Waxman sees bright side to Nov: 'Difficult' Dems won't be back

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Waxman sees bright side to Nov: 'Difficult' Dems won't be back
By Russell Berman and Molly K. Hooper - 08/05/10 06:00 AM ET


Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) believes the November elections will likely weed out some of “most difficult Democrats” that leadership lawmakers have dealt with this Congress.

In an interview with The Hill, the Energy and Commerce Committee chairman expressed confidence that Democrats will retain the House, and suggested he won’t miss some of the Democrats who won’t be back next year.

“I think a lot of the House seats we’re going to lose are those who have been the toughest for the Democrats to pull into line — the Democrats that have been the most difficult,” Waxman said.

Waxman, one of the Democratic Party’s stalwarts, is simply voicing publicly what many in his party have said privately as the reality of the looming November elections sets in. If Democrats retain a majority, it will be smaller but more cohesive.

As Waxman sees it, the fractious coalition of Democrats that House leaders have cobbled together to pass sweeping healthcare and energy bills is not markedly different from the bipartisanship of the past, when Democrats partnered with centrist and liberal Republicans, whom Waxman says are “practically nonexistent at the moment.”

“We’ve been trying to get the Democratic conservatives together with the rest of the Democratic Party, so in effect we’ve gotten bipartisan support among Democrats in the House,” the chairman said with a laugh. “Now we’ll have to work on genuine bipartisanship in the future.”

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http://thehill.com/homenews/house/112767-waxman-sees-bright-side-to-nov-losses