The necktie, replete with Democratic donkeys, sailed toward Tom Davis, propelled in that direction by a very frustrated Henry Waxman.
“You can have your damn tie,” the then-chairman of the House Oversight Committee groused to the panel’s senior Republican. The tie had been a gift from Davis. After it landed, Davis remembers, both men cooled down and worked out “whatever it was.”
What endures with those who have tangled with Waxman, D-Calif., is the way he handles such to-the-brink-and-back moments.
“He’s never had to deal with anything as big as this,” agrees Davis, who retired from Congress this year after seven terms and counts himself a Waxman admirer. “This is what he’s lived his life for.” It’s a life propelled by intellect and a tenacity that can look a lot like obsession.
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Henry Arnold Waxman grew up over his father’s grocery store in Watts, a mostly black Los Angeles neighborhood that was home, he likes to joke, to one other Jewish kid: his sister. He attended public schools and stayed in town for college and law school at UCLA. He is married, a father of two and a grandfather of four.
Hobbies? Books on tape, Waxman said through a spokeswoman. And post-“Seinfeld,” he watches “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central.
Waxman’s life is mainly his work and his family, by all accounts not in that order. But there’s little doubt that the deepest muck of political and policy negotiations is his happy place, professionally.
He’s been up to his eyeglasses all year — on purpose.
Waxman toppled the House’s longest-serving member, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., from the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this year, upending the chamber’s seniority system and capturing one of Washington’s biggest prizes. Energy and Commerce has one of the broadest jurisdictions of any committee in Congress.
That put Waxman in charge of climate change and health care, a pair of Democratic priorities that many considered legislative missions impossible. Both have been Waxman’s pet causes his entire career. But this level of elite dealmaking requires him to put aside an avowedly liberal ideology and focus pragmatically on trading concessions for votes.
“Henry has a way of pushing from a strong position on the issue and then make the deals you need to make to pass it,” Berman said. “If he starts out with a softer position, he’ll just be pulled even more in that direction.”
Legislation to address global warming by making the use of coal more expensive was in some ways the heavier lift. It passed largely because of Waxman’s concessions to various factions — and a last-minute flurry of horse-trading by Democratic leaders. Even then, 44 Democrats defected. The bill faces a deeply uncertain future in the Senate.
