By Emelie Rutherford
The defense industry lost two congressional backers Tuesday night when Reps. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) and Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.) failed in their bids to return to Congress next year.
Voters shot down Tiahrt’s attempt to be the Republican candidate for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), and Kilpatrick lost the Democratic primary for the seat she has held for seven terms.
The pending loss of the two lawmakers, who this term serve on the powerful House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D), could have “some impact” on the firms they looked after in Congress, including Boeing [BA] for Tiahrt and General Dynamics Land Systems [GD] for Kilpatrick, a defense lobbyist said. Still, those ramifications would likely be “around the margins” and nothing really substantial, the lobbyist said.
Tiahrt, who this term has been the No. 3 HAC-D Republican, has been outspoken in his support of Boeing’s bid for the lucrative Air Force contract to build the KC-X aerial- refueling tanker. Still, the real power Boeing has on the HAC-D is with supporter Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), the panel’s chairman.
“Other members of the Kansas delegation will continue to support Boeing and the general aviation industry around Wichita, but Tiahrt was a big time earmark guy and this could affect things around the margins,” the lobbyist said, predicting a similar impact from Kilpatrick’s departure.
There “could be some impact to GD on future Stryker (vehicle) funding and significant adds to the budget,” the lobbyist said. “She was usually one of the leaders to get additional funding and now GD will have to lean on their other supporters.”
General Dynamics was a notable financial supporter of Kilpatrick’s, who began serving on the HAC-D this congressional session. The company donated $10,000 to her failed reelection campaign, tying it with the Carpenters & Joiners Union as her biggest campaign contributors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Tiahrt’s top contributors in his failed Senate bid include Koch Industries ($33,050), Boeing ($31,650) and Textron [TXT] ($13,750).
Though Tiahrt and Kilpatrick wielded influence on the HAC-D, their work for defense firms cannot be easily seen by looking at earmarking action this year.
For the fiscal year 2011 defense appropriations bill the HAC-D recently completed, Kilpatrick followed a new House Appropriations Committee (HAC) rule and only sought earmarks for non-profit entities in her district. She secured eight earmarks in the bill, ranging in value from $500,000 to $5 million, for efforts such as advanced-energy storage research at Michigan State University, according to HAC records.
Tiahrt did not request any earmarks in the FY ’11 bill, because House Republicans agreed this year to not seek any of the specific spending directives in appropriations legislation.
An array of House and Senate appropriators will not be returning to Congress next year.
Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), the No. 3 Democrat on the HAC-D, lost his party’s primary election on May 11.
Senate Appropriations Committee Defense subcommittee (SAC-D) member Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) was defeated in the Democratic primary by Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) on May 18, and Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) lost his party’s nomination at the GOP state convention on May 9.
Steve Ellis, an earmarking foe and vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington, D.C., said yesterday that Specter, Bennett, Mollohan, and Kilpatrick are incumbent appropriators and “major players in the earmark game.” Tiahrt, he noted, lost his primary bid for the Senate to a non-appropriator, Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.).
“These losses put lie to the common Washington notion that earmarks equal votes, because if anyone should be electorally bullet proof under that formula it would be appropriators,” Ellis said.
Several prominent defense-budget-writers also are retiring from Congress at the end of this year, including HAC Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and SAC-D members Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), and Brownback.