"Republican power brokers may give Mississippi first dibs in the...funds"

GOP Politicians Will Help Get Relief Funds

By LAURIE KELLMAN, AP

WASHINGTON (AP) - A triumvirate of Republican power brokers may give Mississippi first dibs in the post-Hurricane Katrina grab for federal disaster funds even though the federal government focused its initial response to the storm on New Orleans.

The state's senior senator, Thad Cochran, is the new chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the panel charged with determining how much and where the recovery money will be spent.

Its junior senator's home - a place where GOP leaders from across the county once bantered about politics from rocking chairs on a porch overlooking the Gulf of Mexico - was flattened by Katrina.

"There's nothing there now," Sen. Trent Lott said of his historic Pascagoula house, which had been 12 feet above sea level. "I found my refrigerator, from my kitchen. It went down the street two blocks, turned left and went into a neighbor's yard."

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