The beating heart of Congress can be found in committee rooms, where lawmakers hear testimony on and discuss big policy ideas, drill down into finer bill details, and actually write legislation.
Except for Reps. Steve King of Iowa, Chris Collins of New York, and Duncan Hunter of California. The Republican trio share the distinction for serving in the House without panel assignments.
In King’s case, his mouth led to his removal from the Judiciary and Agriculture committees — the latter a plum spot for influence for his largely rural district covering much of Western Iowa. But House leaders earlier this year got fed up with King’s statements that critics said endorsed white nationalism, and took away his assignments.
Reps. Collins and Hunter lost their committee positions due to GOP Conference rules requiring it if a lawmaker gets into serious legal trouble. On Aug. 8, Collins, his son Cameron, and the father of Cameron’s fiancee, Stephen Zarsky, were arrested by the FBI and charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, securities fraud, and lying to federal law enforcement. The case stemmed from Collins’ corporate board service while in Congress, a practice that has since been banned.
Duncan Hunter, for his part, was pulled from his panels after he and his wife were indicted, also in August 2018, on charges including conspiracy, wire fraud, and violating campaign finance laws to the tune of $250,000. Hunter is accused, among other things, of using about $600 in campaign funds to pay for a family pet rabbit to travel by plane.
Collins and Hunter have both proclaimed their innocence.
The committee banishments leave the lawmakers with plenty of free time.
King declined to be interviewed by the Washington Examiner this week outside the House chamber, and his office did not immediately respond to questions about how the congressman had reorganized his time without panel-driven legislative projects.
Collins and Hunter, meanwhile, won re-election in 2018 despite facing federal indictments.
Collins’ spokeswoman Jennifer Brown told the Washington Examiner that without committees, the fourth-term lawmaker had “doubled down on his focus on constituent services, spending a great deal of time going to events in the district, as well as meeting constituents and organizations in his Washington, D.C., office to discuss important issues.”
“The congressman also has been working within his caucus memberships to introduce legislation,” Brown said, referring to bills on drug prices and immigration reform aimed at assisting dairy farmers.
Hunter’s spokesman, Mike Harrison, said the lawmaker’s lack of panel assignments was “not ideal,” but “there remains much work on Congressman Hunter’s agenda.” Harrison cited Hunter’s plan for the first 100 days of his sixth term and his advocacy for Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher. Gallagher was charged last November by the Navy with murdering a wounded Islamic State fighter with a knife during his deployment to Iraq in 2017.
“I think it would be a mistake to indicate that Congressman Hunter is now focused more on constituent work, that has always been a top priority for the congressman,” Harrison said. “I think a more fair representation is that we are continuing to do the work that Congressman Hunter was re-elected to do.”
Regardless of their offices’ standpoints, Collins and Hunter’s Democratic opponents from 2018, Nate McMurray and Ammar Campa-Najjar respectively, who in 2020 will again contest the districts, said voters were growing frustrated with the lawmakers’ perceived impotency on Capitol Hill.
Jennifer Selin, a University of Missouri political science professor, told the Washington Examiner the trio were probably paying more attention to constituents since “members whose electoral futures are uncertain are more likely to devote time to their districts as opposed to focusing on more Washington-oriented politics.”
But Selin warned they may struggle in “claiming credit for pursuing policy, bringing distributive benefits to his or her district, or even helping constituents navigate the complicated bureaucracy.”
