Sunday, October 14, 2007

The LaFollette School of Public Affairs and the WI Book Festival brought Congressman Dave Obey (D-WI 7^th) to the Memorial Union this evening for a book reading and Q&A session. Rep. Obey, is Chair of the House Appropriations Committee and also sits on the Budget Committee and Joint Economic Committee. Despite his 38 years in the US Congress, he still seems like your neighborly Wisconsinite, caring deeply about the people in his district and Wisconsin’s progressive values.

A chronology of the evening, with little commentary from myself (this man is funny enough and pointed enough without me pointing out his points):

Before the official seminar starts, Rep. Obey is asked by Prof. Bob Haveman of the LaFollette School if he enjoys his chair-ship. “I can’t say that I enjoy it… [but] it is less frustrating” than not being the chair, he replied.

Prof. Haveman introduces Rep. Obey: a floor-covering worker, papermill laborer, student at UW, graduate student for 3 years, harmonica player, member of WI Assembly, author, and the longest-serving US Representative in WI history. The mood is jovial; as Obey prepares to begin – “let me get organized” – Prof Haveman (a man of experienced years) shoots back “That’d be the first time.” And apparently Rep. Obey is a Packers fan who thinks of Congress as a “puzzle factory.”

Author of Raising Hell for Justice, Obey never thought of writing a book until former WI Governor Tommy Thompson laid claim to the LaFollette progressive tradition in his book. “Like hell!” was Obey’s response to that affront, and the book was born on a pontoon boat in Lake Pulaski with a beer in hand.

Rep. Obey read several sections of his book, including the Prologue. There are two signs in his Washington office that he asks any group that is asking him for something to read:

1. “If what you want costs money, are you willing to go home and tell your friends that we need to cut back on the size of the president’s tax cuts so there is room for it in the budget?”
2. “Is there anything you want me to do for somebody else that is more important than whatever it is you want me to do for you?”
   

He also reminisced about some of his memories at the Memorial Union, way back when he led the Students for Humphrey organization (when Humphrey was running against JFK). Jackie Robinson came to endorse Humphrey, and when the press asked him what would he do if Humphrey lost the primary, he said “I’ll vote for Nixon!” As true today as it was back then – “nobody in politics likes to be surprised.”

When asked about the “policy window” post-2006 midterm election, Rep. Obey explained that the Democrats had to first complete what the Republican Congress had left unfinished. There had been no domestic appropriation bills until then, just continuing resolution after continuing resolution. Now, after finally being able to distribute $17 billion to high-priority budget items including veteran’s healthcare, education and Pell Grants, medical research, energy conservation, local law enforcement, etc., Obey says that once we get enough pressure on Republican Senators (we have 4, we need 6 more to reach the 60 votes needed to end debate in the Senate), the Democrats will finally be able to have “realist instead of ethereal control” of Congress. And get more done.

Peter Rickman, Madison/campus-area leader in John Edwards’s camp, commended the Representative for endorsing former Senator Edwards. Edwards, Rep. Obey believes, “has the greatest capacity to win by the largest margin,” bringing with him more seats in the House and Senate. “I agree with issues that Edwards keeps front and center…. I’m not into incrementalism.”

The erosion of funding for energy research since Carter is “almost criminal.” I’m sure Nobel laureate Al Gore would agree with you there, Obey.

President Bush is a “hypocrite.” The President can’t cut taxes in wartime and then criticize Congress for trying to fund domestic programs, laments Obey. (This man is a straight-talker, not afraid of speaking his mind.) “Nobody in this society is sacrificing in this war except military families.” Recently, as Chair of the Appropriations Committee, Rep. Obey has promised that no bill for funding for the Iraq War will leave his committee without a timeline.

Campaign Finance Reform: “The need for money in politics is pushing both parties to the right, towards corporate sectors.” Obey briefly outlined a dramatically new campaign finance reform plan he supports that will essentially eliminate all private money in the general election, and he’ll sponsor a constitutional amendment if he has to get around the Supreme Court rulings that “equate money with speech.” “Campaigns aren’t financed by immaculate conception… [or] the tooth fairy.”

The most fundamental change in politics during his tenure in Congress: LBJ’s support of voting rights for minorities. Which led to the complete disintegration of the traditional Southern Democrats and thus a nationwide shakeup of both parties.

"Gerry Ford" is the best President he has worked with.

After 9/11, “we had the world with us. We could have done anything. [Bush] threw it all away.”

Trying to add money to homeland security after the anthrax scare convinced Rep. Obey that President Bush “just doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.” “He [Bush] is our biggest national security risk.” Obey told a story of how he and other Congressmen, including good ol’ Ted Stevens (Republican Senator from Alaska and at that time President Pro Tempore), approached President Bush in the White House asking for additional funding for the CDC, NSA, CIA, FBI, etc etc. “Some of you want to spend more on Homeland Security than I do. If you appropriate even $1 more, I’ll veto it,” said President Bush. Obey retorted in that meeting that the younger President Bush was the first President he had worked with whose “mind has been closed before the subject is even open.” I wonder how many people know that President Bush had a press conference about “the great things that Customs was doing about port security but then pocket vetoed the money to do it.”

In response to a question about SCHIP expansion: “He [Bush] lets ideology turn into political theology.” “Ayn Rand dominates Washington nowadays.”

“Jimmy Carter was the smartest person I ever met in the White House… but he had the soul of a …fuss-budget engineer.”

“If Reagan was taking on new material, he made Daffy Duck look good.”

“Clinton hugely underestimated how much the Right Wing was out to get him.”

Newt Gingrich and Dennis Hastert “destroyed the committee system.” Newt because “he was so hell-bent on getting things done” that he lost the careful thought and analysis that comes with committees. And Hastert “destroyed Congress’s ability to analyze before it acted.”

“Politics is supposed to be 2 independent branches of government – not 2 institutionalized parties.”

Labels: Congress