[PAA-Discuss] A must-read article from the Washington Post

[June Bennett Larsen]

Dems Need A Newt Of Their Own
The Party Can't Have a Revolution Without the Revolutionaries

By Elizabeth Wilner and Chuck Todd
Sunday, February 19, 2006; B05


Back in 1992, seven upstart Republican freshmen forced real change in the
House of Representatives.

Egged on by a more senior revolutionary, Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), these
feisty newcomers exploited the House Bank and Post Office scandals unfolding
on the watch of a longtime Democratic majority. The GOP lawmakers even posed
for a poster, a macho black-and-white group shot. "The Gang of Seven," the
caption read. "We closed the House Bank. We're changing Congress. Join the
fight."

Today, as a lobbying scandal plays out on the watch of the Republican
majority in Congress, the question is: Where is the Democrats' Gang of
Seven? Why isn't some spirited group of junior House Democrats capturing the
public's imagination and sinking its teeth into the spreading Jack Abramoff
mess? And where is the Democratic equivalent of Gingrich?

In Congress, reform often comes from the back bench. Junior members have the
least to lose and the shortest -- and thus usually the cleanest -- records.
These unlikely agents of change are often change's biggest beneficiaries.
Five of the members of the Gang of Seven still serve in Congress. One, John
Boehner (Ohio), just became the House majority leader; one, Sen. Rick
Santorum (Pa.), could conceivably become the Senate majority leader
(provided he gets reelected); and one, Rep. Jim Nussle, may win election as
governor of the swing state of Iowa.

And yet, after languishing in the minority for more than a decade, the
Democrats' back bench has yet to produce a Gang of Seven or an insurgent
leader such as Gingrich, who inspired dozens of GOP House candidates in
1994. Most of the Democrats elected since the Republicans took over in 1994
simply replaced other Democrats. Moreover, none was really elected on a
message of bringing "change" to Congress.

The absence of a Democratic Gang of Seven is even more glaring given that
there hasn't been much new blood flowing into the House leadership. Not a
single ranking member (i.e., the top member of the minority party) on 21
House committees came to office after the Republicans took control. And in
only five instances has a GOP committee chair been in Congress longer than
his Democratic ranking-member counterpart.

Even in the majority, Republicans are better about promoting new members.
Although Gingrich is gone, one part of his legacy remains: six-year term
limits on committee chairmanships. As a result, Republican members,
including reformers, climb higher, faster. But Democrats continue to take a
top-down approach to ordering their ranks in Congress. Old-timers -- and in
many cases, old-time liberals -- still lead the party's charge in many
fights. Look at the roster of Democratic ranking members; the only
relatively recent arrival (1994) is Bennie Thompson of Mississippi on the
Homeland Security Committee, which is a new panel.

If Democrats were to gain control of Congress this November and made no
changes to their current lineup, nine of their new committee chairs would be
members who won their first elections before 1980: David Obey (1969), Ike
Skelton (1976), George Miller (1974), John Dingell (1955), Henry Waxman
(1974), John Conyers (1964), Nick Rahall (1976), James Oberstar (1974) and
Charlie Rangel (1970). These folks would oversee major committees. Faces of
change they are not.

House Democrats have been slow to promote younger members of their ranks in
part because of the lessons that current Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
(Calif.) learned at the knees of skilled machine politicians, including
California's Phil Burton and her father, Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., who rose
through the Democratic ranks in Baltimore. Machine politicians are reared on
a seniority-based, pay-your-dues regimen.

This style of leadership, which Pelosi also inherited from Democratic
predecessors such as former House majority leader Dick Gephardt (Mo.) and
former House speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill (Mass.), punishes those who
speak out too much and can have the effect of suppressing young firebrands.

Pelosi recently told reporters that she does seek to promote younger
members, noting the "major role" some of them played in quashing President
Bush's proposed overhaul of Social Security. However, it's hard to give any
young rank-and-filers credit for that when there was a multimillion-dollar
partywide effort to rally grass-roots outrage.

Back in the early 1990s, Gingrich and the Gang of Seven did not only attack
Democrats; those insurgents also stormed their own party's ramparts and took
on the GOP's moderate leaders and senior members. Not so with younger
Democratic members today. Because Washington has become more partisan, there
is tremendous pressure on Democratic members to fall in behind a unified
party message. Republican party leaders and Bush administration officials
are quick to point out dissent within the Democratic ranks and cast it as a
sign of weakness.

The longer they linger in the minority, the more desperate Democrats are to
grab hold of an issue they might ride to majority status. The Abramoff
scandal, in the hands of the party's Hill leadership and national committee
strategists, went straight from spark to media wildfire with no time to do
the kind of slow burn among a small group of reform-minded members that the
bank and post office scandals offered the Gang of Seven.

The overlooked part of the 1994 revolution is that this landmark in our
modern political landscape took time. There were GOP rumblings in the 1990
budget wars, followed by the 1990 election of some dynamic Republican
freshmen. A message of change doesn't bring success overnight; it takes
cultivation and cajoling, badgering and bludgeoning and a joyfully
rebellious spirit that House Democrats appear to sorely lack.

Elizabeth.Wilner at nbcuni.com

ctodd at nationaljournal.com


Chuck Todd is editor in chief of the Hotline. Elizabeth Wilner is political
director of NBC News.


© 2006 The Washington Post Company

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