Palm Springs, Calif., is about 70 miles from Rep. Ken Calvert’s hometown of Corona, or an hour and 15-minute drive if the traffic is forgiving. Politically, it’s worlds apart.
Calvert’s district was redrawn in 2021, and the eastern side now includes desert resort towns in the Coachella Valley, where Palm Springs has become an LGBT destination. On the western side are the Los Angeles-area exurbs, home to a booming logistics industry and not far from March Air Reserve Base and a constellation of defense contractors.
The taciturn, 71-year-old Republican has served in Congress since 1993. As chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, Calvert has become one of its most quietly influential members—the House’s lead author of an $833 billion spending bill for the military.
But back home in his divided district, Calvert’s in one of the tightest races of his career, a rematch against Will Rollins, a 40-year-old former counterterrorism prosecutor who came within 5 percentage points of winning two years ago.
He’s among four House appropriations subcommittee leaders in tough re-election battles. In a year when House control is up for grabs, the outcomes could shake up one of the most powerful panels in Congress.
The others are Rep.
Appropriations subcommittee chairs—nicknamed “cardinals” because of their proximity to the highest levels of power, like the Catholic Church leaders who pick the pope—wield major influence by writing must-pass legislation and steering millions of dollars home each year.
Like Calvert, Valadao faces a rematch against a 2022 challenger he beat by fewer than 5 percentage points. Cartwright won his last race by just 7,000 votes out of 286,000 cast. And Kaptur faces a more mainstream competitor after fending off a scandal-ridden challenger last cycle.
It’s a struggle to explain to voters the importance of building up seniority on the Appropriations Committee, Kaptur said.
“The public, in general, doesn’t know the intricacies of how the system works here,” she said in an interview in the Capitol complex. “And the committees are everything.”
Cartwright is blunter.
Younger voters “don’t give a hoot about seniority,” Cartwright said, and he doesn’t blame them.
“I probably felt the same way when I was their age,” he said. “And I didn’t realize that it takes you five years to find out where the men’s room is in this place, let alone master the appropriations process.”
Top appropriators are among the most effective in steering money home with earmarks—congressionally directed funding for specific projects. Ousting a cardinal could mean the redirection of hundreds of millions of dollars for local projects.
“Certainly, the employers, the job creators, understand it,” Calvert said in a September interview. “The military bases understand it.”
Earmarks are a double-edged sword, though, as Calvert is discovering this election season. He’s has earned praise and scorn for his efforts to direct infrastructure funding home.
Millions in Earmarks
If the projects in this year’s House funding bills are enacted, Calvert will have brought home $161.5 million in the years since Congress restored the practice. Valadao will have brought back $151.9 million; Cartwright, $107.1 million; and Kaptur, $53.2 million.
That money often goes toward water infrastructure, road construction, and emergency services.
Lawmakers revived earmarks in 2021 after a decade-long ban, but still ban them from the Defense appropriations bill, which Calvert authors. But they’re allowed in a separate bill to fund military construction projects.
In the area around Scranton, Pa., Cartwright’s position atop the subcommittee that funds the Justice Department has helped highlight his support for local law enforcement. That was an important distinction during the years when calls to “defund the police” drew a spotlight.
Cartwright has earmarked more than $15 million for police equipment, a local Safe Streets initiative, and other programs related to law enforcement since fiscal 2022.
“That ‘defund the police’ mantra was kind of the flavor of the year in 2020, but I think it left a stench that stayed around until 2022,” Cartwright said in a September interview outside the House chamber. “I don’t think it’s changed the way I behave. I’ve always been supportive of our local police.”
During an October election debate, Valadao touted funding he secured for a homeless shelter, a community action initiative, local police, and infrastructure, pointing specifically to his position on the Appropriations Committee.
A districts that loses a key appropriator might have a long wait before his or her replacement regains that status. To win a subcommittee gavel, House Republicans vie for approval from the full committee chair, followed by a vote by the conference’s steering committee. Democrats bid on subcommittee gavels based on seniority.
Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in congressional history, said she’s spent years or even decades working on the issues her constituents care the most about, such as supporting F-16 jets at the Ohio Air National Guard’s 180th Fighter Wing, development of the biofuel industry, and the creation of an economic development commission for the Great Lakes region.
But she’s taken heat for not steering enough money home in federal contracts. An ad aired this fall by the Republican-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund noted that Kaptur’s constituents received the smallest total of federal grants and contracts of any Ohio district in fiscal 2023.
Kaptur countered that she doesn’t “represent a financial center, a university center, or a capital city.”
Very Different Constituencies
Calvert’s pro-military stance has served him well politically: He’s received donations this cycle from executives at
Meanwhile, Calvert got a high-profile boost when former President
His new district no longer encompasses March Air Reserve Base and has a smaller military presence overall. While his constituency still includes the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Norco, he represents fewer military service members than he did four years ago, according to data compiled by the California Governor’s Military Council.
“It’s as if the redistricting commission stitched together two very different constituencies,” Renée Van Vechten, a professor of political science at University of Redlands, said.
Rollins, his opponent, has individually out-raised Calvert. Several outside groups, including the California Labor Federation, are targeting the district, seeing the potential to oust a congressman they’ve battled for years.
Rollins also has sought to turn Calvert’s seniority into a liability, arguing the incumbent has used his earmarks for transportation projects to improve the value of his own real estate investments. He pointed to reporting by The Los Angeles Times that Calvert earmarked $16 million for transportation projects within a few miles of the congressman’s investment properties, and failed to disclose the purchase of another property he owns.
Calvert has denied wrongdoing, but Rollins is making it a central point of the campaign, putting the slogan “end corruption” on some of his signs.
“His best argument for re-election revolves around his use of earmarks. The problem is the public doesn’t have faith that those earmarks are genuinely in the public’s interest,” Rollins said.
Seeking to assuage concerns about the district losing its clout on the appropriations committee, Rollins tells voters that his victory—which could cement a Democratic majority in the House—would ensure the area gets plenty of attention from party leaders.
That argument doesn’t necessarily resonate in Indian Wells, a small but affluent Republican stronghold that “lives and dies on tourism,” said Mayor Greg Sanders.
Calvert earmarked $5 million for a flood control project in Indian Wells in a March-enacted funding measure, followed by another $5 million in this year’s bill. The city couldn’t pay for the project on its own, and a less-experienced legislator probably wouldn’t have secured the funding, Sanders said.
“If we had a junior member representing us, it’s doubtful we would see any assistance from the federal government within a reasonable amount of time,” he said.
— With assistance from
To contact the reporters on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story: