Two years later, he has stepped up his game enough to warrant another term in Congress. Mr. Austria is the stronger candidate and deserves re-election.
He was among those who advocated to retain a purpose for the Springfield Air National Guard Base, an effort that was ultimately successful. The F-16 flying and training missions are leaving, largely because budget-conscious foreign governments are seeking to have their pilots trained at larger U.S. bases that are less expensive for them to operate from. But work has been found to be performed at the base flying unmanned aerial vehicles overseas and analyzing data collected by UAVs and from other sources.
The federal government’s investment in the air base has been significant over the years, and the jobs there are real and important. Mr. Austria was among many who worked to make this transition happen.
When many Republicans did not, he voted to support SCHIP, an extension of medical insurance for families with children who earn too much for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance.
Also, he has expressed a willingness to seek federal funds — earmarks — for significant transportation and national defense projects locally. That’s a start.
The fight over federal earmarks is a red herring; they amount to a fraction of a fraction of federal spending and are a proper way for local communities to assemble the financial pieces for significant local projects that have long-term benefits.
Others disagree. Mr. Austria was prohibited from seeking any this past year by an edict from his GOP elders. This time he says he is open to seeking them in a manner that is transparent and verifies in some way that the projects pass a litmus test to prove they will broadly benefit their communities.
We hope he follows through on this position.
On all other major issues, Mr. Austria is safe vote for the GOP caucus. He wants to dismantle pieces of the health care overhaul bill passed by Congress this year. He should not do so if re-elected.
Mr. Austria appears to view all public policy through the prism of what is best for business. He says “Small business and working families” when he talks about policies he supports.
But in an interview with the Springfield News-Sun editorial board, he was not able to estimate how many medically uninsured people there were in his district. It is 12.9 percent — or 75,000 people under the age of 65.
He also said he is not “totally committed” to joining the new Tea Party Caucus if he were to be re-elected, because it is not clear what the group’s platform would be. But he said he is keeping his options open.
We urge him to be very careful aligning this region’s representation in Congress with a group that is as amorphous as the Tea Party movement.
The group continues to evolve, and at the moment the Tea Party seems to be a collection of people from those with coherent grievances against government spending to rank political opportunists.
For his faults, he’s better than Mr. Conner. Mr. Conner is a very intelligent person with decent insight into some of the issues. But he has demonstrated little ability to work in a collaborative manner and would likely be marginalized on Capitol Hill by his peers and unable to get much accomplished.
Steve Austria is due a second term; the district does not need to start training another congressman.
But he needs to remember that he also represents people like those 75,000 people in our district without medical insurance. They need his help in Washington too.