New Congress, Day One: ‘We’re Going to Do Some Great Things for Americans’

by Mike Hall, Jan 5, 2007

Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined other members of Congress today at the ‘Open House for the People’s House,’ where voters got a chance to welcome the new members of Congress.

Yesterday in the halls and corridors of the U.S. Capitol, the families and friends of newly elected lawmakers were snapping pictures, trying to find the oddly numbered rooms for special receptions and events and, in the case of those there to celebrate with the new Democratic majority, giddily smiling and laughing like kids with a gift snow day.

It’s been a dozen years in the minority for Democrats. A dozen hard years, especially in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and their clones muscled through tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate giveaways, while attacking working families’ wages, pensions and unions and health care, education and other core middle-class values. They did it all with exclusive, one-sided rules that all but shut out any input and debate from Democrats.

So what did it feel like yesterday with the swearing in of new House members and the first woman, Nancy Pelosi (D- Calif.), elected to serve as speaker of the House? In a crowded, noisy hallway, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) told me:

It’s euphoric, it’s wonderful, the positive feelings, it feels like we are floating on clouds right now. We’ll get through this day then we have some business to get down to.

In her speech to the House yesterday, Pelosi said:

By electing me speaker, you have brought us closer to the ideal of equality that is America’s heritage and America’s hope….It is a moment for which we have waited over 200 years. Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights. But women weren’t just waiting; women were working. Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal. For our daughters and granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling. For our daughters and our granddaughters, the sky is the limit, anything is possible for them.

In the House, the start of that business already has begun with the start of the first 100 hours during which Pelosi and other leaders have set an agenda to raise the minimum wage, cut interest rates on student loans, take back corporate tax giveaways to oil giants and give Medicare the power to negotiate with the drug industry for lower prescription drug prices, among other top-of-the-list items.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), long-time ranking minority member of the House Education and Workforce Committee and now its new chairman, took a break to talk with me about some of the work on the committee’s to-do list this year.

After the first 100 hours blitz finishes up, I asked Miller—who today introduced a clean, no-strings-attached bill (H.R. 2) to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour—when he hoped to begin action on the Employee Free Choice Act.

The speaker said soon, so I think we will be ready to go relatively soon. We’re working with the various outside organizations and the support is coming together in just a terrific way. So we’ll be ready to go and have hearings in the committee.

Last year, one of the most high-profile issues in Congress was coal mine safety. Beginning with the 12 miners killed in the Jan. 2 Sago disaster and the continuing death toll in the mines, Miller—along with his Senate colleagues Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) and  Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.)—pushed through some of the first new mine safety rules in years. With the year’s final death toll in mines a 210 percent increase over 2005, I asked Miller if tougher mine safety laws are on the way.

Oh yes, we’re going to do that. That’s a definite. What happened here last year where the families weren’t allowed to testify and the committee refused to hold hearings…that’s unfinished business.

Along with the cutting interest rates on college loans—rates that the Bush administration and Republican—controlled Congress allowed to nearly double last year—Miller told me his committee will look at additional ways to make college more affordable for working families.

In the first 100 hours, we start with cutting interest rates. A lot has to be done in terms of accessibility of college. Families are going deeper and deeper into debt, their kids are going deeper and deeper into debt. Now for the first time, they are deciding they won’t go to college because its just too expensive and they don’t know how they are going to pay off the debt. So there’s a lot of work to be done there It’s really the heart of the middle class, people say “The one thing I should be able to do able to do to get my kids a good education.” But that’s becoming out of reach for too many families.

Miller also told me that the committee may take a look at Bush Labor Department’s 2004 overtime rules—championed by the corporate community—that took away overtime eligibility for millions of workers.

We are very concerned with the erosion of the wage base.

Shortly after Miller moved on, I had a chance for a quick hallway conversation with Electrical Worker (IBEW) and House member Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.). A co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act in the last Congress, I asked her how she thought the general public understood the issue.

There’s a whole re-education that needs to happen in this country when it comes to “class warfare.” One side is very unabashed about corporate giveaways, tax cuts for the very wealthy while simultaneously bashing unions as outdated. But the but the majority of working class Americans who understand how hard it is keep their head above water. They’ve seen their pensions going away…Seen real wages drop.

They are stating to understand that unions play a very significant role in ensuring working standards and conditions and fair wages. The more we talk about it and get the word out, the better understanding the American people are going to have about why legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act is good legislation and how that serves to protect the middle class.

Sanchez’s first four years on Congress were under the heavy hand of Republican leaders who probably would have preferred one-party-rule. Starting her third term. I asked her how it felt to be “driving the bus” for a change.

It feels very good because we were so far removed from any input and leadership decisions, we weren’t even in the wagon. We hanging off the back end, It’s nice to be in the drivers’ seat. And I think we going to do some very great things for Americans. 

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