POLITICO Playbook

How a sophomore beat the Speaker on jet engine

HOW WASHINGTON REALLY WORKS: In a career-defining victory for a young lawmaker, sophomore Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) allied with conservative freshmen yesterday to beat his own leadership – and hand a win to the Obama administration – when the House cut $450 million for an alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. “Boehner opens floor, and finds a GOP defeat,” says the headline atop this morning’s WashPost. The Wall Street Journal twists the knife: “House Shoots Down Boehner-Backed Project.”

How did it happen? Pratt and Whitney makes the main engine for the plane, but the government has also been funding a competitive engine by GE so that the entire fleet wouldn’t get grounded in a war zone if something went wrong. Defense Secretary Gates has insisted the engine isn’t needed, but Boehner has been protecting GE jobs in Ohio. Rooney told Playbook that he started lobbying against the extra engine in the last Congress largely because of the Pratt and Whitney jobs in a neighboring district. In high school, many of his friends’ parents worked at Pratt and Whitney. Rooney, 40, whose grandfather founded what is now the Pittsburgh Steelers, calls himself a hawk, and served 4 ½ years on active duty in the United Army JAG Corps.

Rooney told Playbook that this year, he switched to a basic pitch, targeting freshmen and “keeping it as simple as possible.” His pitch: “This is something you can cut right now, and go home to your constituents to say, ‘We’re serious about cutting spending. This is something that has been around Washington for years, just getting rubber-stamped.’ ... It might be a good thing, but it’s a luxury, we can’t afford. ... This is the kind of hard decisions the people expect.” Rooney cornered freshmen in the gym, on elevators and on the floor. It worked, and 47 rookie Republicans voted with him. Rooney said he never confronted Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor or House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon, all of whom backed the extra engine. “I tried to stay as far away from those guys as I could,” he said with a laugh. Rooney added that afterward, he saw Boehner in the cloakroom, and the Speaker smiled. “I know I’m OK with him,” Rooney said. “We’ve got a lot of fights to make together.”

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via politico.com

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