What would a Democratic majority do in 2007?

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - If Democrats win the 15 seats they need to get control of the House and the five seats they need to regain the Senate, how will that change the nation’s direction?

For some Democratic activists outside Washington, the overriding need, once their party regains the majority in Congress, is for them to shift the balance of power away from a president they see as dangerously powerful.

Democratic blogger Matt Stoller said in an e-mail interview with MSNBC.com, “We have policies we’d like to see passed,” mentioning such items as an increase in the minimum wage and “a fix to the prescription drug debacle.”

But, he said, “the key issue for us is checks and balances…. Until Bush is forced to respect the law, policy talk is somewhat irrelevant. The Constitutional crisis comes first.”

With Democrats at the helm of congressional committees, the party can pursue a strategy of investigation and subpoena — forcing Bush administration officials to testify and to turn over documents relating to, for example, the National Security Agency surveillance program.

Another Democratic target is the Medicare prescription drug program, which bars the government from forcing pharmaceutical companies to give price discounts. Much of the agenda will be driven by the personalities and perogatives of the lawmakers who will chair key congressional committees. And those chairmanships are predictable, determined largely by seniority.

Contempt of Congress?
If Bush administration officials did not comply with the Democratic subpoenas, they could face contempt of Congress charges and possible imprisonment.

“We will have subpoena power, and that’s why the Republicans are so afraid that we will be able to show the public how they arrived at a (Medicare) prescription drug bill that is born of corruption,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told NBC’s Tim Russert on Meet the Press Sunday. “Investigation is the requirement of Congress. It’s about checks and balances.”

Perhaps the most relentless new committee chairman, if the Democrats win the House, will be Rep. Henry Waxman of California, who is now the senior Democrat on the Government Reform Committee, the House’s principal investigative committee.

In an interview Tuesday, Waxman said that if he takes the helm of the committee in 2007, "I would pursue a much more vigorous set of investigations (than Republicans have)…. I’d certainly consider a high priority to investigate abuse of prisoners, manipulation of intelligence that has gotten us into Iraq, I’d want to know about waste of taxpayers’ money by private contractors, whether it’s in reconstruction of Iraq, or work in the Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf region or for homeland security.”

Under Waxman, heading one of the key subcommittees — in charge of investigating national security — would be Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, whose anti-Iraq war candidacy drew small but fervent support in the Democratic presidential primaries in 2004.

Investigating Iraq war origins
Kucinich said: “We’re in a war we didn’t have to be in. There needs to be accountability about the use of executive power. People need the truth.” He said he would use his new power to “piece the veil of the illusion” of Bush administration policy in Iraq. He hopes his investigations would help build support for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Another would-be committee chairman if the Democrats win control in November is Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, who would run the Armed Services Committee. Unlike Pelosi and Kucinich, Skelton voted for the Iraq war. He has been a strong ally of the military throughout his career. If Skelton becomes committee chairman, “I’d have an oversight subcommittee. We would oversee and hopefully prevent mistakes on a strategic level, an operational level and a tactical level. We’d pay particular attention to the troops and their families.”

But Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid told reporters Tuesday that his agenda, if he is majority leader next year, is addressing “the energy crisis, health care, allowing our children to go to school – during this administration, tuition costs have gone up 40 percent… these staggering (federal budget) deficits.”

Asked about Senate investigations of Bush administration, Reid said, “I’m not heavily into investigations. That should be way down at the bottom of our agenda.”

Democratic pollster Jeremy Rosner, a former aide to President Clinton said in this year’s campaigns, Democrats must show the electorate that they have “a better way of combating the threat of jihadism. We’re unlikely to do that if we spend our time looking backward and trying to re-litigate the past."

He added, "Many of us are disturbed by the calls for investigations or even impeachment as the defining vision for our party for what we would do if we get back into office. We need to spend more time not talking about plans for impeachment or investigations, but on what we’d do to hunt down terrorists and secure the country.”

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