than 5 percent – which would affect the rewrite in progress for Georgia and other states.
Chambliss and Georgia Republican U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson neutralized the effort on the Senate floor, an effort no doubt aided by Isakson’s close working relationship with bill manager and California Democrat Barbara Boxer on a variety of issues.
But the final Senate bill still had language Georgia wasn’t thrilled about, expressing concern about the water dispute and raising the prospect of intervention.
So before the bill came up on the House side, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Coweta County Republican, arranged a sit-down for the entire Georgia House delegation with Transportation Committee chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa. There are no Georgians and six Floridians on the committee, but Westmoreland used to serve on the panel.
The Georgians made their case, and when the bill came up in committee, Shuster swept aside an amendment by Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., to revive the Sessions proposal.
Just before the key hearing began, Rep. Rob Woodall, a Lawrenceville Republican, showed up for a quick, quiet chat with Shuster to make sure the die was cast against Southerland.
“That represents a delegation that gets it,” said Rob Leebern, a lobbyist at Troutman Sanders and former Chambliss chief of staff. “Working well together within the state can trump the sheer size of the Florida delegation.”
Georgia’s delegation has been similarly united on expanding the Savannah Port. The project gets a key boost in the water bill, but the federal money has not arrived yet, making some port backers nervous.
Before 2011, a powerful appropriator like Kingston could insert an “earmark” into a spending bill, directing funds to specific projects.
The rules change ending earmarks handed new power to the Obama administration to decide which projects to fund, and has left the Georgia delegation – and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, a prominent White House ally – to wheedle executive branch officials any chance they get.
They haven’t gotten far. The federal government is supposed to pony up around $400 million, but Obama requested just $1.28 million for Savannah in his 2014 budget. Port backers hope the money will flow starting next year, and Vice President Joseph Biden recently traveled to the port to vouch for the project’s importance.
Economic drivers: military and agriculture
Chambliss never rose to the chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee and held the power of Nunn or Sen. Richard Russell, but he said his relationships with Pentagon brass who passed through Georgia’s military bases helped the state maintain its might.
The state lost four bases as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure – it was unscathed in previous rounds – but ended up gaining 4,000 net jobs.
The top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, Chambliss also has been involved in planning the National Security Agency’s facility at Fort Gordon in Augusta. In a post-earmark world, the fact that Chambliss is on a first-name basis with many generals means even more.
“They are making the decisions now, again because of no earmarking, on where money’s going to be spent for certain programs,” Chambliss said. “It makes it a little easier on me, just from the standpoint of while I’m not the only one in that position, the competition is less than if you were competing with 534 folks for earmark money.”
Relationships matter, but so does holding an agency’s purse strings.
Rep. Sanford Bishop, an Albany Democrat who first won his seat in 1992, holds a key appropriations committee perch over military construction spending, which he said helped position Georgia well in the 2005 BRAC. Bishop is being treated for throat cancer but plans to run for re-election.
This year the head of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, toured the University of Georgia and Emory University, giving a key funding decision maker firsthand knowledge of Georgia research projects. Collins was accompanied by Kingston, who oversees the appropriations subcommittee that controls NIH funding.
Kingston and Chambliss both have exerted sway over agriculture policy. Kingston used to run the appropriations subcommittee overseeing the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Chambliss is a past Agriculture Committee chairman in the Senate. During this year’s Farm Bill negotiations, Chambliss and Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., have been among the chief defenders of subsidies for Southern crops.
Reps. Austin Scott, a Tifton Republican, and David Scott, an Atlanta Democrat, serve on the Agriculture Committee but don’t hold the same level of influence.
“You’re either in the room or out of the room,” Chambliss said. “And I’ve been here long enough, I’m pretty well in the room on every issue we’re involved in. And that won’t necessarily be true for whoever comes in behind me.”
Big picture: Congress’ stumbles
For Georgia, the biggest challenges are both parochial and national, having to do with the divided Congress’ breakdowns on any number of policies.
The Farm Bill is long overdue, and its completion this year is no sure thing. The parties cannot agree how to overhaul the nation’s immigration system.
Failure to agree on tax and spending policy has brought across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration that have forced thousands of civilian military furloughs in Georgia and cuts to domestic programs such as Head Start.
Another round of cuts is due in January unless Congress can agree on a way to replace them with comparable savings against the deficit. Democrats are demanding tax revenue increases be part of the mix, while Republicans insist the savings must all come from cuts, including to entitlement programs such as Medicare.
Without a budget agreement, the once-mighty appropriations committee has been running for years on stopgap spending bills.
“It’s much harder to deliver for any place in the country,” Bishop said. Not having a budget “puts a cog in the wheel of government and stops it from turning.”
Leebern said some fresh blood in the delegation can be a good thing, and Georgia still will have good “coverage” on the committees that matter most to the state.
“The delegations that had no turnover would face the same challenges,” Leebern said. “And that is, you’ve got a very split Congress.”
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