Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton will chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence despite an unsuccessful campaign by some of his colleagues to guilt him into stepping aside in favor of Texas Senator John Cornyn.
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According to Politico, an unidentified group of senators attempted to convince Cotton to allow Cornyn, who entered the Senate in 2002 and is 72, to leap over Cotton (who entered the Senate in 2014 and is 47) to chair the committee. The reasoning went that Cornyn has never chaired a committee, and this may be his last Senate term, while Cotton was elected chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, the number three slot in the Senate Republican hierarchy, in November and should be satisfied with one plum position.
Cornyn served as the second-ranking Senate Republican and chaired the NRSC but, as he enters his 22nd year in the chamber, has yet to chair a committee. And because he came to the intelligence panel later in his career than 47-year-old Cotton, who was first elected to the Senate in 2014, he’s more junior than his much younger colleague.
Some well-placed Republicans hoped Cotton could be satisfied, and occupied, with his new leadership post as Senate GOP conference chair. Other Republican officials, though, were skeptical that Cotton, an Army veteran who was also eyed for a national security appointment in the Trump administration, would be so benevolent as to give up the gavel.
Rather than just hanging out waiting for the next Congress to start, Cotton has been at work.
On Tuesday night, Cotton spokeswoman Caroline Tabler said: “Senator Thune has told Senator Cotton he’s taking over as chair. He is hiring staff, working with Senator [Marco] Rubio (R-Fla.) on the transition, and planning with Senator [Mark] Warner (D-Va.) for January confirmation hearings.”
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First, good on Tom Cotton for not going along with this log-rolling. He doesn’t have to give up the slot, and he had the good sense to support John Thune for Majority Leader. Thune isn’t going to strongarm a supporter to do a favor for a guy who ran against him.
Second, with Cotton in charge, the Senate Intelligence Committee might get some oversight accomplished rather than being gaslighted by the Intelligence Community.
Third, Cotton’s refusal to step aside accentuates the generational shift we’re seeing in the GOP under Trump. His cabinet secretaries (mostly) are 30-plus years younger than he is. Rather than the sclerotic collection of imbeciles we’ve seen in both parties in the past, the GOP is bringing up leaders while they still have more ambition than their next soft-serve ice cream cone.