{"id":4487,"date":"2014-01-18T14:11:13","date_gmt":"2014-01-18T14:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=4487"},"modified":"2014-01-18T14:11:13","modified_gmt":"2014-01-18T14:11:13","slug":"would-chairmanship-compromise-thornberry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=4487","title":{"rendered":"Would chairmanship compromise Thornberry?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry is in line to become chairman of one of the House of Representatives&#8217;s most powerful committees.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a possible conundrum in the works, maybe, potentially &#8230; whatever.<\/p>\n<p>Thornberry is vice chair of the House Armed Services Committee. The chairman, Buck McKeon, R-Calif., is planning on retiring and he wants Thornberry, R-Clarendon, to take over the chairmanship. It means a good bit of influence is coming to the Panhandle. A committee chairman can steer legislation favorable to his or her district, yes?<\/p>\n<p>Thornberry&#8217;s 13th Congressional District is home to, oh, the Bell aircraft assembly plant in Amarillo, the one that puts together those V-22 Osprey tiltrotor airplanes. It also services and refurbishes helicopters for the Marine Corps, the Air Force and the Army. Bell&#8217;s operation means a great deal to the region.<\/p>\n<p>Would a new chairman work extra hard to protect those interests? Or &#8230; would he hold to the principle of staying away from what&#8217;s been called &#8220;pork-barrel politics,&#8221; which has been a hallmark of Thornberry&#8217;s congressional career.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s served in Congress since 1995. He is running for yet another term and faces two GOP primary challengers this March and a Democratic challenger this fall. <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m guessing the incumbent is going to use &#8212; in some vague or perhaps overt way &#8212; the possibility of a House Armed Services Committee chairmanship as a selling point.<\/p>\n<p>It would be good for the district. Does doing what&#8217;s good for the district mean more money coming this way? Is that pork-barrel politics?<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry is in line to become chairman of one of the House of Representatives&#8217;s most powerful committees. There&#8217;s a possible conundrum in the works, maybe, potentially &#8230; whatever. Thornberry is vice chair of the House Armed Services Committee. The chairman, Buck McKeon, R-Calif., is planning on retiring and he wants Thornberry, R-Clarendon, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=4487\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Would chairmanship compromise Thornberry?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[768,2170,2849,3666,5074],"class_list":["post-4487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-buck-mckeon","tag-house-armed-services-committee","tag-mac-thornberry","tag-pork-barrel-politics","tag-v-22-osprey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}