Rep. Henry Waxman is retiring from Congress, in part, he says, because of the “extremism of the Tea Party Republicans. I am embarrassed that the greatest legislative body in the world too often operates in a partisan intellectual vacuum.” Yet the fact is that few members have contributed more to the partisanship, extremism and dysfunction of Congress than Henry Waxman in his four decades of service.
Over those years his attitude toward his political opponents has been not only that they were wrong, but that they are deserving of no respect whatsoever. That was not how Congress worked when Waxman first arrived, but in no small part thanks to him, it is the norm for Congress today.
Waxman’s first contribution to dysfunctional politics won’t be mentioned in the fawning accounts of his career in the state and national media; his involvement in the arcane world of redistricting. Waxman was elected to the California Assembly in 1968 and became chair of the redistricting committee in 1971.
Redistricting could be partisan, but at least people were honorable. Waxman was not. His main objective in the 1971 redistricting was to create a seat for his fellow Democratic and an old pal, Howard Berman. That’s fine, but in Waxman’s case he just rolled over the Republican opposition since his scheme required collapsing Republican seats. This set off a two year long redistricting war the likes of which California had never seen and out of that grew the partisan hatreds that colored life in the California legislature for decades.
Waxman went to Congress in 1974 and was soon joined by Howard Berman. For years they schemed to make sure they had safe congressional districts for themselves even though that meant denying fair representation to the growing Latino population in the San Fernando Valley. Waxman’s bleeding heart liberalism never extended to making his own political life uncomfortable.
That attitude finally caught up with Waxman and Berman in 2011 when the Citizens Redistricting Commission added a Latino seat in the Valley and gave both Waxman and Berman very bad districts. Waxman is not retiring because he is tired of Congress; he is leaving because he no longer has a sweetheart district drawn for him by his friends.
Over his decades in Congress, Waxman was well known for showing utter contempt for his political and policy opponents, never willing to admit that they may have a legitimate argument once in a while. That attitude led him to reshape the investigating committees which he chaired in the 1990s into star chambers, most notably when he harangued tobacco executives at a famous 1994 hearing.
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