In Sunday's NYT magazine Peter Baker has a long profile of Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia and how he's giving up on Congress because it's just too partisan. An example:
The way Davis sees it, the system has become dysfunctional. Bush has so destroyed the party's public standing and Congress has become so infected with a win-at-all-costs mentality that there is no point in staying. ... This might be dismissed if it came from a fringe player on Capitol Hill, but for years Davis was one of the rising stars, a quintessential inside player who as part of the leadership managed to steer his party to election victories in even-numbered years while working with Democrats on legislation in odd-numbered years. He ran the House Republican campaign committee for two elections and later bypassed more senior congressmen to become chairman of the House Government Reform Committee until his party lost control of Congress.
Hmm. The article refers to the 1990s as a time when legislators actually did work together. While that is certainly an arguable claim, the reader should remember that the 1990s ended eight years ago, and the early 2000s -- and Tom DeLay's autocratic leadership -- immediately preceded this story. In that time, Davis, as a member of the Republican leadership, was one of the people who made Congress more dysfunctional!
It was this Tom Davis who, as the Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. removed the word "oversight" from its title, and then didn't do any oversight as the Bush administration went on to pursue a whole variety of illegal and unethical activities. It was this Davis who in his four years as NRCC chairman helped put the funding from the K Street Project to work. It was this Davis who issued the subpoena that prevented Terri Schiavo's family from dealing with their tragic situation privately. It was this Davis, for all his talk of bipartisan work, who supported the status quo that kept Democrats from contributing to the legislative process throughout the DeLay years.
True, Davis has had good moments, including his support for a D.C. voting rights bill. He may be right that Washington has gotten too partisan. But he helped make it that way. And now this congressman who's lost the ability to set the agenda in the majority is retiring and in the process trying to blame everyone but himself. Excuse me while I unpack my tiny violin.
--Tim Fernholz
