Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)

It’s a new Congress, so D.C. has a whole new set of congressional overlords to deal with.

On the House side, it’s Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has been friendly to D.C. issues. But how about the Senate? This week Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) was tapped to lead the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Emergency Management, Intergovernmental Affairs and the District of Columbia. Not bad, right? Well, then there’s this—Sen. Ran Paul (R-Ky.) has been chosen as the subcommittee’s ranking Republican, writes Roll Call:

Now the Kentucky Republican is taking on what could be another high-profile and conflict-driven set of issues. On Wednesday, he was named ranking member of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the District of Columbia.

The panel — known as the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Emergency Management, Intergovernmental Affairs and the District of Columbia — doesn’t deal entirely with D.C. affairs. Lawmakers will likely focus more on the Federal Emergency Management Agency than they will on D.C. statehood and budget autonomy.

Why is that an issue? Because it was just last year that Paul—a member of the Tea Party movement—introduced three poison pill amendments to a D.C. budget autonomy bill. One amendment would allow concealed weapons, one would formalize the prohibition on the use of local funds for abortions and a third would prohibit discrimination for jobs based on membership in a union. The bill was pulled shortly thereafter.