Waxman sets sights on 'very long list'

Bush administration, war contractors likely to be among Democrat's targets

WASHINGTON — Bald, mustachioed, 5-foot-5, the Hollywood congressman who'd rather watch the Academy Awards at home than mingle with the stars, Henry Waxman is hardly a fearsome or famous figure to most of America.

But Time magazine recently dubbed the California Democrat "The Scariest Guy in Town."

With his political party taking control of Congress, the incoming chairman of the House Government Reform Committee has subpoena power to probe the Bush administration or just about anything else that strikes his investigative fancy.

The soft-spoken son of a Jewish grocer, Waxman grew up over the family store in Watts. During more than three decades in Congress, he has relished putting powerful people — from baseball sluggers accused of taking steroids to tobacco company officials who claimed nicotine wasn't addictive — on the committee witness chair.

He has been called "the Eliot Ness of the Democrats" by Nation magazine, and aims to go after the Republican administration with zeal over the coming two years.

"The most difficult thing will be to pick and choose" what to investigate, Waxman told reporters after the November elections.

"He's got a very long list," said Norman Ornstein, a congressional analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. "I'm sure he's going back to the contracting mess (in Iraq and Afghanistan and post-Katrina), Halliburton and others. And not just contractors."

Waxman also will be examining the role of the federal government, from the Defense Department to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and grilling the officials who greased the deals with contractors, Ornstein predicted.

"Henry is not afraid to go after anyone," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., his predecessor as chairman of the committee. "He's going to be very aggressive."

When parties collide

When one party controls the House and the other controls the executive branch, the Government Reform Committee is historically more eager to exercise its oversight powers, Davis said.

When Indiana Republican Dan Burton was chairman, for instance, the committee was relentless in its investigations of the Clinton administration.

But Waxman's successful relationship with Davis shows that neither is as partisan as often painted, said Ornstein.

"Does Henry have strong liberal views? Yes. Can he be a tough-as-nails partisan? Absolutely," said Ornstein. "But I don't think he's going to come in as some sort of avenging angel taking a meat ax to his political adversaries."

Community connections

When the new Congress convenes in January, the 67-year-old Waxman will begin his 17th term representing Los Angeles' West Side, a district that includes the famed Beverly Hills 90210 ZIP code, the shops of Rodeo Drive, the movie studios of Hollywood and the ritzy neighborhoods of Malibu and Bel Air.

The district also holds California's largest Jewish community. Re-elections have come easily for an unabashedly liberal congressman who keeps kosher.

Despite long fundraising ties with the entertainment industry, glitzy he is not. Waxman takes pride in having never attended the Academy Awards. At first he wasn't invited, but now it is part of his shtick.

"It's such a long night," he told Time. "When I watch it on TV, I can get a snack."

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