(A diary Chevy would be proud of… – promoted by SFBrianCL)
jane harman, who is facing a challenge from newcomer marcy winograd in her home district of venice california, is also facing a challenge from the democratic leadership (yes, we know it’s an oxymoron) to rotate ms. harman off of her seat on the house intelligence (another oxymoron) committee. the latimes:
the dispute pits the venice lawmaker against house democratic leader nancy pelosi of san francisco. its outcome could determine what role harman, who once ran for california governor and is one of the most quoted democrats on intelligence matters, will play in the next congress — if she is reelected.
pelosi has informed colleagues that she intends to force harman to step down, replacing her with rep. alcee l. hastings of florida, the second most senior democrat on the intelligence panel.
if democrats take control of the house in the november midterm elections, which some polls indicate is possible, they will name the next chairperson of the intelligence committee, which became one of the most important congressional panels after sept. 11.
we take interest in this because skippy international headquarters lies within jane’s district…tho to be honest, we are supporting her challenger, marcy winograd.
jane is running some highly visible ads here in los angeles of herself sitting at a desk taking aWol to task for warrantless wire-tapping (she’s the one taking aWol to task, not the desk). she doesn’t care if it’s “inconvenient for the president,” she tells us, it’s illegal and she intends to do something about it.
sure, now that marcy is actually gaining traction in her bid to upset jane in next month’s primary, jane is all hot and bothered about aWol and his friends at at&t. a report from impeachpac tells us:
in a startling upset, winograd supporters blocked california democratic party endorsement of harman, a six-term incumbent, at a pre-primary endorsement meeting. winograd got 35 percent of the delegates’ votes, enough to prevent harman from gaining the 70 percent needed for an automatic party endorsement. a floor fight is anticipated at the state convention april 28, where either candidate could win the state party endorsement by capturing a 60 percent margin.
jane managed to get the endorsement on april 30, but apparently not without breaking a sweat. so it’s no wonder that jane is talking tough against the “leaker-in-chief,” as she calls him. but as tom hayden over at the huffpo points out, this is a new stance for jane:
it’s no secret that harman is the center of democratic friction. she was one of a handful of congressmembers invited into the secret white house briefings on what has mushroomed into a major scandal: the launch of domestic spying by intelligence agencies without warrants. the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee, harman promised the white house to keep secret what she heard at the meetings.
she could have been a whistleblower, but chose not to be.
she could have refused the unconditional promise of secrecy, but chose not to.
she could have resigned the secret committee without comment, letting her silence do the talking, but chose not to.
left to harman, the spy scandal would still be a secret today. it was the new york times, not democratic leaders, who first broke the silence and secrecy.
harman actually approved the spy program in her initial comments, then sought a legal opinion before commenting further.
with the nedmentum running high on the right coast, we here on the left coast are feeling pretty optimistic about marcy’s chances (even gore “f*ck norman mailer” vidal publically supported marcy at the latimes festival of books last month).
we’ll see what happens. even if jane keeps her seat, at least the heat is making her start to act like a democrat.