QUOTE
Nancy Pelosi's dilemma.
Full House
by Michael Crowley
Post date: 11.30.06
Issue date: 12.11.06
In the beginning--1994, that is--Newt Gingrich created the Republican majority. For 40 years, a Republican void had existed in the Democratic Congress, and then Newt made the ten-point Contract for America. The country saw it was good and bestowed the power of the land upon the Republicans that Newt had created in his own image. And, as they took dominion over Congress, Newt's followers rejoiced in the world he had created. They devised revolutionary schemes big and small--everything from new committee structures to quashing daily ice deliveries to congressional offices. But, most importantly, they pledged to work together in peace and harmony to ensure that Newt's Contract with America was fulfilled. It was, after all, the very reason voters had placed them in control.
Twelve years later, as Nancy Pelosi fashions her Democratic majority, she must surely envy the simplicity of the Republicans' 1994 creation myth. For one thing, as opposed to the Republican revolution--with its clearly sketched ideals of fiscal responsibility and term limits--there is no commonly agreed-upon story about how the Democrats came to power this fall. Progressives insist that their antiwar position inspired the passion of the electorate; moderates, including a crop of freshmen from the South and West, claim it was their middle-of-the-road social and economic views that led Democrats from the wilderness. And, unlike the Contract-toting newcomers of '94, who marched in devoted lockstep with their leader, Pelosi's troops--who include everyone from Barbara Lee, a Berkeley-based sponsor of a "Department of Peace," to Heath Shuler, a culturally conservative rural populist--have dueling agendas of their own.
Throw in a generous helping of old-bull chairmen like John Dingell--a 51-year congressman who already spent 14 years running the Energy and Commerce Committee in the last Democratic regime--eagerly returning to their perches of power, and Pelosi doesn't have a revolution on her hands so much as a restoration. The result is a caucus that swirls with grievances old and new, suspicion and mistrust, ego and entitlement. And, to make matters worse, instead of a Newt-in-shining-armor, reigning over this miasma is the battle-scarred, grudge-bearing Pelosi herself.
If the 1994 Republican victory was a revolution, the post-2006 Democratic House, with its fierce ideological conflicts, may look more like sectarian strife. With different party factions claiming credit for the party's success, each feels emboldened to assert itself. Take the liberal crusaders hoping for a party-wide ideological revolution--the 71-member Congressional Progressive Caucus. If the progressives have a certain swagger these days, it's because they're convinced it was their vision--opposition to the war, unapologetic Bush-bashing--that won Democrats the election. What's more, House liberals consider Pelosi one of their own. Their votes have been critical to her ascension into the House leadership, and the progressive ranks include some of Pelosi's closest allies, including George Miller of California, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, and rising star Michael Capuano of Massachusetts.
Still, the liberals are highly--and not irrationally--suspicious that moderates plan to shunt them into the attic like so many crazy relatives. Compounding their fear is Pelosi's thus-far cautious governing record. And, if Pelosi is equally wary of her liberal cheerleaders, it's understandable. Consider the current co-chair of the progressive caucus: Barbara Lee, best known as Congress's lone vote against the resolution authorizing the use of force in response to September 11--an act that led to death threats against her. Lee, who co-sponsored the bill to create a Department of Peace with Dennis Kucinich, also recently battled with Republicans to name an Oakland post office after a controversial peace activist. This is not, one hazards to guess, the party face Pelosi wants to present to the public.
Post offices and peace departments aside, the progressives will exert a strong pull on Pelosi when it comes to the war in Iraq. House liberals, led by Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern, a member of Lee's Out of Iraq caucus, have been trying to cut off funds for the war as a way of forcing an immediate withdrawal. Should McGovern continue pressing his idea, Pelosi will be faced with a grim choice between a debate that will be manna to Fox News and charges from the left that she's being timid on the issue that they say won Democrats back the House.
Pelosi may find it hard to swallow other progressive caucus ideas as well. While her own limited agenda includes broadly popular measures like lobbying reform and lower prescription-drug prices, Kucinich and John Conyers have sponsored a universal health care bill--a subject that stokes passions on the left but makes moderates blanch. Liberals will also make smaller, symbolic demands. Lee recently explained to The Nation, for instance, her desire for more Asian Pacific Islanders to testify as witnesses at congressional hearings. The spoils of victory.
Contesting this liberal faction are the House's moderate and conservative Democrats--or, as one House Democratic aide calls them, "The New Dogs"--a combination of about 100 New Democrats and Blue Dogs determined to keep Democrats on a centrist course. The New Dogs insist that several Democratic wins in conservative districts validated this strategy. "Our bark is louder than ever and we are going to be heard," outgoing Blue Dog co-chair Dennis Cardoza recently declared.
Barbara Lee's moderate counterpart is the leader of the moderate House New Democrat Coalition and Blue Dog Democrat Ellen Tauscher of California. Tauscher has infuriated liberals with votes to begin impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton and to back the Iraq war. She once even explained that she came to Washington to represent her district and not "to be a Democrat." Tauscher recently warned in The New York Times that House Democrats must perform a "very difficult kabuki dance" to placate liberals without actually being very liberal. That sort of talk has made her one of the left's favorite new intra-party heretics; in the blogosphere, Tauscher has been dubbed a "corporate whore" (and worse), and liberal activists are already talking about mounting a 2008 primary challenge against her. Pelosi might not mind if they do.
The House's moderate and conservative Democrats won't just make it difficult for Pelosi to come up with a message that will please everyone. They pose the danger of aligning with Republicans on certain votes--perhaps national security and immigration--and undermining the new speaker's control of the House. The Blue Dogs' obsession with balanced budgets, for instance (their website's home page features a running debt clock), could mean clashes with liberals over budget priorities. And, while even moderates consider Iraq a catastrophe, few want to align with liberal calls for immediate exit or, worse, cutting off war funds.
Finally, there is the freshman class of 2006. Perhaps nowhere is the contrast between the House of Gingrich and the House of Pelosi clearer. In the first Gingrich Congress, the freshmen were fearless revolutionaries, barely concerned with their own survival. (Indeed, many imposed term limits on themselves.) But many freshly minted Democratic congressmen face perilous reelections in two years. The freshman class is also divided internally: On the one hand are culturally conservative populists like North Carolina's Shuler; on the other are anti-Iraq crusaders like former social worker Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire. As one former House Democratic aide says of freshmen from conservative areas: "They will be scared shitless and have to vote like Republicans--or they can vote their conscience and enjoy their two years in office."
Beyond these ideological fissures, the Democratic caucus's diverse factions are plagued by intense power struggles. African Americans, for example, will have unprecedented clout in the new House, with four committee chairmen and the House's number-three leadership position of majority whip, which will be held by South Carolina's James Clyburn. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is sure to expect handsome rewards for this influence--for instance, by way of budget funding for urban social and anti-poverty programs.
Despite its new influence, the CBC comes to power in a defensive posture, with animus toward Pelosi. In 2003, Pelosi irked the group when she passed over Louisiana's William Jefferson to run the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (dccc). Later, when Jefferson was caught with $90,000 in his freezer and accused of corruption, Pelosi called for his removal from the House Ways and Means Committee. CBC members were alternately described as "furious," "outraged," and "on the brink of open revolt," and they called the move discriminatory. And it's not just Pelosi: Relations are even worse between the CBC and Rahm Emanuel, the new Democratic caucus chairman and a party hero after managing this year's House elections as dccc chairman. CBC members bitterly complained to Pelosi that the often caustic Emanuel harassed them over their party dues and fund-raising output, didn't solicit their campaign advice, and didn't hire enough black aides. The tension between the CBC and caucus leaders is likely to intensify, thanks to Pelosi's decision this week that Alcee Hastings, a former federal judge impeached in 1989, is too ethically tainted to chair the House Intelligence Committee.
Another of Pelosi's headaches will be the struggle to keep her committee chairmen in line. Pelosi has signaled that she wants to retain the kind of centralized power over committees that Republicans established, rather than revert to the system of freelancing chairmen that prevailed in the old Democratic majority. But that might not be easy to explain to the ancien régime. These Bourbon restorationists, including the 80-year-old Dingell, one of the few Democrats whose caricature appears on the storied wall of Washington's Palm steakhouse, view the Democratic victory as restoring them to their rightful positions of power. Pelosi has already battled 77-year-old Judiciary Chairman Conyers, who recently introduced a bill exploring the possibility of George W. Bush's impeachment. Other senior chairmen with, shall we say, high confidence in their own judgment include the 76-year-old Charlie Rangel at Ways and Means, who recently had to be talked out of pursuing the idea of a draft, and the 66-year-old Barney Frank at Financial Services, recently shushed after proposing hearings on gays in the military. And it's not even January yet.
Pelosi's biggest challenge may be overcoming her own notorious fixation on personal feuds and grudges. As minority leader, Pelosi has alienated an impressive number of the people she'll have to work with. She (and other House leaders) berated Collin Peterson of Minnesota and nearly threw him off the Agriculture Committee after he voted for the Republicans' 2003 Medicare prescription-drug bill. When Dingell faced a strong primary challenge in 2002, Pelosi donated $10,000 to his opponent. And Pelosi's once-warm relationship with Californian Jane Harman has dissolved into outright hostility after Pelosi declared she wouldn't name Harman to chair the Intelligence Committee, either. And, as any House observer knows, Pelosi can't even rely on chummy relations with her chief deputy, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Pelosi has been wary of Hoyer since he unsuccessfully challenged her for the position of House minority whip in 2001 and is mistrustful of his centrist instincts; hence Pelosi's recent endorsement of Jack Murtha against Hoyer for the majority leader post.
Somehow, Pelosi and Hoyer must find a way to stitch together these dueling factions and personalities--as well as to mend their own relationship. Some Democrats argue that the imperative of holding the majority will bring them together. "Nobody wants to end up in the minority again, and that's obviously a big carrot or stick, depending on how you look at it," says a senior House aide. But that's no simple task when people don't even agree on how they escaped the minority in the first place.
Perhaps it's not a creation myth that the Democrats need, then, so much as a vision of the apocalypse. The last time a wave of antiwar reformers joined the House was in the 1974 election, defined by Watergate and the aftermath of Vietnam. It would seem to have been a heady time for Democrats. But, as John A. Farrell recounts in his book Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century, "[L]iberals in the caucus were bent on ideological purity, while conservatives were feeling spiteful and neglected." Even a weak Gerald Ford was able to exploit the fissures, and Democrats "splintered over military spending, energy policy, environmental protection and other measures." The Times concluded that House Democrats were "fractured today by a rancor of an intensity seldom seen. ... Rarely has a party in Congress promised so much and accomplished so little." Democrats had better hope their restoration goes more smoothly than that. Or they can plan on hauling all their ideological and psychological baggage back to the minority.
Correction: This article incorrectly stated that Democratic Representative Ellen Tauscher voted to impeach Bill Clinton. In fact, Tauscher was among 31 Democrats who voted for an October 1998 Republican resolution to initiate impeachment proceedings. But Tauscher ultimately voted against all four articles of impeachment. We regret the error.
Michael Crowley is a senior editor at The New Republic.
Full House
by Michael Crowley
Post date: 11.30.06
Issue date: 12.11.06
In the beginning--1994, that is--Newt Gingrich created the Republican majority. For 40 years, a Republican void had existed in the Democratic Congress, and then Newt made the ten-point Contract for America. The country saw it was good and bestowed the power of the land upon the Republicans that Newt had created in his own image. And, as they took dominion over Congress, Newt's followers rejoiced in the world he had created. They devised revolutionary schemes big and small--everything from new committee structures to quashing daily ice deliveries to congressional offices. But, most importantly, they pledged to work together in peace and harmony to ensure that Newt's Contract with America was fulfilled. It was, after all, the very reason voters had placed them in control.
Twelve years later, as Nancy Pelosi fashions her Democratic majority, she must surely envy the simplicity of the Republicans' 1994 creation myth. For one thing, as opposed to the Republican revolution--with its clearly sketched ideals of fiscal responsibility and term limits--there is no commonly agreed-upon story about how the Democrats came to power this fall. Progressives insist that their antiwar position inspired the passion of the electorate; moderates, including a crop of freshmen from the South and West, claim it was their middle-of-the-road social and economic views that led Democrats from the wilderness. And, unlike the Contract-toting newcomers of '94, who marched in devoted lockstep with their leader, Pelosi's troops--who include everyone from Barbara Lee, a Berkeley-based sponsor of a "Department of Peace," to Heath Shuler, a culturally conservative rural populist--have dueling agendas of their own.
Throw in a generous helping of old-bull chairmen like John Dingell--a 51-year congressman who already spent 14 years running the Energy and Commerce Committee in the last Democratic regime--eagerly returning to their perches of power, and Pelosi doesn't have a revolution on her hands so much as a restoration. The result is a caucus that swirls with grievances old and new, suspicion and mistrust, ego and entitlement. And, to make matters worse, instead of a Newt-in-shining-armor, reigning over this miasma is the battle-scarred, grudge-bearing Pelosi herself.
If the 1994 Republican victory was a revolution, the post-2006 Democratic House, with its fierce ideological conflicts, may look more like sectarian strife. With different party factions claiming credit for the party's success, each feels emboldened to assert itself. Take the liberal crusaders hoping for a party-wide ideological revolution--the 71-member Congressional Progressive Caucus. If the progressives have a certain swagger these days, it's because they're convinced it was their vision--opposition to the war, unapologetic Bush-bashing--that won Democrats the election. What's more, House liberals consider Pelosi one of their own. Their votes have been critical to her ascension into the House leadership, and the progressive ranks include some of Pelosi's closest allies, including George Miller of California, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, and rising star Michael Capuano of Massachusetts.
Still, the liberals are highly--and not irrationally--suspicious that moderates plan to shunt them into the attic like so many crazy relatives. Compounding their fear is Pelosi's thus-far cautious governing record. And, if Pelosi is equally wary of her liberal cheerleaders, it's understandable. Consider the current co-chair of the progressive caucus: Barbara Lee, best known as Congress's lone vote against the resolution authorizing the use of force in response to September 11--an act that led to death threats against her. Lee, who co-sponsored the bill to create a Department of Peace with Dennis Kucinich, also recently battled with Republicans to name an Oakland post office after a controversial peace activist. This is not, one hazards to guess, the party face Pelosi wants to present to the public.
Post offices and peace departments aside, the progressives will exert a strong pull on Pelosi when it comes to the war in Iraq. House liberals, led by Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern, a member of Lee's Out of Iraq caucus, have been trying to cut off funds for the war as a way of forcing an immediate withdrawal. Should McGovern continue pressing his idea, Pelosi will be faced with a grim choice between a debate that will be manna to Fox News and charges from the left that she's being timid on the issue that they say won Democrats back the House.
Pelosi may find it hard to swallow other progressive caucus ideas as well. While her own limited agenda includes broadly popular measures like lobbying reform and lower prescription-drug prices, Kucinich and John Conyers have sponsored a universal health care bill--a subject that stokes passions on the left but makes moderates blanch. Liberals will also make smaller, symbolic demands. Lee recently explained to The Nation, for instance, her desire for more Asian Pacific Islanders to testify as witnesses at congressional hearings. The spoils of victory.
Contesting this liberal faction are the House's moderate and conservative Democrats--or, as one House Democratic aide calls them, "The New Dogs"--a combination of about 100 New Democrats and Blue Dogs determined to keep Democrats on a centrist course. The New Dogs insist that several Democratic wins in conservative districts validated this strategy. "Our bark is louder than ever and we are going to be heard," outgoing Blue Dog co-chair Dennis Cardoza recently declared.
Barbara Lee's moderate counterpart is the leader of the moderate House New Democrat Coalition and Blue Dog Democrat Ellen Tauscher of California. Tauscher has infuriated liberals with votes to begin impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton and to back the Iraq war. She once even explained that she came to Washington to represent her district and not "to be a Democrat." Tauscher recently warned in The New York Times that House Democrats must perform a "very difficult kabuki dance" to placate liberals without actually being very liberal. That sort of talk has made her one of the left's favorite new intra-party heretics; in the blogosphere, Tauscher has been dubbed a "corporate whore" (and worse), and liberal activists are already talking about mounting a 2008 primary challenge against her. Pelosi might not mind if they do.
The House's moderate and conservative Democrats won't just make it difficult for Pelosi to come up with a message that will please everyone. They pose the danger of aligning with Republicans on certain votes--perhaps national security and immigration--and undermining the new speaker's control of the House. The Blue Dogs' obsession with balanced budgets, for instance (their website's home page features a running debt clock), could mean clashes with liberals over budget priorities. And, while even moderates consider Iraq a catastrophe, few want to align with liberal calls for immediate exit or, worse, cutting off war funds.
Finally, there is the freshman class of 2006. Perhaps nowhere is the contrast between the House of Gingrich and the House of Pelosi clearer. In the first Gingrich Congress, the freshmen were fearless revolutionaries, barely concerned with their own survival. (Indeed, many imposed term limits on themselves.) But many freshly minted Democratic congressmen face perilous reelections in two years. The freshman class is also divided internally: On the one hand are culturally conservative populists like North Carolina's Shuler; on the other are anti-Iraq crusaders like former social worker Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire. As one former House Democratic aide says of freshmen from conservative areas: "They will be scared shitless and have to vote like Republicans--or they can vote their conscience and enjoy their two years in office."
Beyond these ideological fissures, the Democratic caucus's diverse factions are plagued by intense power struggles. African Americans, for example, will have unprecedented clout in the new House, with four committee chairmen and the House's number-three leadership position of majority whip, which will be held by South Carolina's James Clyburn. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is sure to expect handsome rewards for this influence--for instance, by way of budget funding for urban social and anti-poverty programs.
Despite its new influence, the CBC comes to power in a defensive posture, with animus toward Pelosi. In 2003, Pelosi irked the group when she passed over Louisiana's William Jefferson to run the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (dccc). Later, when Jefferson was caught with $90,000 in his freezer and accused of corruption, Pelosi called for his removal from the House Ways and Means Committee. CBC members were alternately described as "furious," "outraged," and "on the brink of open revolt," and they called the move discriminatory. And it's not just Pelosi: Relations are even worse between the CBC and Rahm Emanuel, the new Democratic caucus chairman and a party hero after managing this year's House elections as dccc chairman. CBC members bitterly complained to Pelosi that the often caustic Emanuel harassed them over their party dues and fund-raising output, didn't solicit their campaign advice, and didn't hire enough black aides. The tension between the CBC and caucus leaders is likely to intensify, thanks to Pelosi's decision this week that Alcee Hastings, a former federal judge impeached in 1989, is too ethically tainted to chair the House Intelligence Committee.
Another of Pelosi's headaches will be the struggle to keep her committee chairmen in line. Pelosi has signaled that she wants to retain the kind of centralized power over committees that Republicans established, rather than revert to the system of freelancing chairmen that prevailed in the old Democratic majority. But that might not be easy to explain to the ancien régime. These Bourbon restorationists, including the 80-year-old Dingell, one of the few Democrats whose caricature appears on the storied wall of Washington's Palm steakhouse, view the Democratic victory as restoring them to their rightful positions of power. Pelosi has already battled 77-year-old Judiciary Chairman Conyers, who recently introduced a bill exploring the possibility of George W. Bush's impeachment. Other senior chairmen with, shall we say, high confidence in their own judgment include the 76-year-old Charlie Rangel at Ways and Means, who recently had to be talked out of pursuing the idea of a draft, and the 66-year-old Barney Frank at Financial Services, recently shushed after proposing hearings on gays in the military. And it's not even January yet.
Pelosi's biggest challenge may be overcoming her own notorious fixation on personal feuds and grudges. As minority leader, Pelosi has alienated an impressive number of the people she'll have to work with. She (and other House leaders) berated Collin Peterson of Minnesota and nearly threw him off the Agriculture Committee after he voted for the Republicans' 2003 Medicare prescription-drug bill. When Dingell faced a strong primary challenge in 2002, Pelosi donated $10,000 to his opponent. And Pelosi's once-warm relationship with Californian Jane Harman has dissolved into outright hostility after Pelosi declared she wouldn't name Harman to chair the Intelligence Committee, either. And, as any House observer knows, Pelosi can't even rely on chummy relations with her chief deputy, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Pelosi has been wary of Hoyer since he unsuccessfully challenged her for the position of House minority whip in 2001 and is mistrustful of his centrist instincts; hence Pelosi's recent endorsement of Jack Murtha against Hoyer for the majority leader post.
Somehow, Pelosi and Hoyer must find a way to stitch together these dueling factions and personalities--as well as to mend their own relationship. Some Democrats argue that the imperative of holding the majority will bring them together. "Nobody wants to end up in the minority again, and that's obviously a big carrot or stick, depending on how you look at it," says a senior House aide. But that's no simple task when people don't even agree on how they escaped the minority in the first place.
Perhaps it's not a creation myth that the Democrats need, then, so much as a vision of the apocalypse. The last time a wave of antiwar reformers joined the House was in the 1974 election, defined by Watergate and the aftermath of Vietnam. It would seem to have been a heady time for Democrats. But, as John A. Farrell recounts in his book Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century, "[L]iberals in the caucus were bent on ideological purity, while conservatives were feeling spiteful and neglected." Even a weak Gerald Ford was able to exploit the fissures, and Democrats "splintered over military spending, energy policy, environmental protection and other measures." The Times concluded that House Democrats were "fractured today by a rancor of an intensity seldom seen. ... Rarely has a party in Congress promised so much and accomplished so little." Democrats had better hope their restoration goes more smoothly than that. Or they can plan on hauling all their ideological and psychological baggage back to the minority.
Correction: This article incorrectly stated that Democratic Representative Ellen Tauscher voted to impeach Bill Clinton. In fact, Tauscher was among 31 Democrats who voted for an October 1998 Republican resolution to initiate impeachment proceedings. But Tauscher ultimately voted against all four articles of impeachment. We regret the error.
Michael Crowley is a senior editor at The New Republic.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061211&s=crowley121106
