A House GOP leadership round of musical chairs has put an Iraq War veteran in charge of the House Armed Services Committee’s personnel panel for the first time. The move announced Thursday put in place key figures for the fiscal 2016 defense budget debates.
Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., a physician and brigadier general in the Army Reserve who deployed to Iraq in 2008, will head the military personnel subcommittee next year. His bio: http://heck.house.gov/about-me/full-biography.
The move puts a lawmaker with recent, firsthand military experience in the lead oversight role of military compensation and benefits at a time when Pentagon leaders have pushed for tighter control over the costs of those programs, including a smaller-than-expected pay raise in 2015. An independent congressional panel charged with reviewing compensation and retirement issues is expected to issue its recommendations in February, putting Heck in charge of what could be one of the dominant military budget storylines next year.
Heck had been serving as chairman of the committee’s oversight panel, which will now be led by Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo. Heck replaces South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, the previous personnel subcommittee chairman. Wilson is replacing incoming HASC committee chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, on the intelligence subcommittee. Earlier this month, Republican leaders announced that Iraq War veterans Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz. — whose election win is still under recount — and Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., will be assigned to the House Armed Services Committee next year. McSally is a former A-10 pilot and Zinke is a former SEAL. That brings the total number of Republican Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans on the panel to eight. Democratic committee assignments have not been finalized yet.
