In early September, Rep. Hal Rogers will achieve a significant milestone in his political career: The 5th district Republican will become the longest serving member of Congress from the commonwealth. He will surpass former Rep. William Natcher, a Democrat who represented central and western Kentucky for 40 years and seven months, before his death in 1994.
“It’s a great honor,” says Rogers. “When I think about the history of this state and the heroes, like Henry Clay, who have served in the Congress from Kentucky, it makes you feel pretty little.”
Infrastructure improvements and fighting drug addiction have been priorities for the Congressman during his tenure in Washington. In 2003, Rogers launched Operate UNITE, which stands for unlawful narcotics investigations, treatment, and education, to fight the drug scourge in southeastern Kentucky. He says people in the region have experienced waves of addiction tied to illegal drugs, from marijuana to methamphetamines to opioids.
“The biggest obstacle that UNITE has had to overcome is the apathy of people toward drug use,” says Rogers. “So that has helped us get to the next stage, which is treatment and prevention.”
The Congressman an says the holistic approach used by UNITE, which combines law enforcement efforts with treatment and educational activities, has helped reduce the toll of addiction in the 5th district. He says a recent study by the University of Chicago and the University of Kentucky shows that 14 southeastern Kentucky counties were among the top 20 counties in the nation for the greatest reduction in drug overdose mortality.
But Rogers warns that the problem is far from resolved. He says as soon as intervention efforts reduce one form of drug addiction, another illicit substance moves in to take its place. He says he also opposes moves to legalize marijuana because he contends that would lead to more serious drug use.
Earlier in his career, Rogers started another district-wide initiative called the Personal Responsibility in a Desirable Environment. In addition to encouraging citizens to restore the natural beauty of the region, local PRIDE chapters have pursued a range of drinking water and sewer improvement projects. In two dozen years, Rogers says the organization has helped bring water service to thousands of homes in the 5th district.
“We’ve helped them with federal funds to supplement what they are doing themselves,” he says. “It takes a huge investment to replace completely the water lines in a given community, particularly when the community doesn’t have its own tax base sufficient to afford to do these things on their own.”
To further those efforts, Rogers says he will support the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that’s now before the House of Representatives. He says the legislation that passed the Senate in early August will provide funding for many critical highway, bridge, and broadband infrastructure projects in eastern Kentucky.
“The need for an infrastructure bill has been screaming at us for years,” says Rogers. “Yes, I’ll vote for that and cheer.”
Support for COVID Vaccinations
As the Delta variant of COVID continues its surge through the commonwealth, Rogers says he’s unhappy with the low vaccination rates in his district. He contends people cannot rely on natural immunity to protect them from the highly contagious virus.
“Vaccination is the answer,” he says. “People who have not been vaccinated must realize that they are endangering their own life but also they’re endangering the rest of us, and hopefully they will get vaccinated.”
Rogers decries the politicization of the pandemic and how that’s impacting vaccination rates. While many fellow Republicans blame the Biden Administration’s border control policies for allowing COVID-infected immigrants into the U.S., Rogers sees that as only one cause of the current spike in cases.
“It’s a part of it, but there are so many other ways that the virus is infecting us,” he says. “We need to get politics out of this discussion altogether about vaccinations because the scientists, the people who really know, tell us that it’s an absolute killer of the virus and that it works.”
The Congressman says he will abide by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi mask mandate for representatives when they are on the House floor. But Rogers says he thinks the requirement is unnecessary since so few members are usually on the floor at any one time.
Questions About Exit from Afghanistan
Rogers has much harsher words for how President Joe Biden executed the recent troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, calling it “an unmitigated disaster.”
“We’re looking absolutely stupid and we have ruined our country’s reputation around the world,” he says. “That’s going to take a long time to bring back and restore.”
The Congressman says he wants to know why the president overruled his top military leaders as to the date of the withdrawal, and why the administration wasn’t better prepared to protect our Afghan allies, many of whom are now desperately trying to leave the country. He says many Afghanis who worked with the U.S. military and American contractors now face the threat of death at the hands of the Taliban.
“We have an obligation to those people who risked their life over the years helping us while we were trying to help them.” says Rogers. “You have to give them legal stature over here.”
Looking Forward to a 22nd Term
The results of the 2020 Census show that the 5th Congressional district lost about 57,000 people, according to Rogers. He attributes that depopulation to people leaving counties hardest hit by the decline of the coal industry. He says state lawmakers traditionally consult with sitting congressmen about how their districts might change in the redistricting process. Rogers hopes that will happen this year as well.
“The counties that they give me in redistricting, some may have assets that we have not had a chance to work with yet,” he says. “That will be a challenge and an opportunity.”
Although 83 years old, Rogers has already announced his intention to run for a 22nd term in 2022. He says the life of a congressman is not as glamorous as people might think, and that he views it as having two full-time jobs: one in Washington and one back home in his district. Even after 40 years he says he loves them both.
“I enjoy helping people and I enjoy seeing good things happen to people,” says Rogers. “I want to keep that going as long as the Lord gives me energy and the people give me their vote.”
