Blue Dogs Backed Harman, a Blue Dog, to Run Intelligence

Pelosi taps Reyes to head intelligence committee

WASHINGTON (AP) December 1, 2006 — House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi has chosen a Border-Patrol-agent-turned-congressman to lead the House intelligence committee, according to congressional aides.

Democratic leaders are contacting congressional and other political officials to tell them Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, will be the new chairman of the committee when Democrats take over in January, said the two aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they considered it an internal party issue.

The selection of Reyes marks one of the few committee assignments that was still a question after Democrats won control of the House of Representatives last month. It set up an early challenge for Pelosi, who had sole discretion on the selection.

The California Democrat had to navigate a series of candidates — and their supporters — who were vying for the post. In the end, Pelosi bypassed two more senior intelligence committee members — Reps. Jane Harman, D-California, and Alcee Hastings, D-Florida — to select Reyes.

Harman is currently the committee's top Democrat, and her leadership term expires this year. She could have been reappointed by Pelosi, but the two are said to have political differences.

'Plenty to do'

Known as "Silver" to friends, Reyes is a Purple Heart winner who was drafted into the Army and served during 1966-68 as a helicopter crew chief and gunner. His service included 13 months in Vietnam.

Under Democratic control, his committee is expected to conduct more public oversight of some of the most difficult issues facing the United States, including terrorism, Iraq and government surveillance. Given the committee's inherently secret nature, much of the work will have to be done behind closed doors.

In an interview this month, Reyes said he will insist on more information about the Bush administration's most classified programs and how they are working. The Republicans, he said, have made a habit of rubber-stamping those programs.

He also wants to look at the role of intelligence three years after the war in Iraq and the state of traditional spy craft, known in spook lingo as "human intelligence."

"We haven't required or haven't had the administration give us the details, evaluation or plan of how these classic programs are functioning," he said. "There is plenty to do on the role of intelligence, the programs that are vital and critical to our national defense, and certainly to our war fighters."

Reyes is considered less partisan than Hastings, and signaled that the day after the election when he praised the selection of former CIA Director Robert Gates to replace Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Reyes noted that Gates served in Republican and Democratic administrations, giving him a bipartisan background. "I do look forward to hearing from him and what his ideas are," particularly on the administration's new direction in Iraq, he said.

Nowhere in Congress are relations between Republicans and Democrats as publicly nasty as the House intelligence committee.

In October, Harman unilaterally released the committee's investigation into a jailed Republican congressman's efforts to abuse his position on the panel to enrich himself and his associates.

That same week, the current chairman — Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Michigan — suspended a Democratic aide's access to classified information, based on circumstantial evidence that he may have leaked a high-level intelligence estimate on terrorism.

Angry conference calls and letters followed. The aide's security clearance was later reinstated.

In the interview, Reyes said that relations among committee members "can't get worse. It has gotten as bad as it could."

By seniority, California Rep. Jane Harman should have le the Intelligence Committee.

Harman is the senior Democrat on that panel and has served on it for eight years. Washington insiders saw Harman as the natural choice for head of the panel due to her high profile in the national media and her familiarity with intelligence issues.

Pelosi's option

Under the rules of the House, the choice of intelligence chairman is up to Pelosi. She doesn't need ratification by the Democratic Steering Committee or by the full Democratic membership.

Pelosi and Harman have had a difficult relationship; they disagreed, for example, on the invasion of Iraq in 2003: Harman was one of 81 House Democrats supporting it, while Pelosi opposed it.

“Do I think what we're doing today means we're going to war? No. I think we're standing up to evil,” Harman said when the House voted to authorize Bush to attack Iraq in 2002.

Pelosi and most House Democrats, voted against the 2002 war resolution.

Blue Dogs Backed Harman

The Blue Dog Coalition — a phalanx of 44 centrist House Democrats — drafted a letter endorsing Harman, a Blue Dog member, to run the intelligence committee.

At a press conference at the Capitol on Nov. 15, Blue Dog communications spokesman Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas said, “Jane Harman may very well be chair of the intelligence committee,” a prediction that drew only a cryptic smile from Harman who was standing near Ross. 

Explaining why the Blue Dog Democrats issued a letter of support for Harman, a Democratic House source who is familiar with their thinking, said, “Blue Dog members are fired up; they want to flex their muscles.”

The source agreed that the Blue Dog challenge to Pelosi, a very public gesture, unlike the secret-ballot vote on majority leader, was a risky move for the group.

The Blue Dog members come mostly from rural and Southern districts where Democrats have been especially weak in the past 25 years and where Pelosi, a San Francisco liberal, would have little appeal.

Two examples: Rep. Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, and newly elected Rep.-elect Michael Arcuri from upstate New York, who’ll hold a district now represented by Republican Sherwood Boehlert.

Yet Pelosi may need the Blue Dog Coalition as much as they need her, or perhaps more.

It is a make-or-break group that can affect Pelosi’s ability to get legislation enacted in the House. Their 44 votes account for about 20 percent of Democratic membership in the new House.

Blue Dog leaders made a point of stressing their independence from party leaders in their debut event Wednesday. “We’re not going to be a rubber stamp for anyone,” said Rep. Mike Ross, D- Ark, the Blue Dogs spokesman.