This is the first full week of campaigning ahead of the June GOP runoff for the U.S. Senate in Alabama. Neither Katie Britt nor Mo Brooks won this month’s primary election outright to replace outgoing Senator Richard Shelby. The veteran Alabama lawmaker is retiring from his post as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. It appear unlikely that Britt or Brooks will get that position if they win. Sam Workman is Director of Policy Research and Public Affairs at West Virginia University. He says his State was in a similar situation when Senator Robert Byrd died in 2010.
“When you lose a Senator like a Byrd or a Shelby, you’re in a position, again, where what you’re really losing is memory,” said Workman. “And institutional memory helps in a few ways. One it does lessen the chance for cooperating and working together. But the other, you’re losing elements of socialization for junior Senators."
Like Shelby, Byrd held the powerful chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee. That means Byrd was able to funnel expensive projects like the FBI fingerprint lab to West Virginia. Shelby was able to bring an FBI regional headquarters to the Huntsville area, and an expansion project to the port of Mobile. Workman says having that kind of clout on Capitol Hill can mean dollars back home.
“When you’re sort of a small state it's your Senators that wield the real power in the legislature and whatnot, at least the type of power where one person can do a lot unilaterally.”
APR’s Caroline Vincent investigated what’s next for Alabama after Shelby leaves office. You can hear it again at apr.org.
