Pelosi move triggers revolt By Josephine Hearn
Furious black lawmakers, rallying behind Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), were pulled back from the brink of open revolt against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in an emergency meeting with her yesterday.
The meeting with a handful of CBC members was called after Pelosi wrote the embattled lawmaker, who is at the center of a massive bribery scandal, a curt note requesting his immediate resignation from the powerful Ways and Means Committee.
Outraged that one of its members was being picked on even though he has not been charged with a crime, the Congressional Black Caucus had intended to issue a defiant statement against their leader but agreed after the meeting to pause, at least briefly, for reflection.
Earlier this week, Pelosi approached Jefferson and told him that she thought he should resign, according to a Democratic aide. Later, at the Democratic caucus meeting yesterday morning, she took him into a side room and told him that she had prepared a letter calling on him to resign the committee seat and that she would allow him one hour to withdraw gracefully before she sent it, according to the aide. In both instances, Jefferson remained defiant.
Pelosi’s one-sentence missive to Jefferson called on him to vacate his committee seat “in the interest of upholding the high ethical standard of the House Democratic Caucus.”
Jefferson promptly refused, calling her request “discriminatory” and “unprecedented,” and suggested that she was employing a double standard by failing to ask other lawmakers facing ethics questions to relinquish their committee assignments. Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) has come under fire for earmarks he secured through his seat on the Appropriations Committee.
“I will not give up a committee assignment that is so vital to New Orleans at this crucial time for any uncertain political strategy,” Jefferson said.
The Jefferson scandal, which after more than a year of investigation blew open Saturday with an FBI raid at his congressional office, has brought into glaring public light long-standing resentments felt by black lawmakers toward the Democratic leadership in the House.
The CBC’s chairman, Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), engaged in a heated argument with Pelosi on the House floor Tuesday afternoon after Watt heard reports that Pelosi was considering calling for Jefferson’s ouster, according to one witness.
Members of the CBC are expected to confront Pelosi today in a meeting that was previously scheduled to address separate concerns about Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). That meeting is now likely to focus more on Jefferson, a Democratic aide said.
With 43 members, the CBC is a formidable force in the 202-member Democratic caucus and one Pelosi is unusually reluctant to antagonize. Should Democrats take the House, the CBC would control four, and possibly five, committee chairmanships.
Jefferson has been the subject of a wide-ranging bribery investigation by the Department of Justice. Pelosi’s call for his ouster came several days after a newly filed court document offered more details on Jefferson’s alleged acceptance of $100,000 from an FBI informant in a sting operation. Days after that purported exchange, the document said, the FBI found $90,000 in Jefferson’s freezer.
The search of his Capitol Hill office has prompted a storm of criticism from congressional leaders from both parties, including Pelosi, who charged that the executive branch had overstepped the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers.
Yesterday’s CBC meeting with Jefferson was well-attended, drawing nearly all of the caucus’s heavyweights — Ways and Means ranking Democrat Charles Rangel (N.Y.), Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat John Conyers (Mich.) and Democratic Caucus Chairman James Clyburn (S.C.).
Most lawmakers would not comment afterwards, but a CBC aide summed up some members’ frustration, saying, “Congresswoman Pelosi, by preemption without any legal justification, has now created a new precedent for how members are going to be treated. Unfortunately, she’s chosen to single out an African-American for this honor.”
Then the aide added an electoral threat, saying, “The African-American community, which overwhelmingly backs the Democratic Party, will not take this lightly. I hope she enjoys being minority leader.”
Clyburn, who is both a member of the CBC and the third-ranking member of House Democratic leadership, was circumspect yesterday when asked whether Jefferson should step down.
“The leader speaks for the party,” Clyburn said. “If that’s what she feels, that’s what she feels. If that’s what [Jefferson] feels, that’s what he feels. We all have to live with the consequences of our actions.”
Absent from the CBC meeting was Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), who has had an interest in securing a seat on the Ways and Means Committee. |
