Last week, House Appropriations chairman Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) announced he would not seek reelection in 2018. That immediately set in place a race for his chairmanship and the current front-runner is Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville) given his seniority.
Aderholt will have competition for the role, which is contingent on Republicans maintaining control of the House of Representatives in a midterm election that traditionally doesn’t bode well for the party in power at the White House. The other candidates include Reps. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), Kay Granger (R-Texas) and Mike Simpson (R-Idaho).
All three of those competitors acknowledge their bids against Aderholt are longshots. Should the GOP maintain control of the House of Representatives, the chairmanship will be determined by the House Republican Steering committee following the 2018 midterm.
Last week, Bloomberg Government’s Nancy Ognanovich offered a scenario in which Alabama could have “outsized influence” should the GOP maintain control of both chambers of Congress after the midterm elections.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Tuscaloosa) is in line to chair the Senate Appropriations Committee because term-limit rules will require current chairman Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) to give up his role after this year.
Ultimately, two Alabama lawmakers, Shelby and Aderholt, could be leading the two congressional committees that oversee the federal purse strings.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jim Denery speculates this could have an impact on Georgia’s decades-long fight with Florida and Alabama over the water flow of the Chattahoochee River.
“Such a success by its neighbor could mean big trouble for Georgia, particularly in the tri-state water war that generally pits the Peach State against a partnership of Alabama and Florida,” Denery wrote on Friday about the possibility of a Shelby-Aderholt duo.
In an interview with Bloomberg’s Ognanovich, Shelby dismissed the notion of Alabama having an outsized role with both chairmanships. He noted in the 1980s two Mississippi lawmakers, then-Rep. Jamie Whitten (D-Miss.) and then-Sen. John Stennis (D-Miss.), held the gavel for their chambers’ respective appropriations committees.
“Whitten and Stennis were both well respected, and I think they were fair,” Shelby said to Bloomberg.
Jeff Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and works as the editor of Breitbart TV. Follow Jeff on Twitter @jeff_poor.
