Congress: Pelosi laying down the law
Posted: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 9:14 AM by Mark Murray
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Congress
Politico has perhaps the most important story of the morning about Speaker Nancy Pelosi telling incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to keep his hands out of Congress' business. "Democratic insiders say there’s no animosity between Pelosi and Emanuel, who’s leaving his post as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus to become the next White House chief of staff. But the speaker is laying down the law nonetheless. In talks with Emanuel and others, sources say, Pelosi has ‘set parameters’ for what she wants from Barack Obama and his White House staff -- no surprises, and no backdoor efforts to go around her and other Democratic leaders by cutting deals with moderate New Democrats or conservative Blue Dogs.”
”Specifically, Pelosi has told Emanuel that she wants to know when representatives of the incoming administration have any contact with her rank-and-file Democrats -- and why, sources say.”
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) has officially taken the reins on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he's got an active schedule. He "met yesterday with leaders in Pakistan and India, trying to ease tensions between the two nuclear powers over the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. He next goes to Afghanistan ... and the first stop on Kerry's itinerary, which began over the weekend, was the Republic of Georgia, the front line in Russia's more aggressive stance against the West. On Sunday, he and Obama talked about a global warming conference in Poland that Kerry attended."
Uncertainty about the total number of seats Democrats will eventually hold in the Senate also trickles down to confusion about the number of seats they will fill on each committee, where some of the biggest legislative decisions are actually made.
And Politico asks, "Where are they now?" of the Hill team that sought Bill Clinton's impeachment a decade ago. "Of the House impeachment managers -- the 13 Judiciary Committee members who prosecuted the case against Clinton 10 years ago -- only two will return to their seats in January. One is dead, one is a senator, and at least one sacrificed his career for the impeachment. Some have traded public life for the private sector or perhaps simply for privacy."
