K-Romulus
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Mods, this may be appropriate for merging into the "Hold on Tight" thread, but there seemed to be enough in this article to start its own thread.
From today's New York Times:
Un-freaking-believable. This one article puts to truth the oft-characterization of Democrats as self-interested elitists. One article, from a leftist paper, at that.
From today's New York Times:
November 9, 2006
After Years On the Outs, New York Comes Back In
By PATRICK HEALY
The congratulatory calls kept coming to Senator Charles E. Schumer’s cellphone yesterday — mostly from grateful Democrats, but also a few from Republicans who do not normally pay homage to the giant of Brooklyn.
“The president called and said jokingly, ‘I wish you were on my team,’ ” recalled Mr. Schumer, the head of the campaign committee for Senate Democrats. “So that was nice.”
After years of being on the outs in Washington, Mr. Schumer and New York’s Congressional delegation suddenly find themselves a locus of power on Capitol Hill. And for a state with a long wish list, from money for domestic security to more jobs upstate, the ascendant Democrats in the House and Senate are well positioned to deliver hundreds of millions of new dollars to New York.
The Democratic takeover of the House is expected to elevate Charles B. Rangel to chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee — the first leader of that panel from New York City since Fernando Wood, a former mayor, from 1877 to 1881. Louise M. Slaughter is set to lead the powerful Rules Committee, and Nydia M. Velázquez would run the Small Business Committee.
“I think that’s the most clout we’ve had in the House in my lifetime,” said Jerry Skurnik, a longtime political observer in New York.
If Democrats take over the Senate, meanwhile — and even if they do not — Mr. Schumer and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will only add luster to their starriness because of Tuesday’s results. At least eight new and re-elected Democrats owe a great deal to Mr. Schumer’s fund-raising and committee efforts, and Mrs. Clinton campaigned aggressively for candidates and scored her own landslide this week.
Mr. Schumer said yesterday that the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, had already asked him to lead the Democratic campaign committee for another two years. (He said he would decide shortly.) He added that he was not pushing for any new committee assignments (he already has Finance, Banking and Judiciary), but noted that he was a newly empowered member of the party leadership in the Senate.
“Now when I say to one of my colleagues, New York needs something, or I need something, they’ll be more amenable,” Senator Schumer said.
If the Senate turns Democratic, Senator Clinton might become chairwoman of a subcommittee on Armed Services or on Environment and Public Works, though that is also contingent on the complicated musical chairs of seniority and leadership decisions.
House members will enjoy other degrees of stature.
Representative Nita M. Lowey will most likely become a “cardinal,” or head of an Appropriations subcommittee, probably dealing with foreign operations. Representative Jerrold L. Nadler’s reputation as a policy expert will be matched by new clout to win projects for Manhattan. And Representative Anthony D. Weiner, who is on good terms with the likely speaker, Nancy Pelosi, may find reasons to stay in the majority instead of running for mayor of New York City again in 2009.
“It’s not just committees — our influence within the House Democratic caucus will grow enormously,” Mr. Rangel said in an interview.
To that end, he sketched out an expansive federal agenda: Teaming up with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on gun control, passing new tax incentives for urban job programs, and redirecting federal money to New York in return for the outsize tax collections that the federal government makes here.
“Mississippi gets more than their fair share back in federal money, but who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?” Mr. Rangel said.
Mr. Schumer and other members of Congress said they could not recall another time when the New York delegation would have so much pull: Some mentioned Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s brief chairmanship of the Finance Committee, the years of Congressmen Emmanuel Celler and James J. Delaney, and the era of Robert F. Wagner.
New York Republican strategists, some of who were still grappling with Tuesday’s losses, said that Democratic braggadocio might be premature.
“Looking beyond this year’s electoral cycle and to electoral history, the American public doesn’t stomach radical change well,” said Walter Breakell, a Republican political consultant and former aide to Gov. George E. Pataki. “Hubris doesn’t trump accomplishment. If they don’t understand this, our state and our country will remain discontent.”
But in the short term, Mrs. Clinton will probably play a high-profile role as a member of the Armed Services Committee in the coming confirmation hearings for Robert M. Gates, President Bush’s new nominee to be defense secretary.
Mrs. Clinton also wants to press ahead with 9/11 health legislation that would move through another of her Senate committees, an aide to Mrs. Clinton said; the possible Democratic chairman, Edward M. Kennedy, is a strong supporter of her work.
Even the three newly elected House members from New York, who each won a Republican seat, may achieve unusual power for newcomers because House leaders will want to help them win re-election in their Republican-leaning districts.
“Even though they’re freshmen, I think they’ll have a real ability to deliver their districts,” said Blake Zeff, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party. “I haven’t seen a state that stands to benefit more from Tuesday’s results than New York.”
Mrs. Lowey estimated that tens of millions more in homeland security dollars could flow to New York if she and her allies succeed in changing a spending formula to favor areas, like the city, where assessments of terrorist threats are strong. While she said that change was by no means a sure thing, she said she felt more confident about success now than at any previous time in her 18 years in Congress.
“It always seemed before like New York was diminishing in power and numbers every term," said Representative Lowey, a Westchester Democrat. "I don’t recall New York ever having this much Democratic power, with two senators and a governor, and also a new House speaker who supports us."
Un-freaking-believable. This one article puts to truth the oft-characterization of Democrats as self-interested elitists. One article, from a leftist paper, at that.
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