WASHINGTON — Rep. Michele Bachmann’s office says she was never offered a spot on the Appropriations Committee, disputing a report published earlier this week that she’d turned down a position on the usually-lucrative panel.
“Congresswoman Bachmann was never offered a spot on the Appropriations Committee,” spokesman Sergio Gor said. A spokesman for Speaker-designate John Boehner backed up Gor’s statement that Bachmann hadn’t been offered a spot.
POLITICO quoted Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston saying he approached Bachmann, Iowa Rep. Steve King,fellow Georgian Lynn Westmoreland and Ohio’s Jim Jordan about serving and all declined.
Indeed, the Appropriations Committee just doesn’t seem to be the plum assignment it once was, and the line is short for new recruits to join a panel where the longtime focus on bringing home earmarks and other goodies will shift to finding $100 billion in spending cuts. Even conservative reformers who do get assigned to the committee are likely to be stymied once their appropriations bills reach the floor and get amended to death, then potentially earmarked into oblivion by a Democratic Senate.
I e-mailed Kingston’s spokesman and will update when I hear back from him.
Asked if Bachmann would serve on the Approps panel, Gor replied: “It was never offered, and we wont speculate on ‘what if.'”
