All four of Connecticut’s U.S. representatives seeking re-election have won their races, positioning them for key posts in the House that flipped to Democratic control.
When the new Congress convenes in January, Democratic Reps. Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro and John Larson are in line to lead subcommittees that steer federal funding to submarine manufacturing, biomedical research and the state’s web of interstate highways.
Courtney would lead the Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. It oversees Pentagon money for submarine manufacturing in Groton and Quonset Point, R.I. “The subcommittee is right at the center of issues central to the shipyard as well as the sub base and all the supply chain,” he said.
In a split decision Tuesday, voters handed Democrats the majority of the House for the first time in eight years while keeping the Senate in Republican hands.
DeLauro, the ranking Democrat on the appropriations subcommittee that funds labor, health, human services and education, said she will seek its leadership post. First elected in 1990, DeLauro has seniority that puts her in line as one of the so-called “cardinals,” the powerful chairmen and chairwomen of the Appropriations Committee’s 12 subcommittees that play an outsize role allocating the $3.8 trillion federal budget.
DeLauro promises to take on an expansive list of issues dear to Democrats such as the Affordable Care Act, education and equal pay for women. And she would look to fund biomedical research, a growing industry in New Haven and shoreline towns in her district.