Moment arrives for Arkansas’ D.C. delegation 

By STEVE BRAWNER

The six members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation have spent years flying back and forth to Washington – often achieving little legislatively when their party was out of power or when government has been divided. Now, this is the moment they have been working toward.

All six are in leadership positions, or could be, because they’ve gained seniority and because the Republican Party controls the White House, House and Senate for only the second time since most of them have been there. 

Last week, Sen. Tom Cotton was elected to be the Senate Republicans’ conference chair, the party caucus’ number three position. The conference chair is responsible for shaping the caucus’ message. That’s a good fit for Cotton, who is a national figure thanks to his frequent TV appearances. It also has been reported, but not confirmed, that he will chair the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Cotton, who was elected to the Senate in 2014 after earlier serving in the House, is outspoken and combative.

His fellow Arkansas senator is just the opposite. The soft-spoken Sen. John Boozman was first elected to the House in 2001 before moving to the Senate in 2010. He is not as well known as Cotton nationally, but he also is moving into a leadership position as the incoming chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry – an important one for Arkansas. He will lead that committee as Congress moves to pass an overdue Farm Bill.

Meanwhile, Arkansas’ four House members all soon could have important chairmanships, including two that together affect both highway policy and highway funding.

Rep. Rick Crawford, who has represented eastern and northern Arkansas’ 1st District since first being elected in 2010, is seeking to chair the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. If he succeeds, he will lead the committee with jurisdiction over highways and bridges, transit and rail transportation, maritime and waterborne transportation, aviation, and pipelines. 

Meanwhile, Rep. Steve Womack, who has represented northwest Arkansas’ 3rd District over that same amount of time, currently chairs the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over highway funding. That’s the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies. 

The 12 Appropriations subcommittee chairs are so powerful that they are known as “cardinals” in reference to the senior leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. 

It’s no guarantee that Crawford will chair the committee in charge of highway policy at the same time that Womack will again chair the subcommittee in charge of highway funding. Womack chaired a different one in the previous Congress. If it were to work out that way, it would certainly be good for Arkansas. This is a state with a lot of highway and infrastructure projects happening, and more it would like to do.

Then there’s Rep. Bruce Westerman, who has represented the 4th District covering southern and western Arkansas for a decade. He already chairs the Committee on Natural Resources, which has jurisdiction over areas such as fisheries and wildlife, forest reserves, and national parks. He’s also a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee with Crawford.

Finally, Rep. French Hill, who has spent the past 10 years representing the 2nd District in central Arkansas, is seeking to chair the House Financial Services Committee. It oversees banking, securities and exchanges, international finance and housing-related issues. He serves as the vice chairman now and is well qualified for the job as the founder, chairman and CEO of Delta Trust & Banking Corporation.

Arkansas’ members of Congress next year could be in positions of influence reminiscent of the Clinton years or the 1960s. The latter is when Rep. Wilbur Mills chaired the powerful House Ways and Means Committee while Sen. John McClellan was making his mark as an investigator and Sen. J. William Fulbright was a leader in foreign policy.

As noted earlier, this will be only the second time most of the current six will have served when their party had control of both houses of Congress and the White House. The first came after the 2016 elections, when they lacked seniority.  

That lasted two years before Democrats retook the House. In a 50-50 country, the members of the state’s delegation might not have time to get too comfortable in those new chairs. 

You never know how long a moment is going to last. We’ll see what they make of it.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist published in 17 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.