By Jen DiMascio
Minority Whip Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) announced yesterday he is resigning from the Senate, further changing the team of legislators who have protected the shipbuilding industry.
Lott, who is expected to leave by the end of the year, will depart before Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) who has said he will not seek another term in office. Earlier this year, the shipbuilding caucus on the House side unexpectedly lost Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-Va.), who died of breast cancer.
Additional shifts could result from the 2008 elections, as other members of the Senate who represent coastal shipbuilding states face tough races.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), another SASC member, is a proponent of the DDG-1000 program, which is being built at Bath Iron Works. She is locked in a tough re-election battle against Rep. Tom Allen (D-Maine), who is capitalizing on anti-war sentiment. On the Democratic side, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is on the Senate Appropriations homeland security subcommittee and is alone in her party feeling the heat in a state with a Republican governor-elect–Bobby Jindal.
Lott does not currently serve on defense committees but has continued to exercise leverage on the Pentagon in his leadership role in the party.
Top contenders for that post yesterday included Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), neither of whom place tremendous emphasis on naval issues.
Kyl, as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, will set an election date for the minority whip position. At that meeting, if Kyl is elected, subsequent elections will take place for other open positions. Alexander lost out to Lott for the job in 2006.
But according to industry officials, shipbuilding support in Mississippi is not likely to wane, because the delegation has a history of bipartisan support for the industry that includes Lott’s predecessor in the Senate–Sen. John Stennis. Stennis was so influential, an aircraft carrier now bears his name.
Moreover, the delegation retains strong anchors in Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.). Both will remain on Capitol Hill, and whoever does replace Lott in office will surely back shipbuilding interests, they said.
Warner’s impending departure, coupled with the death of Davis was a larger blow directly to the state and Northrop Grumman Newport News [NOC], which is located there, because of the singular role Warner played, an official said.
In addition, this year Congress has made a concerted effort to help the industry, providing additional funding where it could. With so many problems facing programs like the Littoral Combat Ship, congressional support is less difficult than getting the Navy to provide more certainty about its programs, said one industry source.
By leaving before the end of the year, Lott will not be bound by new ethics rules that prevent lobbying two years after leaving the office.
But in a press conference yesterday in Mississippi, Lott downplayed the role that lobbying rules played in his decision to step down.
“It didn’t have a big role in that decision. You know, there are limits on that already. And as I’ve talked to my former colleagues, they say that a lot of what you do anyway is involved with consulting rather than direct lobbying,” Lott said, adding that he would have retired in 2006 but stayed on to pass legislation that would help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. His own home was destroyed in the 2005 storm, and he secured more than $500 million in aid for Nothrop Grumman, which has three shipyards along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi (Defense Daily, May 3, 2006).
Lott also used his power as a senator to delay confirmation of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England until England assured Lott of support for the LHA Replacement amphibious assault ship and the Nothrop Grumman Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (Defense Daily, Nov. 28, 2005).
In a statement, Gov. Haley Barbour (R) said he set a special election for Lott’s permanent replacement to take place Nov. 4, 2008 on the regular election day. Within 10 days of Lott’s resignation, he will appoint a replacement to Lott’s Senate seat.
News reports yesterday mentioned Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.) and Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), a member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, as likely to replace Lott.
Noting that Lott was the only legislator to serve as the whip in the House and the Senate and to be Senate majority leader, Wicker said this: “He will leave a legacy of leadership and accomplishment that will be hard to match.”
Fellow Mississippi lawmaker Taylor said Lott’s departure would be felt.
“You simply can’t replace that kind of experience overnight,” Taylor said.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called Lott the best whip he’d ever worked with.
“Mississippi has been fortunate to have a series of giants in the Senate, and they will lose one of the greatest when Trent retires. Mississippi will miss his tireless advocacy, the Senate will miss his experience and advice, and I will miss a good friend,” McConnell said.