Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) is about as able a legislator as exists in the current goat rodeo cum Democratic Congress, so if Waxman wrote a book explaining how Congress really works, it would be worth taking a look at.
And so it is that Waxman has just released The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works, co-authored with The Atlantic’s Joshua Green. But the book has a serious truth-in-advertising problem: Explaining the behind-the-scenes machinations of Congress is far from the central purpose of the book. Indeed, Waxman is quite explicit about his true goal in writing it.
“Sadly, the view of government as a positive force that serves its people has all but vanished since I first ran for office,” he writes. “Today, disdain for government is so strong that it has given rise to the idea that Congress in particular cannot do much of anything right. This cynical outlook has been nurtured by a thirty-year-long crusade led by ideological conservatives to turn the American people against their elected officials by continually disparaging them and all that they do.” Waxman continues: “I wrote this book to explain how Congress really works and to give an idea of the many accomplishments that are routinely overlooked, misunderstood, or drowned out by partisan attacks.”
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Waxman might as well replace the phrase “ideological conservatives” with “the bogeyman,” as it would make that statement just about as honest. A belief in limited government — which characterizes most conservatives — does not de facto make someone opposed to government. But what’s most offensive is that Waxman is busy looking under the bed for ideological conservatives when the real reason for Congress’s 18 percent approval rating is staring at him in the mirror. Waxman has been in Congress for 35 years, and yet he doesn’t seriously acknowledge that during that time he and his colleagues might have done any number of things to earn contempt for the institution they control; or that the size and invasiveness of the government has expanded exponentially since Waxman was elected, and that this might not meet with the warm approval of taxpayers.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is the beginning, which recounts Waxman’s childhood growing up Jewish in Los Angeles, on through his involvement in radical student politics in the Sixties, and eventually his elections to the California assembly and the U.S. Congress. This section of the book is all too brief, but Waxman provides some pretty interesting insights into the Democratic party’s leftward shift in the Sixties, as well as a startling portrait of the bipartisan political corruption in Sacramento in that era.
But reading between the lines, one can see in the book a demonstration that Waxman is a merciless partisan with enormous ideological blind spots. After spending the introduction explaining how his book will be a paean to all the good that government does, he begins the first chapter by explaining how his politics were greatly influenced by his parents, ardent New Dealers. “[My father’s] view of government, which he imparted to me, was unremittingly positive,” Waxman writes. “He believed it was a tremendous force for good and could still do more, often reminding me how much Roosevelt had done to help families like ours survive the hard times.” But on the very next page, Waxman makes a passing reference to the internment of Japanese-Americans in California during World War II, “many of them our neighbors.” Boy, that executive order of Roosevelt’s sure did a lot of good for those families in Waxman’s neighborhood. Waxman does refer to the internment as an “outrage,” but you’d think such an action by a politician he otherwise reveres might temper his “unremittingly positive” view of government.
Waxman is a rare bird in Congress: both an unusually effective legislator and an unusually provocative partisan who constantly angers the opposing party. This is largely due to the fact that Waxman has never faced any serious electoral challenge. In 1974 he ran in a newly created congressional district — one that he'd had a hand in drawing, in the redistricting process in the California Assembly — so he was elected from an exceptionally liberal section of Los Angeles without having to run against an incumbent. It’s been one of the safest seats in the country ever since. Consequently, as Waxman explains, he has been able to focus on raising money for Democratic colleagues, who then owe him plenty of favors.
After recounting his upbringing and pre-Congress career, Waxman spends the rest of the book highlighting a number of legislative accomplishments he’s been involved in, and then discussing the role of congressional oversight. Almost all of the legislative achievements Waxman highlights are fairly popular, ranging from AIDS funding to the Clean Air Act. There are no earth-shattering revelations in Waxman’s account of how these particular sausages were made. To save time, I’ll summarize the chapter on the Clean Air Act for you: Reagan is the devil.
