On a tour of military bases and defense production facilities across the state, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) made his first stop Tuesday in Columbus.
As the incoming ranking republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Wicker visited the Columbus Air Force Base as part of his own initiative to hear from servicemen — from commanding officers to enlisted troops.
Before Wicker’s base tour, he stopped at Lion Hills to visit with the Lowndes County Republican Women and the Rotary Club of Columbus, speaking with media members about issues regarding military affairs.
“We’re looking at military construction requests,” Wicker said. “I also want to talk to the troops about recruiting. We have a problem in most of our branches of the armed service getting young men and women to sign up. … We need to see what we can do to address quality of life issues — on-base housing and assistance for off-base (housing). There’s just a wide range of issues.”
Keeping bases and active duty military members up-to-date with the latest training and technology helps the U.S. military stay ahead of foreign forces like Iran, Russia and China, Wicker said.
As an Air Force veteran himself, Wicker said veteran health care is an important part of what is done each year in Washington and lumps it in with quality of life issues.
“Our first baby was born at a military hospital,” Wicker said. “We’re keenly aware of (veteran and military health care), not only from the standpoint of active duty but also our veterans — hospitals and installations in Mississippi and surrounding states.”
With CAFB housing one of the few undergraduate pilot training programs in the Air Force — training 475 pilots per year — Wicker said its place in Columbus is secure.
“With the threats that we have internationally — coming from Russia, from Iran, over in the Pacific with China — the last thing we need to be doing is cutting back on our military capability,” Wicker said. “The good thing about Columbus is it’s one of the few undergraduate pilot training facilities we have in the Air Force. So, it’s absolutely essential in my view that we keep all of those. Actually, we need to develop more pilots per year than we do now.”
Colom judgeship
Wicker also told The Dispatch on Tuesday he would support the nomination of District Attorney Scott Colom as a U.S. district judge.
President Joe Biden nominated Colom last year for a judgeship for the Northern District of Mississippi. Colom now serves as district attorney for the 16th Circuit Court District.
The nomination stalled, and Colom will now need to be renominated for the issue to go before the newly elected Senate, which must confirm him.
“I will vote for the confirmation of Scott Colom,” Wicker said. “The administration, I think, has been very slow in getting these nominations to us, and now that the new Congress has begun, they’re going to have to go through a procedure to renominate everybody. I don’t know when that will come up, but when it does I will be supportive.”
The nomination goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will either call for a hearing on Colom’s candidacy or deny it. However, each senator from Mississippi is allowed to partake in the “blue slip” process. This allows a home-state senator to stop a judicial nominee’s hearing if either of the senators from the state don’t return their blue slip.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mississippi) has not publicly stated her stance on Colom’s nomination, and could not be reached by The Dispatch on Tuesday.
The new Senate boasts a 51-49 Democratic majority, and a Democratic majority on its committees, which could speed up the confirmation process for Biden nominees.
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