Player of the Week: Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.)

During the last Congress, Republicans attacked the Democrat-controlled House and Senate for passing omnibus spending bills.

They decried the massive appropriations measures, claiming lawmakers had little idea what they were passing because the legislation had not been properly sifted. 

{mosads}Now Republicans are calling the shots in the lower chamber. While they have kept their promise to eradicate earmarks, GOP leaders wanted the House to pass all 12 spending bills by Sept. 30. They will fall well short of that goal. 

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) is working with his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Norm Dicks (Wash.), to pass an omnibus bill that will include the always contentious Labor, Health and Human Services and Education spending measure.

It won’t be easy to pass the bill, because many conservatives are expected to vote no. 

Rogers, who beat Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) for the gavel, will be tested this week. Many on the right don’t favor the spending limits in the debt-limit agreement because they are higher than the levels of the budget the House passed earlier this year.

Republicans will need Dicks to deliver votes, perhaps a fair amount of them.

In a press release last week, Dicks criticized Republicans on disaster relief and proposed GOP offsets: “House Republicans are insisting on a radical departure from the standard practice. They are insisting on taking $1.5 billion from another department’s budget in order to pay for $1 billion in emergency supplemental disaster relief. That is a bad precedent … ”

But Dicks said he reluctantly supports a short-term continuing resolution, which is expected to last until November.

Rogers, a skilled legislator, will need to use his 27 years of experience on the Appropriations Committee to get his spending bills to the finish line.