Credit where it’s due

On Monday, when the shiny new Veterans Affairs hospital was dedicated in North Las Vegas, Republican U.S. Sen. Dean Heller was among the dignitaries.

"I'm deeply humbled to be part of this [congressional] delegation who works together to make good things happen," he said, according to the Review-Journal's Laura Myers. "As I've said before in speeches, good things happen - great things happen - if no one worries about who takes the credit."

Actually, it was former President Harry S. Truman who said, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."

But perhaps in this instance, the quote should read, "taking credit can accomplish an amazing amount of great things"?

Now, to be entirely fair to Heller, he was not even in Congress when most of the heavy lifting was done on the VA hospital. Starting in 2002, Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley, Sen. Harry Reid and the rest of Nevada's tiny congressional delegation moved mountains to get approval, land and funding for the new facility.

Heller - who was elected to Congress in 2006 and is being challenged by Berkley in this year's Senate election - did cast a single vote for the project, to increase an appropriation for its construction. So he had every right to be on the stage with all the other members of Congress. But even though Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki mentioned Heller's name along with the others, this hospital became a reality primarily due to the efforts of Berkley and Reid.

In 2002, Berkley introduced the first bill calling for the construction of the hospital, to replace the closed Addelair Guy Center. The delegation got funding for advance planning for the facility in 2003, and the VA put the Las Vegas facility on its priority list in 2004, when the site location was announced.

In 2005, Nevada's lawmakers secured $199 million for the hospital, and in 2007, the appropriations bill with more than $340 million was passed - with every member's support - guaranteeing the project's completion.

Along the way, Nevada lawmakers had to deal with increasing budgets and myriad delays in construction, as well as frustrated veterans waiting for the new hospital to open.

And another thing about Heller: At various times in his congressional career, he's opposed the very earmarks that make projects such as the new VA hospital a reality.

Running for office in 2006, Heller declared to the Reno Gazette-Journal, "I will vote to abolish pork spending." Fortunately for Nevadans, he abandoned that pledge to request between 2008 and 2010 a total of 17 individual earmarks representing $8.8 million for Nevada, according to the website Legistorm. (He sponsored 49 others with fellow lawmakers.)

It should be said, there's nothing wrong with that. While earmarks have become a dirty word, Nevada's new VA hospital is one example of how they can really help a community and its residents.

Today, Heller's views are back to his 2006 position - he's against them. In 2010, he issued a news release to say he supported a total ban on earmarks for the 2012 fiscal year. "The earmark process has become a symbol of glut in our nation's capital," he said. "This is why I will not request earmarks for the following fiscal year, and I call on all the members of the Nevada delegation to join me in this effort."

Berkley and Reid declined to join him. If Heller had gotten to Congress a few years earlier, and if he'd stuck to his position consistently, and if his fellow lawmakers had listened to him, there's no guarantee that we'd even have a shiny new VA hospital in which Heller could appear and for which he could take (partial) credit.

That must have been what Berkley meant when she said at the hospital's dedication, "For those who don't like earmarks, don't ask me to give that earmark back."

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at (702) 387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.