When the new Congress is sworn in, Toledo’s Marcy Kaptur will be the longest-serving Democrat in the U.S. House — and she intends to spend that seniority on health care, putting Medicaid and Medicare at the top of her agenda, according to the Port Clinton News Herald.
Kaptur, a Democrat from Toledo, becomes the majority party’s senior member after Democrats flipped the House in the November election, the Port Clinton News Herald reported. Only two Republicans have served longer than her, and in a chamber where committee seats are handed out by party strength, personal preference and seniority, that standing carries real weight.
Kaptur’s staff confirmed to the Port Clinton News Herald that she intends to return to the Appropriations Committee, where she has sat since 1990, and to chair its Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, a panel she previously served on as minority chair. The House holds the exclusive power to initiate bills that raise revenue, making Appropriations one of its most consequential committees.
The subcommittee assignment fits her northwest Ohio district directly. Ottawa County’s Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station and Lake Erie both fall under the energy and water portfolio, the Port Clinton News Herald reported, tying her committee work to the lake economy and power generation her constituents depend on.
Kaptur won re-election in November by beating former Ohio House member Derrick Merrin, 159,306 votes (52.7 percent) to 142,830 votes (47.3 percent), according to the Port Clinton News Herald. She returns to Washington as Democrats prepare to govern the House — a shift that is also reshaping Ohio’s other delegation leaders, as NewsForce247 reported when Jim Jordan was elected House minority leader.
On election night, Kaptur laid out her first priorities, the Port Clinton News Herald reported. “First of all, we will restore regular order in the House. Our bills have to be done on time and not delayed month after month after month and after month. They couldn’t even pass the Farm Bill properly and they didn’t even put in E-15. Our farmers have been asking for that for years and years,” Kaptur told the Port Clinton News Herald. She said one of the first items she recommended to the speaker-to-be was a re-vote on health insurance.
The E-15 legislation she cited is the Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act, which would allow gasoline blended with up to 15 percent ethanol to be sold year-round, according to the Port Clinton News Herald. The bill passed the House but remains in committee in the Senate, and the National Corn Growers Association has argued it would lower fuel prices — a live issue for northwest Ohio farm country.
Health care, though, is the center of her case. “Ohio is the most impacted state in the union. One million more people will lose their health insurance by the end of the year,” Kaptur told the Port Clinton News Herald. “We already have hundreds of thousands who have lost their benefits. People don’t see it because it is a quiet crisis in each family.” During the campaign, Kaptur called the One Big Beautiful Bill the “Big Bonanza for Billionaires,” warning it would cut Medicaid and Medicare and drive up insurance costs, the Port Clinton News Herald reported.
Her press secretary told the Port Clinton News Herald that reversing those cuts is the immediate work: “Trying to reverse that as soon as possible, to make sure those systems have the funds they need and to make sure the people in our region have access to Medicaid and Medicare and that there is no loss of coverage or watering down of coverage, or closing of hospitals.” The secretary also floated using the reconciliation process, which needs only a simple majority, and named health care cuts and reversing tariffs — especially on Canada — as the congresswoman’s two top priorities, the Port Clinton News Herald reported.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know: Kaptur’s seniority, her Appropriations seat since 1990 and her stated intent to chair the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee are confirmed through her staff to the Port Clinton News Herald, as are her vote totals and her stated health care and tariff priorities. What we’re still waiting on: final committee assignments are not set until the new Congress organizes, and no health insurance re-vote or tariff bill has been scheduled yet.
What happens next is the organizing of the new Congress, when committee chairs are formally seated and the majority’s first bills are introduced. Northwest Ohio readers will see the results in the issues Kaptur named first — Medicaid and Medicare funding, hospital coverage, Canadian tariffs and farm fuel rules — the same mix of Washington fights that reached the Statehouse this week in NewsForce247’s coverage of Ohio lawmakers sending a firearms bill to Gov. DeWine.