I FINALLY HAVE A CONGRESSMAN I CAN FEEL PROUD OF

Houston Chronicle:

The only person who has said he won't support us is Congressman [John] Culberson [R-Houston]," said Steve Lufburrow, president of Goodwill Industries in Houston and a resident in Culberson's district.

Goodwill Industries is seeking $200 million for a nationwide capital project that would include five new locations in the Houston area. The organization provides job training and employment to otherwise unemployable people -- including recovering drug addicts and released felons trying to rebuild a work history to return to mainstream employment.

"We've been taking people that the community has given up on. We're doing the federal government's job, putting people to work," said Lufburrow.

Culberson disagreed, emphatically. He said Goodwill's request is "absolutely wrong" and something he will "vigorously oppose," even if the request is submitted by others on the committee.

...

To say Culberson has strong beliefs would be an understatement. His colleagues have called him aggressive, energetic, ideological, earnest and overeager. He has a youthful charm that is unique on Capitol Hill.

But his approach to the appropriations process, and attempts to get Houston-area institutions to rely on him, have upset the usual order.

"I don't view the Medical Center as just mine. I view it as belonging to the entire state and want statewide support for it," said Bell, whose district includes almost all of the 740-acre Texas Medical Center campus. "So it makes no sense to turn it into a turf war."

...

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas' only member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she uses her privileged place on the panel to secure as much money as possible for worthy Texas projects.

And Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco, the House appropriations panel's only Texas Democrat, added: "Once a funding level is agreed to, to not ask for support for a project in my district doesn't mean that money will be saved and go back to the Treasury, it means it will go to some other part of the country."

But Culberson has committed to supporting a measure by an Oklahoma Republican that would add up money that would have been spent on rejected appropriations, and send it into a fund to pay down the debt.

Members of both parties say the plan is unworkable because federal spending levels are budgeted through separate debates and votes. The appropriations battles only decide where the budgeted money is going to be spent. That's where seniority and connections give certain lawmakers an advantage.

To change that may be too much of a challenge for a third-year member of Congress. But Culberson, always an optimist, said he won't always be so junior.

As sympathetic I am to the points that Edwards, Hutchison, and the like are trying to make, pork starts at home. It is absolutely hypocritical for us to deride pork (and always, of course, criticize the other party for it) and then turn around and vote for someone because they're going to bring more money into the area.

After spending most of my life in Tom DeLay's district, I finally live in a district with a congressman I can wholeheartedly support. From the same congressional district that Bill Archer and George H. Bush served, he is in good company.