Dodd in particular has been key to pushing through several Peace Corps funding requests. And he sponsored the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009, which instructs the agency to evaluate the countries it operates in, better solicit former volunteers for advice and plan its own expansion. The bill passed out of committee last week. Dodd's departure has taken on new import as the Peace Corps, which turns 50 next year, looks ahead. President Obama campaigned on a promise to double the number of volunteers by 2011, and the agency's budget is growing. But what will a 21st century Peace Corps look like? "Like any other issue that people generally like, there is a low-level of [active] support for it," said a senior Dodd aide. "But when it requires legislative efforts, how do you build beyond the general feelings of goodwill for the Peace Corps?" Dodd's departure, lawmakers and Peace Corps advocates agreed, doesn't slow the Peace Corps' momentum. But as the agency's budget grows, it will attract more scrutiny from budget-cutting lawmakers. Who will be the Peace Corps' champion? "That's a good question," said Kevin Quigley, president of the nonprofit National Peace Corps Association. "I wish I knew."
What will the Peace Corps do without Dodd in the Senate?
Can The Peace Corps Thrive Without Dodd?
By David Gauvey Herbert
85618491.jpgDodd's departure leaves the Senate without a former Peace Corps volunteer for the first time since 1979. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The Peace Corps' $420 million budget this year is 25 percent more than in 2009, the agency just opened programs in Indonesia and Sierra Leone, and lawmakers can't stop raving about new Administrator Aaron Williams.
So why are Peace Corps boosters worried? Two words: Christopher Dodd.
The Connecticut Democrat volunteered in the Dominican Republic from 1966 to 1968. When he retires at the end of this term, it will be the first time since 1979 that the Senate has been without a former Peace Corps volunteer. True, there are still Peace Corps supporters in the Senate, plus a record five returned volunteers in the House. But is that enough?
"I don't think we've ever had any real enemies," said former Sen. Harris Wofford, D-Pa., who helped launch the Peace Corps in the early 1960s. "It's a question of priorities and whether we've had enough champions."
The late Sen. Paul Tsongas, D-Mass., became the first former volunteer in the Senate -- he served in Ethiopia from 1962 to 1964 -- when he was elected in 1978. He was joined two years later by Dodd, and then by Wofford in 1991.
Dodd in particular has been key to pushing through several Peace Corps funding requests. And he sponsored the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009, which instructs the agency to evaluate the countries it operates in, better solicit former volunteers for advice and plan its own expansion. The bill passed out of committee last week.
Dodd's departure has taken on new import as the Peace Corps, which turns 50 next year, looks ahead. President Obama campaigned on a promise to double the number of volunteers by 2011, and the agency's budget is growing. But what will a 21st century Peace Corps look like?
That question won't be decided by former volunteers in the Senate, but by the likes of Sens. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. They may admire the program, but they don't share the nostalgia of someone like Dodd, who often chats with Aaron Williams about their time in the Dominican Republic (Williams served there from 1968 to 1969.)
"Like any other issue that people generally like, there is a low-level of [active] support for it," said a senior Dodd aide. "But when it requires legislative efforts, how do you build beyond the general feelings of goodwill for the Peace Corps?"
For his part, Bond imagines transforming the Peace Corps into the tip of the spear of American diplomacy. He would pull volunteers from countries of questionable strategic importance like Fiji and Vanuatu and parachute them into the Muslim world. The decision in December to put volunteers back in Indonesia (the Peace Corps was kicked out in 1965) is a step in that direction, Bond told NationalJournal.com.
"Re-establishing the Peace Corps in Indonesia is one of the most important smart power investments our nation has made in the region since" American relief efforts in the wake of the 2004 tsunami, he said. "By putting more sandals and sneakers on the ground today, we will help prevent having to put boots on the ground in the future."
Leahy, meanwhile, holds the purse strings as the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs. He wants the Peace Corps to come up with a strategic vision, and he has wrangled with former volunteers in the House who want to boost funding before seeing a reform plan.
Leahy also wants to run the agency through a cost-benefit analysis of sorts. Last year, he wrote in a budget report that a volunteer costs $50,000 to put in the field, while a measles vaccine is just a few dollars.
"Sometimes it isn't understood that the subcommittee has a fixed allocation, and adding to one program means subtracting from other worthy needs," said a Leahy aide, who noted that while the subcommittee deals with a roughly $55 billion budget, only about $5 billion of that is actually discretionary. "It also would be untenable to shift large sums to the Peace Corps before knowing what the reform plan is."
Dodd's departure, lawmakers and Peace Corps advocates agreed, doesn't slow the Peace Corps' momentum. But as the agency's budget grows, it will attract more scrutiny from budget-cutting lawmakers. Who will be the Peace Corps' champion?
"That's a good question," said Kevin Quigley, president of the nonprofit National Peace Corps Association. "I wish I knew."
