| The most informative book I've read in years is Tip O'Neill's memoir Man of the House, which recounts every aspect of his career from backroom deals in Boston to combating the low politics of Newt Gingrich. One chapter focuses entirely on the Watergate scandal, and how the corruption and criminality of the Nixon administration was finally opposed and ended.
In that chapter, O'Neill spends some time discussing the man who had served as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee--then considered one of the most plum assignments in Congress--during most of the Nixon administration, Emanuel Celler.
Manny Celler had been in Congress since before the 1929 stock market crash, and had witnessed history firsthand for fifty years in Washington. At the time of the 1972 Democratic Primary in his Brooklyn district, he was 84 years old and one of the most stubborn members of the Democratic caucus. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, according to O'Neill, he would have prevented a full and serious investigation into the Watergate conspiracy and most likely would have allowed Nixon to serve out his second term unobstructed. (While the House could have appointed a special committee to investigate impeachment and circumvented the Judiciary Committee, it's unlikely that then-Speaker Carl Albert would have been able to put enough pro-impeachment Democrats on it to advance the issue.)
But, as O'Neill writes, something incredibly fortunate for the nation happened that June: There's a nice irony to the fact that only three days after the Watergate burglary, Richard Nixon's downfall was almost guaranteed by a primary election in, of all places, Brooklyn. On June 20, 1972, Elizabeth Holtzman, a thirty-year-old attorney, upset Emanuel Celler for the Democratic nomination for Congress....Holtzman won by only 600 votes, but her victory had a profound effect on the country.
Elizabeth Holtzman became a member of the Judiciary Committee, but that's not why her election was so important. It was important because it knocked Manny Celler off that committee, and allowed the next-ranking Democrat, Peter Rodino, to take over. If Celler had remained as chairman, Nixon could have served out his entire second term....
Nobody could get him to move--not Sam Rayburn, not John McCormack, and certainly not Carl Albert. If the impeachment process had gone to the Judiciary Committee under Manny Celler, it would have died there.
-Man of the House, page 249
Holtzman was an unlikely candidate to take on Celler, not just because of his longevity but also because of her youth. At the time of her November election, she was just over 31 years old, making her the youngest woman to ever serve in the US House of Representatives. She was a Harvard Law graduate, but also a local political activist in New York, having founded the Brooklyn Women's Democratic Caucus and served as a state committeewoman.
Holtzman is now a prominent advocate of impeaching George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and an attorney in New York. But thirty-six years ago, she was simply a Democratic primary challenger to a member of the Old Guard, who was willing to put forth an alternative to the same sort of political foot-dragging that prevented Congress from speaking for the people and doing its job of protecting the Constitution. And if it weren't for her courage in 1972, we might never have confronted a criminal administration and proven that no person in America, no matter his or her office, is above the law.
So as OpenLeft moves forward with its "Better Democrats" ActBlue page, I hope we remember the value of a well-timed primary and the lesson of Holtzman-Celler: even a long-shot newcomer running against a powerful institution with a fifty-year record can change the course of American history. Let's not let opportunities to improve our party pass us by. |
STATE BLOGS
