WASHINGTON — On her first day in office, Rep. Jackie Speier criticized the Iraq war and John McCain, eliciting boos from Republicans. By her own count, three committee chairmen have chastised her for her questions during recent hearings.
And her first bill won national attention with its effort to mandate lower speed limits to save gas.
At 58, Speier, a San Mateo County Democrat who replaced the late Tom Lantos in April, is not your average new member of Congress. By speaking bluntly, rocking the boat and not shying away from controversy, she has established a higher profile in three months than some representatives manage in years.
"I'm too old to come to this institution and sit on my hands for 15 years before I make a peep," Speier said. "That's not my personality, that's not my style and that's not why I was elected by the people in my district.
"I'll make waves when I think that's necessary, but I'm also a team player," she said.
She is conferring with several members, including Republicans, on ways to restrict House members' ability to secure earmarks for pet projects — a practice she says has been abused.
Speier's sense of urgency and direct approach stems from her belief that the war, the economy and the need for government reform demand immediate attention, she said. But it may also be the result of her remarkable personal story.
Thirty years ago, Speier was a young aide accompanying Rep. Leo AdvertisementRyan of South San Francisco on a visit to Jonestown, Guyana, to investigate the People's Temple cult. As Ryan and his staff waited at an airstrip to leave the area, cult members opened fire on them.
Ryan was killed. Speier, shot five times, lay on the tarmac for 22 hours while more than 900 cult members were coerced to commit suicide by their leader, Jim Jones.
Speier recovered, ran for Ryan's seat and lost. She then launched a career in local and state politics, serving 18 years in the state Legislature. She was pregnant with her second child when her husband was killed in a car crash.
"My life experiences have helped me to be less fearful," she said last week. "In politics, that has allowed me to take on issues sooner rather than later."
Speier won a special election after Lantos died in February, and she took office in April, 29 years after she first ran. Moments after she was sworn in, she used her first speech on the House floor to urge the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq and chided McCain for suggesting, "We could be in Iraq for 100 years."
Republicans booed and hooted. Some walked out.
The congresswoman said she was surprised by the reaction: "I had no idea a new member was supposed to say, 'Thank you very much,' and sit down. I saw it as an opportunity to make a substantive speech."
Last month, Speier clashed with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and her Financial Services Committee chairman, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, during a hearing.
Speier sharply questioned Bernanke over whether he was doing enough to regulate investment banks. She conceded that she had little expertise, but said the committee should do more to avoid future bailouts like that of Bear Stearns in March.
Frank quickly jumped in: "I very much disagree with the gentlewoman's statement." He wondered if Speier had been present for the entire hearing.
"I was," she replied quickly.
It was not an isolated case. "Three chairmen in the last two weeks have told me, 'You're new. You're wrong,'" she said.
Speier worries that the lack of federal regulation of high-risk investment practices may have consequences, "and I don't think the American people will tolerate another bailout of a Bear Stearns."
As gas prices soared this summer, Speier asked people to make a sacrifice. Her bill would lower the speed limit to 60 mph (65 in rural areas) to conserve fuel, reduce demand and possibly lower prices.
"This is something that can be done right now and have an impact," she said. Speier knows the bill will go nowhere this year but has hopes for 2009.
Perhaps Speier's biggest accomplishment so far was landing a seat on the major investigative panel in the House: the Oversight on Government Reform Committee.
Under the aggressive leadership of Rep. Henry Waxman, a Los Angeles Democrat, the committee has investigated such things as military contractor scandals, the Valerie Plame spy case, health insurance and steroids in sports.
Speier's experience leading a state Senate committee investigating fraud in state government helped her get the new post.
"Oversight is as important as legislating," Speier said. "We have to make the bureaucracy — the government — work better."
Her motivation, she said, comes from voters, whose urgency matches hers: "They want change. Not a label 'change.' They want the real thing."
0 comments:
Post a Comment