Unlike the new season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, House Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is not off to a great start.
First there was Jack Murtha; now there is Alcee Hastings. Exit polls from the recent congressional elections indicated corruption was the No. 1 issue for many American voters. Those same voters put the Democrats in power. Now the new House Democratic leader is in danger of losing the high ground on the issue of ethics.
Pelosi’s endorsement of Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania for House majority leader seemed to be a big f-you to all of the voters who supported Democrats hoping they would end the “Culture of Corruption” in Washington, D.C.
Forget the ABSCAM bribery scandal that happened 20 years ago – the day before the leadership election, Murtha referred to ethics reforms as “total crap.”
I don’t know where the gentleman from Pennsylvania was during the election, but he should note, as DCCC Chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois recently did, eight of the so-far 30 House seats the Democrats picked up last month were held or vacated by scandal-engulfed Republicans from Tom DeLay to Curt Weldon to Mark Foley to Don Sherwood.
The election of Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., over Murtha by a vote of 149 to 86 shows a majority of Democrats did get the message the voters sent on Nov. 7.
Congratulations to the members of the Blue Dog Coalition of moderate and conservative Democrats who helped Hoyer get the No. 2 spot.
Many analysts say this represented a test of Pelosi’s leadership, a test she failed because her candidate lost. Perhaps. But what it represents for certain is Democrats are not as homogenous as the House Republican caucus was.
They have both liberals and conservatives in their midst, and they do not blindly follow the leader.
Will Rogers, from my home state of Oklahoma, once said, “I don’t belong to any organized party. I’m a Democrat.” This is still true today and is not a bad thing.
Voting the line and crushing all opposition to party leadership is not a method of legislative government worthy of the world’s greatest democracy, and it could certainly be seen as being at the root of recent Republican problems.
It now looks as if Pelosi made the same mistake twice. She would have apparently liked to have seen Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., appointed to head the House Select Committee on Intelligence. The only problem is Hastings was acquitted of accepting a bribe and committing perjury when he was a U.S Circuit Court Judge in the 1980s. He was later impeached by the House and removed from office by the Senate. Oddly enough, Pelosi voted to impeach Hastings at the time. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., should be in line for the position Hastings is seeking, but Pelosi would like to bypass her due to political differences between the two.
Hastings has the support of the Congressional Black Caucus, and this has been cited as one of the reasons he is being considered for the top spot of the committee.
Let us hope Pelosi does not make the same mistake she already made with Murtha and in doing so does not repeat the mistake of New Jersey Gov. John Corzine.
Corzine appointed Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., to succeed him when he resigned his Senate position to assume the governorship, despite problems of corruption surrounding Menendez. One of the reasons for Menendez’s appointment was the strong support he had from groups such as the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
The result of Menendez’s appointment was an unnecessarily close race in New Jersey for the Senate, in which the Menendez’s ethics problems were brought up time and time again.
Now further investigations into the senator’s corruption problems are underway.
Luckily for Democrats – and all Americans – Harman is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, whose members have said they intend to work against a Hastings appointment.
Analysts have suggested conservative and moderate Democrats were essential to their party’s recent election victories.
If this is the case, they can flex their muscle now and help their party avoid the image of hypocrisy and the “equal of two evils.”