Dogged Doggett and Rip Van Bush
November 22nd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
We caught up with Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) back home for Thanksgiving. On Tuesday he did an event at Escuelita del Alma Learning Center in Downtown Austin. Good to be among friends to reiterate a warning to parents about the recent avalanche of recalled products from China — including toys painted with (and sometimes made out of) lead. TexPIRG backed him up. You can get most every recall sent to you by signing up with the Consumer Products Safety Commission mailing list here.
Doggett occupies a powerful perch these days as a senior member of Ways and Means in the majority party. It’s a long way from his days as one of the targets of Tom DeLay’s redistricting axe. In 1994 he was first elected to represent the historic 10th District, which sent both Lyndon Johnson and Jake Pickle to Congress. DeLay redistricted him to the Valley thinking a Hispanic would pick him off in the primary. They didn’t count on his work ethic and intense desire to serve constituents. Doggett was first sworn in the year the GOP took over the reins of the lower house, just as Newt Gingrich became the first GOP speaker in nearly a half century. Yet he has consistently blown his opponents out of the water on election day.
We asked Doggett about something Karl Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal recently: Congress has not done its work. And these failures will have consequences. Democrats had a moment… They’ve squandered it. They have demonstrated both the inability and unwillingness to govern… their true colors are coming out and the public doesn’t like what it sees.
Doggett, not unreasonably, blamed the Senate. “I think on the House side, it’s been really productive,” he said. The lack of a 60-vote, filibuster-proof number of Democrats in the U.S. Senate has been the ultimate problem. No matter what the House manages to pass, the old guard of Senate Republicans have the last laugh. “Senate Republicans tend to block it,” Doggett said. Add to that the sudden regular use of George W. Bush’s veto pen, and the gridlock is a little more comprehensible.
“They have decided that President Bush will remain a divider and not a uniter,” he said. “He has no real interest in any bipartisan accomplishments. They’re not willing to work toward middle ground… There’s been no willingness to do that.”
Doggett noted the peculiarity of the first override of a Bush veto, which involved super-majorities of both houses overriding the veto for an appropriations bill funding water resources and water resource development. Doggett noted that he did not support all of the elements of the bill, but, he said, it did provide critical infrastructure dollars for places like Onion Creek in South Austin that flood like hell during storms.”Strange one for him to pick to veto,” Doggett said. “I call him ‘Rip Van Bush.’ He really has been inactive for almost six and a half years.”
