California Democrat gets powerful committee spot. Why that matters to Central Valley
As Congress becomes more gridlocked, the budget process has become the main vehicle for getting new government projects through Congress — giving even more importance to Congress’ Appropriations Committees, which were already powerful in the first place.
Now, the Central Valley’s Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, has been elected to sit on that House committee, one of the more powerful assignments in Congress as they draft all funding legislation. Harder says it will mean more focus on water, agriculture and health care needs for rural communities, a point of view he says have been lacking on the committee for years.
And hopefully more needed water projects for the farming region, which is always worried about shortages.
“The Central Valley hasn’t had a voice on the committee on the Democratic side in about 50 years. The perfect example of that is water. We’ve worked on water constantly over the past two years,” Harder told McClatchy in an interview Friday. “And our biggest achievement on water wasn’t some big bill, but the most important thing was including a project in our district in the budget for the first time in 50 years.”
“It’s not a coincidence that the last time our region had a new water project was the last time we had a voice on the Appropriations Committee,” Harder added.
That last member was Rep. John McFall, who championed large dam projects in his San Joaquin Valley district, including the New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus River and the New Hogan Dam on the Calaveras River. He told the Modesto Bee in 1966 that he had “put a dam or project on every stream” in his district.
While Congress has only passed a few dozen bills in the past two years during split government and a national pandemic, the budget process rolls on — one of the few things Congress is required to do.
But it’s also failing. The last time Congress passed a full budget on time was 1997, according to Pew Research Center. It’s now common for Congress to not pass a full budget, but instead rely on mini budgets and continuing resolutions in order to keep the government running.
That means instead of addressing new needs and changes, Congress just continues current funding levels.
“It’s incredibly frustrating that I’m entering a budget process that is clearly deeply broken,” Harder said. “We should be putting people to work on the budget process if they have a demonstrated ability to get things done. So I’m going to be trying to show, not tell.”
Appropriations is an exclusive committee, so Harder has to obtain a waiver if he wants to serve anywhere else. He says he is seeking one to also serve on the House Agriculture Committee, but it’s not guaranteed. He also doesn’t yet know his subcommittee assignments, which could include agriculture, defense, energy and water development and interior, among others.
Harder, who was a venture capitalist before he came to Congress, assessing business startups for further investments, said he’ll be tuning into his past skills while on the committee.
“You think about: ‘How do we scale these things up to be more impactful?’” Harder said. “You want to find things that are working, and then make sure instead of just helping 100 people, they could help millions of people.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 12:56 PM.
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