Progressives Win A Round — Waxman Ousts Dingell As Energy And Commerce Chair
By Charles Lemos on November 21, 2008 at 12:15 PM in Current Affairs
nusaS: If you’re a new reader, I’d just like you to know that Charles Lemos wrote many favorable stories at his blog, and here, about John McCain before the election, and has been a contributor at No Quarter for nearly a year.
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Who said progressives can’t win? By Jove, we won a big one today. In a victory for the left wing of the Democratic Party, Representative Henry Waxman of California has just successfully ousted Representative John Dingell of Michigan from his longtime perch as head of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
The downside, alas, is that we lose Representative Waxman’s careful and diligent probing of government oversteps. Few others have taken on Bush, Cheney et al with such vigor asking such candid questions. Since winning back control of the Congress, Representative Waxman has played a lead role in staking out a far more aggressive stance towards the Bush Administration than many other more cautious leaderships of the Democratic Party would take.
Congressman Waxman used his House Oversight chairmanship to grill the Administration on issues from the Attorney General scandals to Guantanamo to FEMA & the response to Katrina, making him a hero to the progressive left. Such competence should be rewarded.
According to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office the vote count in the Democratic Caucus was Waxman 137 votes, Dingell 122 votes.
The defeat of Dingell is also a major victory for environmentalists, removing a key obstacle to real energy reform and breaks a major link to corporate control of the Congress. Dingell, who first entered the House way back when Eisenhower was President, had been the head Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee since 1981. But many of the more liberal members over the years came to view him as too friendly to Michigan’s auto industry and hostile to environmentalists — especially on issues like climate change and carbon limits. Though to be fair and appreciative, Congressman Dingell has been a champion of universal health care throughout his 53 year Congressional career.
More from the New York Times:
Besides seating a committed environmentalist as head of the energy committee, the vote also removes one of the auto industry’s best friends from a key leadership post — further evidence of how much power the American car-makers, whose executives have been pleading for federal money, have lost in Congress.
The vote on Thursday morning reportedly surprised some Dingell supporters, who had expected Mr. Dingell to prevail despite Wednesday’s 25-to-22 vote by the Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee in favor of Mr. Waxman’s challenge.
Mr. Dingell has been the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce committee since 1981 and has been in Congress since 1955, having won his seat in a special election after his father died in office. In February, Mr. Dingell will become the longest-serving member in the history of the House.
Speaker Pelosi, who has often clashed with Mr. Dingell, particularly on environmental matters, leads the steering committee, which includes the entire House leadership. Ms. Pelosi backed a candidate who opposed Mr. Dingell in a Democratic primary in 2002, but she has remained officially neutral in the Dingell-Waxman brawl. The steering committee vote was conducted in secret.
The chairmanship of the Committee on Energy and Commerce is a key post, since the committee will handle legislation on climate change, energy and health care that President-elect Obama is hoping to move through the new Congress.
Mr. Waxman, who has been the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was backed by many environmentalists for his stands on clean air and global warming, and he has a long record of leadership on health care issues.
Environmental groups reacted swiftly and mostly positively to the ascension of Mr. Waxman. “Chairman Waxman has been a leader on global warming for many years, and we look forward to working closely with him in his new role,” said Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Mr. Dingell has also shepherded numerous environmental and health care bills through Congress in his decades of service. He has sponsored universal health care legislation in every session of Congress since he was first elected. Both men are considered hard-driving chairmen, but Mr. Waxman is generally regarded as more liberal than Mr. Dingell, and has sponsored tougher global warming legislation. Mr. Dingell’s backers argued, unsuccessfully, that he was more likely to knit together a broad coalition of labor, industry and environmentalists in fashioning a climate change bill.
Mr. Waxman, 69, ran a low-key campaign for the post, in part because his challenge upsets the seniority system in the House and in part because Mr. Dingell, at 82, has had a number of health problems, including recent knee-replacement surgery.
Mr. Waxman said through a spokesman on Wednesday that he was a better leader to push Mr. Obama’s agenda through Congress.
“I am running for the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee because we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance health care, achieve energy independence and tackle climate change,” he said in a statement. “These are difficult and contentious issues, and I believe I can provide effective leadership so that Congress and the new administration working together can deliver results for the American people.”
From my blog, By The Fault.
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