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Waxman Wins Key Test Vote for Chair of House Energy Committee—If You Like Clean Air, Call Your Member of Congress
By David Dayen
d-day
This is a very big deal. Henry Waxman has been nominated by the House's Steering Committee to be the head of the House panel on Energy and Commerce, ahead of longtime chair John Dingell. The implications for such a change would be huge, but it's not over yet:
“The House Democratic Steering Committee has nominated Henry A. Waxman to be chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee next year — a stinging rebuke of the sitting chairman, John D. Dingell.
“Waxman won a 25-22 vote over Dingell in a closed-door meeting Wednesday by the Steering panel. Because Dingell got more than 13 votes in the secret balloting, he can be nominated to run against Waxman at Thursday’s Democratic Caucus meeting, at which all of the Democrats elected to the 111th Congress are eligible to vote.”
That means we have less than a day to whip our Congresspeople on this vote. Waxman, who wrote the Clean Air Act and who has an understanding of what is needed to be done on global warming and the post-carbon future, would make a great chairman, as opposed to the Dingellsaurus, who is still trying to protect the auto industry from moving into the 21st century, even as the verdict on their approach is defined by their trudging to Capitol Hill for a bailout. A majority of the caucus has signed a letter to Nancy Pelosi asking for greater efforts to combat climate change. Waxman at Energy is a key to that happening. We must eliminate this roadblock.
Marc Ambinder sets the scene (this was written before yesterday’s vote):
“Waxman wants the job for obvious reasons: the committee will be the most powerful in the new Congress, one that'll deal with health care and energy legislation. (Ways and Means? Pleghghgh.) A lot of impatient liberal Democrats want to see Dingell go; he is too old, too blinkered in his thinking and too at odds with the party on energy, they say; just as many, it seems, want him to say, including some influential members of the leadership, even if for reasons of preserving the integrity of the seniority system.
“Senior Democratic aides expect that the vote will go to the full caucus; all the loser of the steering committee vote has to do is present a letter with 35 House members. The full vote would be Thursday via secret ballot.”
Lots of members of Congress put themselves in the position of someone like Dingell, who earned his chairmanship with seniority, and they don't want to see him pushed out because they wouldn't want it to happen to them. That's the kind of institutional thinking that must be vanquished, as it restricts change. The enviro groups are backing away from this fight because they don't want to feel Dingell's wrath if he wins. There is nobody else left to step in but us. I was skeptical that House Democrats would be pushed in the direction of progress, but with Waxman's former chief of staff, Phil Schiliro, in the Obama White House, some pressure may be coming down from the top. It's in all of our interests to have Henry Waxman atop this committee.
Call Congress and tell them you want to see a committee chair with bold ideas on energy as the head of the Energy Committee. If you want some extra incentive, read the smugness of the Blue Dogs who are fighting for their roadblock:
“Dingell’s supporters said they are not worried by the vote of the Steering panel, which they say is stocked with left-leaning members who do not represent the broader makeup of Democratic caucus.
““If you look at the makeup of that committee in terms of geography and political leanings, this is not the same dynamic as our whole caucus,” said Jim Matheson , D-Utah, who is part of a team working the phones for Dingell, D-Mich.”
In particular, if your member is in the Congressional Black Caucus or the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, both of which are supporting Dingell, ask them if they want their constituents to breathe clean air in the future.
Dave is a writer, comedian and TV/film editor based in Santa Monica. He is an elected member of the Democratic State Central Committee from the 41st Assembly District. He blogs on state and national politics at http://d-day.blogspot.com/
Comments
Posted by: shanker at November 28, 2008 09:05 AM
hi
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Parker
Posted by: parker15 at December 9, 2008 09:15 PM
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