With new Congress, D.C. region is losing clout
Barbara Comstock makes a victory speech with her husband, Elwyn Charles Comstock, after winning Virginia’s 10th District seat for the U.S. House in Ashburn on Tuesday. (J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post)
By Rachel Weiner November 8 at 8:39 PM
When veteran Virginia congressmen James P. Moran, a Democrat, and Frank R. Wolf, a Republican, announced their plans to retire, then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had a plan to mitigate the damage. He would make the case that the commonwealth should get one and possibly two new seats on the powerful Appropriations Committee.
Then Cantor lost his primary.
In January, Virginia will have gained three new members in Congress — but lost 71 years of seniority, including a valuable stronghold in Republican leadership.
Perhaps just as bad, Virginia’s and Maryland’s entire Senate delegation is Democratic — and poised to enter the minority with the GOP’s dramatic sweep of last week’s elections. One of them, Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), will lose her post as head of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.
Federal workers and contractors in the region have already been badly hurt by two rounds of sequestration budget cuts. Now, with another budget battle looming and Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress, two incoming House members from Virginia — Don Beyer (D) and Barbara J. Comstock (R) — will be fighting an uphill battle for the estimated 172,493 government workers in their combined districts.
Lengthy article but well worth the read. I hope Sharoom and her
cronies read this too.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/with-new-congress-dc-region-is-losing-clout/2014/11/08/6ac8918e-606b-11e4-9f3a-7e28799e0549_story.html?tid=pm_pop