John Dingell

The winds of change are certainly blowing out of the District of Columbia these days. While the big news is our newly elected president, we also see that Henry Waxman was able to defeat John Dingell and take over as the chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. It has been from this perch that Congressman Dingell has protected the auto industry from the forces of modernity and sustainability for more than a quarter of a century. While Dingell’s defeat is good news for the environment, let’s hope it doesn’t signal the end of the auto industry. The guys running the Big 3 American auto companies are certainly not helping their own cause.  read more »

Henry Waxman’s bid to oust John Dingell from his perch atop the House Energy and Commerce Committee succeeded on Thursday, with the chamber’s Democratic caucus voting 137-122 to hand him the gavel.

The verdict will have an immediate and significant impact on energy, environmental and health care policy, all of which should loom large in Barack Obama’s first-year agenda, pushing a major power center within the House sharply to the left and into alignment with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s governing vision.

There is also fear among some House veterans, particularly members of the Congressional Black Caucus, that Waxman’s triumph – the first successful bid to depose a Democratic chairman in 23 years, and the first time it’s even been tried since 1996 – will embolden more members to challenge the seniority system that, until now, has guaranteed committee chairmanships to members with the most tenure.  read more »

The full Democratic Caucus of the U.S. House just voted and it is now official: Henry Waxman has successfully pushed John Dingell aside as chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.

This marks the first time in 23 years that a sitting Democratic chairman has been deposed. Waxman, 69, targeted Dingell because of the 82-year-old Michigander's unwillingness to pursue stringent fuel economy standards and supposed obeisance to Detroit. The incoming Obama administration's energy and climate change (and health care) agendas will flow directly through Energy and Commerce.

Known as the "Dean of the House," Dingell, 82, has held his seat since 1955 (before that, it belonged to his father for 22 years) and in three months will become the chamber's longest-serving member ever.  read more »

The first round of a rare committee chairmanship fight in the U.S. House is over, with Henry Waxman, who is seeking to grab the powerful Energy and Commerce gavel from John Dingell, winning a vote of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, 25-22.

The outcome is hardly final, and Dingell will now appeal the matter to the full Democratic caucus, which will probably vote tomorrow.  read more »

Waxman's initial victory, however, is noteworthy because the Steering and Policy Committee, which makes formal recommendations to the whole caucus on committee assignments, is packed with Speaker Nancy Pelosi's loyalists. Pelosi has been publicly neutral in the Waxman-Dingell contest, but there are

Officially, Nancy Pelosi isn’t taking sides in the heated fight between John Dingell and Henry Waxman for the chairmanship of the mighty House Energy and Commerce Committee -- a panel that will play a pivotal role in shaping energy, climate change, and health care policy during the next administration.

Don’t believe her. Pelosi’s record suggests strongly that she won’t remain neutral in a critical fight like this, and furthermore, that she’ll take the occasion to help one of Congress’ most prominent liberals topple, once and for all, an entrenched nemesis.

Democrats on Capitol Hill still remember Pelosi’s avowed neutrality in a party leadership race three years ago -- followed by her sudden, last-minute muscling on behalf of a candidate, Connecticut’s John Larson, who had been dismissed as a hopeless also-ran.  read more »

After challenger Kevin Powell attacked his Congressional record on Wednesday night, I called Representative Ed Towns to see if he wanted to respond, and he defended himself against both charges over the phone yesterday.

“I think that he might not understand how the Congress works,” Towns said of Powell. “It’s based on seniority.”

At a fund-raiser Wednesday night, Powell assailed Towns because Towns has been in office 25 years and holds no committee chairmanship. Powell also said Towns has missed about 1,000 votes.  read more »

Towns is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, whose chairman, John Dingell, has been in office for 53 years--Towns has been