When Rep. Tom Cole became chairman of the Appropriations Committee in April, it marked the first time that an Oklahoman held the most powerful position in Congress.
Cole, a Republican, has quietly risen through the ranks on the committee for 15 years, crafting and negotiating bipartisan spending bills with the chairmanship in mind, all the while working to bring billions of dollars of projects to the committee, including colleges, hospitals and airports across the state.
But just two months into his term, his carefully laid out plan could be upended, and with it, the loss of Oklahoma’s direct access to federal funding.
On Tuesday, he faces the toughest threat to his career yet: a primary challenge from Paul Bondar, a self-funded conservative running on an anti-spending platform that has seen more than $8 million poured into it, making it one of the most expensive House primaries this year.
Mr. Cole’s floor talk once would have been politically advantageous: Appropriations committee leaders could flex their power and garner support at home by redirecting federal funds to local infrastructure projects.
But in today’s Republican Party, where the right is on the rise and spending is a dirty word, being an institutionalist who is adept at using his influence to bring home money from the federal government is increasingly seen as a political liability.
Though Kohl is widely expected to win, the challenge reflects a shift within the Republican Party that is making it ungovernable, with mainstream and veteran lawmakers increasingly alienated by ideologically driven figures on the right who have little interest in operating within the political system.
“It would be surprising to see an opponent emerge because we may never again have an opportunity for someone like Tom Cole to hold this position and power in the 4th District, if ever again, this would be once in 50 or 75 years,” University of Oklahoma President Joseph Haroz Jr. said in an interview.
Hard-line right-wingers have tormented congressional leaders in recent years over the spending process, demanding deep cuts that the Democratic Senate and White House have never accepted. They have repeatedly stoked fears of a government shutdown, forcing successive Republican House speakers to turn to Democrats to pass spending bills.
Outside Washington, Republicans writing the bill to fund the government face a base that rejects it.
Mr. Cole’s predecessor, Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, also faced an unusually tough challenge from an anti-spending challenger in 2020. When the conservative Club for Growth poured more than $1 million into an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to defeat Mr. Cole in 2020, the group argued it was part of a broader effort to punish those who support excessive federal spending.
That’s been a key part of Bondar’s pitch to Cole this year.
“Tom Cole voted with Democrats for billions of dollars in new deficit spending,” the TV ad’s narrator said. “Paul Bondar opposes new federal spending.”
The type of primary challenge Bondar is taking on would normally raise few eyebrows against a political veteran of Cole’s caucus, who recently moved to Oklahoma from Texas and has never run for public office before.
Bondar gave a halting interview recently over Zoom to local television station KFOR, but froze when a reporter asked him where he was.
“Are you in Texas right now?” reporter Spencer Humphrey asked.
“I’m in the office right now,” Bondar said.
“Is that office in Texas?” Humphrey asked. Bondar eventually admitted that he was in Texas, not Oklahoma.
Bondar, the founder of an Illinois-based insurance company, has spent more than $4.8 million so far to secure Cole’s testimony, and has raised $13,510 and loaned more than $5 million to the campaign, according to campaign finance reports.
Bondar said in an interview that he was willing to spend a large amount of his own money on Cole’s election because he felt his constituents deserved a more conservative representative who would spend more time in the district.
“The biggest hurt to him is the fact that I won’t be in Oklahoma for a while,” Bondar said, “but the biggest hurt to him is his track record, and that’s what people are looking at. And now that he’s House Appropriations chairman, he can’t use money to override that track record. Trying to get out of it with money and saying, ‘Now I’m going to put some money somewhere else,’ isn’t going to work.”
In his last set of spending bills, Cole secured more than $108 million to support programs that benefit the University of Oklahoma alone, including $36 million to extend a runway and add two hangars to the airport in Norman, Oklahoma, where the university’s aviation program is based, and $7 million for the university’s cancer center, which focuses on addressing health disparities among the state’s Native Americans.
“We are acting on our strategic plan,” Haroz said, “and as we look at the opportunities for growth at the University of Oklahoma over the next few years — the research we do, the students and industries we serve — having Tom Cole in this position is absolutely critical to that strategic plan.”
Haroz said that several years ago, when he was on the university’s board and was searching for a new president, he approached Cole and asked him to consider running for president.
Mr. Cole, a former college history and political science teacher who quickly turned down the offer because he had another job in mind, said he thought he might one day have the opportunity to become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Haroz responded to Cole by saying, “If I were to take that seat, I could do more for our state than I could as president of the University of Oklahoma.”
Still, during his campaign, Mr. Cole has focused on touting Mr. Bondar’s Texas ties and his endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump.
“I’ve been pretty effective in this district for many years, and this role puts me in a stronger position in that regard,” Cole said of his position as committee chair, “but I also know that in my state, we expect Donald Trump to win every county.”
“It won’t just be a local thing,” he added.
