New roles mean more power for Waxman, Kuehl and Brownley
Spurred by Democratic victories in the November election, the elected leaders representing Pacific Palisades began this year with big ideas to transform state and federal policymaking’and key leadership positions to realize them. A Democratic takeover of the House this January means chairmanship of the powerful Oversight and Government Reform Committee for longtime Westside Congressman Henry Waxman. The party’s gains in state politics and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reinvention as a moderate have meant greater positions of influence for State Senator Sheila Kuehl and recently elected Assemblymember Julia Brownley, both Santa Monica residents. Waxman has represented West L.A., including the Palisades, since 1972. His influence on policy took a hit when the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994. But a Democratic resurgence last November coupled with his work to fortify a weakened committee has made him one of the nation’s most powerful Democratic legislators. The committee that Waxman now chairs is officially charged with overseeing nearly every branch of the federal government, including the presidency. When Republicans chaired the committee during the Clinton Administration, they spent more than 10 days in hearings on the use of the White House Christmas card list. In an interview with the Palisadian-Post in his Westside office in October, Waxman said that if were elected chair, he would be no less zealous when he investigates the ‘waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayers’ dollars’ by the Bush administration. Now, armed with subpoena power and a larger staff of full-time investigators, Waxman could be a nightmare for the administration, political analysts say. A Time article in late November was probably only half joking when it dubbed him ‘the scariest guy in Washington.’ He announced last week that he would begin to hold hearings beginning on February 5, and it is expected that he’ll investigate the Administration’s awarding of no-bid contracts to civilian contractors like Halliburton in Iraq, Afghanistan and post-Katrina New Orleans. While Waxman’s has become a ‘lightning rod’ for conservative criticism, the congressman is also under pressure within his own party. ‘I’m very excited about him heading the Government Reform Committee because he has a background of conducting very thorough investigations,’ said Marcy Winograd, a Palisades resident and president of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, who ran unsuccessfully against Congresswoman Jane Harman in last year’s primary. ‘At the same time, however, I and other peace activists want him to vote to stop the funding for the Iraq war, and at this point he said he can’t pledge that he’ll do that.’ Winograd and other anti-war activists marched outside Waxman’s office in December, calling on him to oppose any ‘surge’ in U.S. troop levels to Iraq. She also wants Waxman to subpoena President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the use of faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq War. State Senator Sheila Kuehl’s recent election to the chair of the Health Committee places her at the forefront of California’s healthcare debate. She has represented eastern Ventura County and western Los Angeles County, including the Palisades, in the Senate and the Assembly since 2000. During that period, the senator has sought to revolutionize state healthcare. Healthcare costs in California exceed almost every other state and nearly one in five residents lack insurance. Last year, Kuehl’s bill SB 840 sought to replace private health insurance in California with a single, government-managed insurance fund. The bill promised to guarantee access to affordable healthcare to all California residents by cutting high administrative costs and using the state’s purchasing power to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies. Both houses of the state legislature approved the bill, but Schwarzenegger vetoed it in September, citing the high costs of creating a ‘new bureaucracy.’ Since his reelection in November, the governor has aggressively touted his intent to extend health insurance to millions of the state’s uninsured. And many political observers credit the success of Kuehl’s bill in the legislature with motivating the governor’s vocal embrace of healthcare reform this week. Kuehl plans to use her new position as Health Committee chair to shape any future healthcare plan. There are currently three other competing healthcare plans proposed by Schwarzenegger, State Senate Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles). ‘The governor wants everyone to buy into insurance whether they’re working or not,’ Kuehl told the Post by telephone on Tuesday. ‘The two Democrats want to work toward establishing that working people have insurance. My job is to bring together these plans and make them work for California. We can’t have a barebones plan with $5,000 deductibles. ‘I will continue to develop the single-payer plan that I wrote because it’s the only universal plan,’ Kuehl said. Assemblymember Julia Brownley’s new position as chair of the Education Finance sub-committee will help her to fulfill her campaign promise of increasing public education funding, she said. The former president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District was first elected to the Assembly in November. Brownley’s committee exams the fiscal impact of all state law on all public education, including the Cal State and UC systems. Few pieces of legislation come from the committee, but it does help to direct the priority of education spending. ‘My job is to articulate what the Assembly’s fiscal priorities are for education,’ Brownley told the Post on Monday. ‘My priority is for the schools with the greatest need to receive the most financial support. I also want to have a razor-sharp focus on closing the achievement gap.’ The governor presented his budget proposal for the 2007-2008 fiscal year on Wednesday, and Brownley said that she and her staff will ‘rip that budget apart to understand every nuance of that budget.’ —————– Reporting by Staff Writer Max Taves. To contact, e-mail: reporter@palipost.com
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
