[Nancy] Pelosi was asked what was most important about regaining majority status. "Subpoena power," she said.
Everything turns on that. Congressional oversight is nothing without the power of the subpoena. We all know that. With the Congressional Committee chairmanships soon to be in their hands, the universe for the country - in fact, for the whole world - will change.
A pre-election article in The Nation by William Greider, Pelosi's Moment, covers so much of what the universe apparently will soon be. Greider did not mention the possibility that the Senate would also have Democratic leadership. So whatever he wrote about Pelosi of course applies equally well to Harry Reid. More below the fold...
Perhaps most significant among the changes if the Democrats take over is that the new Democratic committee chairs would be able to launch myriad hearings and investigations--the oversight Republicans have virtually shut down. That includes contracting scandals and governing breakdowns in the executive branch, constitutional abuses by this President and the gaping holes in America's system of elections. The House could become center stage for the war debate, with Bush's lieutenants under oath required to answer their critics. Oversight is one of the core functions of Congress. Because Republicans have willfully shunned it, oversight hearings have the potential to expose scandal and produce shocking headlines. Pelosi was asked what was most important about regaining majority status. "Subpoena power," she said.
Refusal to use that subpoena power is what made the "Do-Nothing Congresses" of the past six years into rubber stamp yes-men of the Executive Branch instead of overseers of the activities of the government. We here all know that, so I am preaching to the choir.
But when the investigations actually DO begin, things will come out that will make our hair curl. Watergate was that way. For the younger audience that maybe isn't aware of the flow of all things Watergate in 1973 and 1974, NO ONE thought through most of that period that anything major was going to happen to Richard M Nixon. He'd just won a landslide re-election, and he seemed completely untouchable. The Watergate hearings could have gone in his favor - until things started coming out. In June 1973, Nixon's legal counsel John Dean, under oath, told of Nixon's direct involvement in the coverup. The next month Alexander Butterfield exposed the existence of the White House tapes.
Would those revelations have come out if Congress had not used the power of the subpoena? Almost certainly not.
The power to investigate has the potential to create the biggest waves in public opinion. Representative John Conyers promises, if he becomes chair of the Judiciary Committee, to initiate a preliminary inquiry into George W. Bush's constitutional abuses. Representative Henry Waxman of the Government Reform Committee is "stunned" by the contracting waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq reconstruction, homeland security and the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
If Senator Waxman was stunned, what will be the public reaction when they hear the same facts? It has long been clear that Rep. Conyers thinks Bush has, in fact, abused the Constitution. His one hearing on the alleged abuses was relegated to a cramped basement room. When the hearings are back upstairs where they belong, what will be the result? When the White House personnel are compelled by the subpoena to answer fully and truthfully (as opposed to the non-sworn testimony allowed by the GOP chairmen), what will Alberto Gonzales and lessers reveal, when faced with the potential of contempt and perjury charges? How many will simply claim the 5th? And what will be the public reaction? How much will support for Bush fall?
So many GOP Congressmen in 1974 didn't want to vote against Nixon - but in the end almost all did. Will we see a repeat of that? Or will it be even worse for Bush?
Representative John Dingell of Energy and Commerce--the investigative master who taught a generation of younger Democrats how to do effective oversight--may look into the oil industry's pricing and profit-making. Representative Ed Markey, who would chair the subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, would take on the FCC's lax supervision of the industry's forming of monopolies, including corporate dominion and attempts to seize control of the Internet.
All of these need addressing, and the opportunity is there. Little mention was made in the article about the potential of more aggressive investigation of the Jack Abramoff case, or the Valerie Plame case, or of the Abu Ghraib case. There are so many, many things to be looked into, and the question must be asked, Will they be able to address them all?
Even if such efforts succeed, they are only a prelude to big change. Reversing the party's decades of retreat and defeatism is like turning a stalled ocean liner around. It takes time and patient steps, and these might be overtaken by larger events. The Democrats have a shot, if only they find the nerve to act aggressively on their opportunity.
Let's pray Nancy and Harry have the moxie to get the ball rolling. IMHO, getting it started will be half the battle, because once begun, the avalanche will take over of its own inertia.
Give 'em hell, Harry! and Nancy, John, Patrick and John and all the rest of the chairmen...
Subpoena them into submission - and hopefully into San Quentin. Heck, if enough scum comes to the surface, let's have another Watergate or Nuremburg.