Redstate

Well, in her opinion. And isn't that the only one that'd be relevant for the Democrats, anyway?

By Moe Lane Posted in Congress — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Hey, remember when Speaker Nancy Pelosi was going to take hold of the House and - along with Senator Harry Reid - break President Bush and Congressional Republicans to their will?

Oh, stop laughing; it's only hysterical in retrospect. At the time, we were all worried.

Anyway, thanks to her curious inability to change the behavior of individuals with functioning spines, Speaker Pelosi has apparently decided to concentrate on micromanaging senior House Democrats. Whether they like it, or not. From Roll Call (subscription required):

Pelosi Trumps Chairs
Jennifer Yachnin
November 5, 2007

After more than a decade in the wilderness of the minority, senior Democrats who reclaimed the chairmanships of powerful House committees in January are finding those gavels just aren't what they used to be.

Instead, chairmen and senior Democrats acknowledge, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — and to a lesser extent Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and other Democratic leaders — regularly have inserted themselves into legislative minutiae, often to push thematic messages important to the Democratic Caucus or to ensure protections for endangered Members, occasionally at the expense of committee priorities.

Permit me to translate: Nancy has looked upon what has floated to the top of the Democratic half of Congress, blanched, and is now trying to keep them from mucking up the 2008 election. And I wish her joy of the attempt.

Read on.

Enjoy some more of the imposition of objective reality onto the Democrats' situation:

"It's causing frustration because, unfortunately, the [Members from] marginal districts and the endangered ones, the freshmen, have some degree of veto power over things," said one senior Democratic lawmaker, who asked not to be identified in order to more freely critique leadership. "We've been waiting a long time and this is our chance."

In particular, the lawmaker cited changes made to the children's health insurance legislation — such as the removal of language to include the children of legal [I think this should have been "illegal" - ed.] immigrants, although House leaders have asserted that measure was removed to appease Senate lawmakers who would not agree to it — and asserted that opposition to the Iraq War has not been as aggressive as some liberal Members would like.

I possibly shouldn't be quite so rude: Speaker Pelosi has a hard row to hoe (even if she's largely got only herself to blame for the problem in the first place). There are the Old Congressmen, who are both secure in their seats and skilled in massaging the system; and there are the New Congressmen, who are uncomfortably aware of the fact that the same tide that gave them their seats in 2006 can take them away in 2008. The Speaker needs both to stick around if she wants to stay Speaker.

The problem here is that the Old Congressmen are generally speaking more "progressive" than the New Congressmen - the former have much safer seats than the latter - and far too many of them (from the Democrats' perspective) were quietly fuming over all those lovely committee chairs that the awful Newt Gingrich took from them over a decade ago. There's half of the famous Congressional 2007 gridlock right there (the other half being the GOP's disinclination to roll over and play dead); a lot of the chairs have a well-nursed grudge to cherish, and they know that these newfangled "blogs" are going to cheer them on if they act ornery, so why not go hardball?

Well, one reason why is that while gridlock can be marketed to Republican voters as being positive in its own right ("Hey! We stopped them from spending more of your money, didn't we?"), Democratic voters tend to be a little more jaundiced* about the idea. The New Congressmen need wins - or pork - if they want to go back and bask in that lovely incumbent glow. That also means compromise, which means "the Democrats give in**."

Yeah, you're not the only one to see how that's going to play with the enthusiasts. Thus, the micromanaging - and, hey! The article suggests that maybe term limits won't be tossed with the 111th Congress. This will tick off the liberal wing of the Democratic Party - which doesn't actually matter, of course, but even if it did the Speaker would probably still be doing it this way.

You know. Reality-based thinking, and all that.

Moe

*I make no statement here about whether gridlock is actually a positive state of existence or not. Just noting the stereotypes.

**Sorry, it just does. Yes, I'm sure that you think that this is so totally not fair... wait a second. Are you crying? There's no crying in politics!