Heck gets Armed Services Committee assignment

Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., a medical officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, had been angling for a seat on the House Armed Services Committee. On Friday it came through. 

Heck's office confirmed the freshman has been assigned to the military policy panel. Overall his workload will have a decided security tilt as he already has been named to the House Intelligence Committee.

Heck also will sit on the Education and Workforce Committee. But in order to add Armed Services he had to drop off the House Homeland Security Committee, his spokesman said.

A late shuffle in Republican committee assignments created the vacancy on Armed Services, according to GOP officials.

“I asked Joe if he would be willing to serve on the Armed Services Committee because he brings a unique perspective,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement. “We don’t have any other active Army Medical Corps Reserve Officers serving in Congress, and the American people deserve to have the one that is helping guide our country’s military policy."

Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., the new chairman of the Armed Services Committee, served as Heck's assigned "mentor" during the fall campaign and desired to have the freshman join him, according to Phil Perine, a Las Vegas Realtor and retired naval officer who volunteered on Heck's campaign.

Adding Heck to the Armed Services "was an easy decision and a move I supported strongly," McKeon said Friday.

Heck, an emergency room physician, joined the U.S. Army Reserve in 1991 and currently is a colonel. He was deployed to Iraq for three months in 2008. By coincidence he has Reserve duty in California this weekend, according to aide Darren Littell.

"From the 422nd Signal Battalion who held their deployment ceremony just yesterday to the men and women at Nellis and Creech, Nevada’s role in our country’s defense is unmistakable," Heck said. "My goal is to live up to the high standard Nevada’s brave servicemen and women have set.”