Craig fallout- The Idaho senator's dismissal from key committee posts in D.C. means the state could lose influence.
|
By JOHN MILLER
|
Associated Press
|
|
|
Craig |
BOISE -- Idaho stands to lose influence and millions of federal dollars now that the state's senior U.S. senator has lost committee leadership positions and faces increasing pressure from Republican leaders to resign following his arrest in a Minnesota airport restroom. Republican Sen. Larry Craig has been dumped from leadership assignments on the Appropriations, Environment and Veterans Affairs committees. Political experts compared the situation to 1995, when then-U.S. Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., the chairman of the Finance Committee, was forced to resign after allegations he'd sexually abused 10 women. After Packwood's ouster, Oregon has struggled to recapture leadership posts that had made its delegation among the strongest in the country when it came to financial issues, said Ronald Tammen, director of the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. "The state (Oregon) lost an immeasurable amount of political influence in Washington, D.C.," said Tammen, former chief of staff to Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis. "It's just now starting to build that up again." In his three terms in the Senate, he has pushed funding for rural schools and communities, co-authoring with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a bill that gave millions to rural areas in the West where timber-based economies had been undercut by reduced logging on Forest Service-managed territory. He's also championed Idaho National Laboratory, including $40 million in 2005 to begin development of a new experimental nuclear reactor to produce electricity and hydrogen. In July, he argued in favor of more than $25 million in Idaho-related projects in an agriculture funding bill, including nearly $13 million to fight a worm afflicting eastern Idaho potato farmers. With his removal from leadership posts, Craig has been marginalized on all these issues, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, who predicts Craig will quit within days, under pressure from national GOP leaders. "It will cost Idaho millions of dollars and lots of influence on policy," Sabato said, adding the scandal isn't likely to be forgotten soon. "Poor old Larry Craig has got years of this to go."
|
