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So over the long holiday I finally finished reading The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works, an autobiography by Rep. Henry Waxman of Los Angeles, with Joshua Green of the Atlantic magazine. Waxman, of course, was deemed "The Moustache of Justice" by Jon Stewart, and now chairs the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's really an interesting work that enlightened me on both legislative procedure, and things a member who is not a powerful full committee chairman or even in the majority can do to achieve a great deal, contrary to what many of us were taught.
I recall after Democrats took back the House in 2006, many Republicans (18 in all) started retiring. The prevailing opinion was that they did not see a point of being in the minority, especially after many of them, like Sherwood Boehlert of New York, were full committee or Appropriations subcommittee chairmen. Waxman's experience actually runs counter to that opinion. After Republican Dan Burton took over the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 1997 and refused to hold hearings on really anything except any minor Clinton affair, Waxman and his staff started investigating the rising prices of prescription drugs on uninsured seniors. They authored reports (hence The Waxman Report) demonstrating outrageous prices in certain districts, especially those near the foreign border where seniors went to Canada. It generated a lot of momentum on the issue, which led to Clinton including it in the 1999 State of the Union, and helped start the movement to create a Medicare prescription drug benefit just a few years later. It was a simple effort that led to a massive change, all from a member of the minority. Before Republicans took over, Waxman sought legislation to overhaul laws that allowed serious pesticide content into food and drink (known as the Delaney Clause). After they won, rather than give up on the issue and retire after 20 years in Congress, many as a subcommittee chairman, Waxman convened secret meetings with key players on the bill, seeking to avoid press that would cause a ton of lobbyist/interest group pressure. He found a silver bullet that became the Food Quality Protection Act, which created a requirement that foods carry a one-in-a-million chance of causing an illness like cancer- something that there was a ton of public pressure on at the time (obviously people didn't like getting cancer from their food). It was owed, Waxman wrote, partly to a strong relationship with one member- the chairman, Tom Bliley- as well as tactics- secret meetings at which everyone was empowered to make decisions, and a lot of momentum generated by previous hearings and other work before the Republicans took over.
He also did a great deal as a subcommittee chairman using interesting tactics. An interesting story- Waxman used to chair the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment. His staffer received a phone call from a constituent whose son suffered from Tourette's Syndrome, which at the time had no treatment available in the United States. It was an unknown issue that he and allies cleverly worked up into a frenzy, with a little luck. It of course started with a hearing with the son testifying. The LA Times covered it because the boy was a constituent, the article for which was read by Hollywood producer for the hit television drama Quincy M.E., who made an episode raising awareness on the topic. That generated tons of calls and letters on the issue, including from people who suffered from extremely rare disorders. That led to an invitation to Jack Klugman, the Quincy M.E. TV star himself, to testify (at the time, few Hollywood stars went to Capitol Hill to do so), which generated a packed hearing room and a front page story with the NYTimes. Now there was momentum. The problem was one of numbers- only 9,000 people suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease, for example. Not enough for the pharmaceuticals to spend a lot of money creating, testing, and marketing a drug; not enough for the FDA to meet its standards for drug trials to even get a drug approved. The bill was written to allow limited collaboration around trials between the pharmaceutical company and the FDA, as well as (eventually) a 50% tax credit and 50% tax deduction for companies willing to create drugs to treat the illnesses. After Sens. Hatch and Dole held up the bill, Waxman convinced the show producer to write another episode, this time featuring a heartless Senator holding up the bill, with 500 extras with rare diseases outside his office rallying for the bill, which caused another outpouring of public pressure and the Republicans relenting. The eventual Orphan Drug Act led to development of drugs like AZT, one of the earliest effective treatments for HIV/AIDS.
Another story, this time in efforts to defeat a bill rather than pass it. During debate over the 1981-82 renewal of the Clean Air Act, while chairing the same subcommittee and facing the legendary John Dingell of Michigan (whom he would later beat in a close vote for full E&C Chairman this year), he was faced with Dingell seeking to rewrite and gut the Clean Air Act, allied by a newly elected President Reagan. Rather than get steamrolled, Waxman held a subcommittee hearing and brought in respected pollster Lou Harris of the Harris poll, who told his subcommittee hearing, "clean air happens to be one of the sacred cows of the American people." That made everyone in Congress a tad nervous about backing Dingell's bill. Then he introduced nearly sixty amendments designed to weaken the bill against pressure, each of which were defeated, usually by a 12-8 vote (all the Republicans and Dingell plus two Midwestern Dems). Then he insisted on tactics to slow things to a crawl, like reading the bill aloud. Then, after it passed 13-7 out of his committee and beyond his tighter control, he invoked the "Five-Minute Rule" on the floor of the House, in which unanimous consent was required to allow committees to meet. Waxman would show up, object, then go to the full E&C mtg chaired by Dingell and introduce a point of order that they didn't have consent to meet (this rule was later repealed by the new 1995 Republican majority, it is said because of fear of the minority using Waxman's tactics). Then he and a coalition of Democrats and Republicans introduced amendments designed to break apart the industry coalition on the bill, causing one key player backing the bill to withdraw its support and the whole thing unraveled successfully.
Anyway, I found the entire book fascinating, especially for those interested in legislative procedure and tactics.
What are you reading?
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