The steep price of crossing Nancy Pelosi
Officially, Jane Harman's career in Congress will come to a close in the next few weeks, when the California Democrat steps down in the middle of her ninth term to become the new president of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. In reality, though, it's been over for years now -- ever since Harman crossed Nancy Pelosi and Pelosi responded by shutting down Harman's power center in the House (and her vehicle for national television exposure).
The break had its roots in the Iraq war, and Harman's role as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee when it was launched, and as the occupation turned sour. A "select" panel, Intelligence is unique from other House committees in that it's composed of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans; members are privy to sensitive documents and top-level security briefings, and the idea is that their work on the committee is above partisan politics.
The problem, from Pelosi's standpoint, is that Harman's status as the No. 1 Democrat on Intelligence essentially made her the highest-profile House Democrat in the middle of the last decade. At the time, don't forget, Republicans had been running the House for a decade, and they also controlled the White House and Senate. To the national media, Pelosi, who was elected the Democrats' House leader in 2002, was a bit player, especially on matters of national security and foreign policy. Her caucus had little clout, and the press mostly tuned her out. When television news producers needed a congressional Democrat to discuss Iraq, they gravitated toward Harman; at least she (theoretically) spoke with the benefit of intelligence information few others had access to. On one stretch in 2006, as the war spiraled out of control, Harman was on a Sunday morning news show four times in a six-month stretch; Pelosi's total: zero.
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