18 I NEWS I
JANUARY 9, 2013 WEST NEWSMAGAZINE
NEWSMAGAZINENETWORK.COM
Congresswoman Ann Wagner outside her new office in Washington, D.C.
Ann Wagner ‘ready to get to work’ By CAROL ENRIGHT After a landslide victory in the race to win Todd Akin’s vacant seat in the 2nd Congressional District, Ann Wagner told her supporters that she was excited to get to work on the issues she had campaigned on, “but tonight, we are going to celebrate.” That celebration lasted until about 3:30 the next morning. “Then, I unfortunately had to call everybody back to the campaign office and say, ‘OK, I hate to do this to you all. You earned the day off. But we’re going to run for this leadership spot with the freshman class,’” Wagner said. One week later, Wagner was elected to represent the 35 incoming GOP freshmen at Republican leadership meetings. In that job, she will present the desires and needs of other Republican first-term members when her party is deliberating in the 113th Congress. “I want to be able to bring their concerns and issues to the table and be at that nineperson leadership table when decisions about direction and other things are going on,” Wagner said. “So that was important to us.” Wagner gained an even more impressive vote of confidence from House leadership when she was selected to serve on the House Committee on Financial Services. Wagner called Financial Services one of four “A” committees that also include Energy and Commerce, Appropriations, and Ways and Means. “Only five freshman Republicans got on those ‘A’ committees,” said Wagner. “And if you’re on an ‘A’ committee, you can only take that committee because it’s such a workload.” Wagner said it was important for her to get on the Financial Services Committee because – with firms such as Edward Jones, Scottrade and Stifel Financial headquartered in the region – “St. Louis and its surrounding suburbs are national and regional centers for financial services activity.” With 85,000 people in the area working in financial services for a total payroll of
around $4.57 billion, Wagner said St. Louis is “the largest cluster” of brokerage firms and personnel outside of New York. Wagner expects committee work to take up the bulk of her time in Congress, and said two of her largest priorities will be reforming the housing market and oversight of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that President Obama signed into law in 2010 to regulate the financial services industry. “It’s all about protection of our taxpayers – whether that has to do with reworking and reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or whether it has to do with the derivative portion of Dodd-Frank, or just the complete oversight of it and its over-regulatory nature,” Wagner said. Wagner campaigned with the hope that she would be serving under a Republican president, but she is hopeful that her party will be able to get things done in the new Congress. “While, certainly, the president won with a large majority, I do believe that people have sent us to the House in a Republican majority to be that check and balance,” said Wagner. “And I do think we ought to be able to get things done in a bipartisan nature and put our partisan differences aside and do what’s best and tackle the big problems. Wagner thinks one of those “big problems” is entitlement reform. “We’re all taking risks in doing this. To actually have an adult conversation about entitlement reform is difficult, but it’s needed.” Wagner’s schedule will keep her in the nation’s capital about three weeks out of every month, but the new congresswoman reiterated her election night pledge to remain true to her Ballwin roots. “I’m going to get back to Ballwin, just as you heard me say election night, just as often as I can. I’ll be working in Washington, but I will not be of Washington, ever,” Wagner said. Wagner was sworn into the 113th Congress on Jan. 3.