Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives by Robert Draper
Authors: Robert Draper
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now extended into traditionally Republican districts. And yet the number of voters who identified as Democrats had barely grown at all during the same time frame. History and the odds were sure to catch up to them in 2010.
“Look at the person to your left, and then to your right,” Greenberg intoned. “One of them is likely to be gone after 2010.”
To many of the members, Greenberg’s numbers amounted to astrong argument for going slow and sticking with the mainstream. But this was not the Speaker’s way. She was just getting started.
No one in the House knew how to get to 218 votes better than Nancy Pelosi. As the House Democrats’ leader and as their preeminent fund-raiser, she doled out both money and committee assignments, and she was not the least bit shy about reminding recipients of her largesse whenever she needed a vote. But she also possessed an acute understanding of the Noah’s Ark that was the House Democratic caucus.
The progressives uniformly disliked the fiscally conservative Blue Dog coalition. “I’m tired of bending over for you Blue Dogs!” John Tierney of Massachusetts had snapped at Oklahoman Dan Boren during one caucus. Another liberal, Pete Stark of California, had referred to them as “brain dead,” while Henry Waxman mused to a reporter that the loss of a few Blue Dogs might purify the caucus. (At Pelosi’s behest, he placed a call to an enraged Allen Boyd and assured the Florida Blue Dog that his words had been taken out of context.)
Then there was Sanford Bishop of Georgia, a Blue Dog but also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which had brawled with the Blue Dogs over welfare reform in the mid-1990s. The CBC was thoroughly progressive, but with particular causes—such as the Pigford discrimination lawsuit, brought by black farmers—in which the rest of the Democratic caucus had little investment. Their insistence on standing by William Jefferson of Louisiana (after federal authorities found $90,000 in his freezer) and Charles Rangel (after the Ways and Means chairman failed to declare to the IRS some property that he owned in the Dominican Republican) gave the House Democrats, and their leader, considerable heartburn.
In short, the House Democrats were cursed by diversity. The devoutly Catholic Speaker at times sought to unify them by reminding them of Jesus Christ’s admonition to his disciples during the Last Supper: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
If necessary, Nancy Pelosi would wash her disciples’ feet—at least until she got to 218.
Never was her relentlessness more apparent than on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. Pelosi viewed energy as “my signature issue.”Her highest-end donors were ardent environmentalists; she had promised them that the Democrats would address climate change, and she aimed to deliver. Shortly after assuming the Speakership in January 2007, Pelosi paid a visit to the Bush White House to discuss a bill that would promote fuel and home energy efficiency. Bush’s aides found it telling that the Speaker had not brought Energy and Commerce chairman John Dingell with her. Eyebrows were also raised when Pelosi formed a Select Committee on Global Warming and installed liberal Massachusetts congressman Ed Markey as its chairman. Dingell and his nemesis on Energy and Commerce, Henry Waxman, didn’t agree on much, but they both saw the new committee as a threat to theirs and demanded that Pelosi strip it of legislative authority.
On the latter she acquiesced. But her thumbs-on management of energy legislation irked Dingell, who one day snapped to Pelosi, “Nancy, maybe you shouldn’t be Speaker. Maybe you should be chairman of Energy and Commerce instead.”
Pelosi did the next best thing: she allowed her friend Waxman to challenge Big John’s chairmanship. When Waxman won, she and her “signature” energy bill were off to the races.
Without consulting with anyone else on her leadership team,
“Look at the person to your left, and then to your right,” Greenberg intoned. “One of them is likely to be gone after 2010.”
To many of the members, Greenberg’s numbers amounted to astrong argument for going slow and sticking with the mainstream. But this was not the Speaker’s way. She was just getting started.
No one in the House knew how to get to 218 votes better than Nancy Pelosi. As the House Democrats’ leader and as their preeminent fund-raiser, she doled out both money and committee assignments, and she was not the least bit shy about reminding recipients of her largesse whenever she needed a vote. But she also possessed an acute understanding of the Noah’s Ark that was the House Democratic caucus.
The progressives uniformly disliked the fiscally conservative Blue Dog coalition. “I’m tired of bending over for you Blue Dogs!” John Tierney of Massachusetts had snapped at Oklahoman Dan Boren during one caucus. Another liberal, Pete Stark of California, had referred to them as “brain dead,” while Henry Waxman mused to a reporter that the loss of a few Blue Dogs might purify the caucus. (At Pelosi’s behest, he placed a call to an enraged Allen Boyd and assured the Florida Blue Dog that his words had been taken out of context.)
Then there was Sanford Bishop of Georgia, a Blue Dog but also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which had brawled with the Blue Dogs over welfare reform in the mid-1990s. The CBC was thoroughly progressive, but with particular causes—such as the Pigford discrimination lawsuit, brought by black farmers—in which the rest of the Democratic caucus had little investment. Their insistence on standing by William Jefferson of Louisiana (after federal authorities found $90,000 in his freezer) and Charles Rangel (after the Ways and Means chairman failed to declare to the IRS some property that he owned in the Dominican Republican) gave the House Democrats, and their leader, considerable heartburn.
In short, the House Democrats were cursed by diversity. The devoutly Catholic Speaker at times sought to unify them by reminding them of Jesus Christ’s admonition to his disciples during the Last Supper: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
If necessary, Nancy Pelosi would wash her disciples’ feet—at least until she got to 218.
Never was her relentlessness more apparent than on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. Pelosi viewed energy as “my signature issue.”Her highest-end donors were ardent environmentalists; she had promised them that the Democrats would address climate change, and she aimed to deliver. Shortly after assuming the Speakership in January 2007, Pelosi paid a visit to the Bush White House to discuss a bill that would promote fuel and home energy efficiency. Bush’s aides found it telling that the Speaker had not brought Energy and Commerce chairman John Dingell with her. Eyebrows were also raised when Pelosi formed a Select Committee on Global Warming and installed liberal Massachusetts congressman Ed Markey as its chairman. Dingell and his nemesis on Energy and Commerce, Henry Waxman, didn’t agree on much, but they both saw the new committee as a threat to theirs and demanded that Pelosi strip it of legislative authority.
On the latter she acquiesced. But her thumbs-on management of energy legislation irked Dingell, who one day snapped to Pelosi, “Nancy, maybe you shouldn’t be Speaker. Maybe you should be chairman of Energy and Commerce instead.”
Pelosi did the next best thing: she allowed her friend Waxman to challenge Big John’s chairmanship. When Waxman won, she and her “signature” energy bill were off to the races.
Without consulting with anyone else on her leadership team,
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