People in the news

Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.)

U.S. Representative (since January 1983)

Why He Matters

Berman isn't a familiar face on the national political scene, but his relative anonymity should not be mistaken for irrelevance. A veteran lawmaker and chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee during the 111th Congress, Berman is an efficacious legislative veteran who is considered one of the leading voices on immigration and foreign policy in the House.

Like his longtime friend and ally Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Berman is widely respected on the Hill for his mastery of the arcane nuts-and-bolts of lawmaking. He has assumed the point position on some of the most complex issues facing Congress - including the daunting effort to reform the nation's patent and copyright laws - and has consistently reached across the aisle to work with Republicans on difficult topics.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: California Assembly Member, 1973 to 1982; Practicing attorney, 1967 to 1972
Birthday: April 15, 1941
Hometown: Los Angeles, Calif.
Alma Mater: B.A., International Relations, 1962, UCLA;LL.B, 1965, UCLA
Spouse: Janis Berman
Religion: Jewish
DC Office: DC office 2221 Rayburn House Office BuildingWashington, D.C. 20515 (202) 225-4695
District Office: 14546 Hamlin Street, Suite 202Van Nuys, CA 91411(818) 994-7200

Path To Power

Berman was born in Los Angeles on April 12, 1941, to Joseph Berman and Eleanor Shapiro and is one of two sons. Berman's father immigrated to the U.S. from Poland and worked as a door-to-door salesman before attending New York University, where he met Eleanor. The couple married in 1934 and eventually settled in the heavily-Jewish Beverlywood section of Los Angeles.

Berman's parents weren't political, and he credits a teacher at L.A.'s Alexander Hamilton High School, Blanche Bettington, with sparking his interest in public affairs. "She threw the textbook away and just had us read conservative and liberal magazines and writings. She loved the debate," Berman said.

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After high school Berman enrolled at UCLA, where he met fellow student Henry Waxman, and the two became fast friends. The pair shared a similar upbringing and a keen interest in politics, and both were active members of the California Federation of Young Democrats.

While attending UCLA law school, Berman landed an internship on the California Assembly's Agriculture Committee, where he worked on issues related to farm workers and the labor movement that was growing under Cesar Chavez. "From then on, I was hooked," Berman said.

When Waxman decided to run for a seat in the California Assembly in 1968, he enlisted Howard's brother, Michael Berman, to run his campaign. With the help of Howard Elinson, another UCLA student, Michael Berman devised a mail campaign for Waxman using demographic data that matched messages with voters' interests. This kind of sophisticated micro-targeting is now a common practice in American politics, but it was a novel technique at the time. Waxman won the seat.

California Assembly

Howard Berman followed Waxman's lead, mounting a 1972 campaign for an Assembly seat that was held by a longtime Republican incumbent. His brother Michael worked on the campaign and continued to sharpen his mail-targeting efforts. Michael feared that the coming reelection of President Richard Nixon would hurt his brother's chances in the Assembly race, so he landed an endorsement from a GOP group and sent out mailers that proclaimed "Republicans for Nixon-Berman."

Berman won the seat easily, but he later expressed a hint of embarrassment over the mailer. "It certainly was expedient. I never said I was pure, and I never said I was proud of everything that I did," Howard Berman said in 1992.

Berman moved quickly to consolidate power in the statehouse, and in his first term he helped elect San Francisco Democrat Leo McCarthy as speaker. McCarthy returned the favor, working to make Berman the youngest majority leader in Assembly history.

Waxman-Berman Machine

The election of Waxman and Berman to the California Assembly marked the beginning of an informal political alliance that would dominate California politics for years. Often referred to as the Waxman-Berman machine, the group combined Michael's specialized campaign strategies with the deep pockets of donors in greater Los Angeles to create a potent political force. At the peak of its influence, the alliance could single-handedly launch or derail political careers in California.

Besides Waxman and Berman, the inner circle of the alliance included former Rep. Mel Levine (D-Calif.), former state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D) and former state Rep. Burt Margolin (D). Another key insider was Carl D'Agostino, who co-founded a hugely-successful political consulting firm with Michael Berman in the early 1980s, called BAD Campaigns, which became the operational nexus of the Waxman-Berman team.

Howard Berman's ties to BAD Campaigns often raised eyebrows, but he insisted there was nothing unsavory about his ties to the firm. "When I need [BAD Campaigns], I pay; and when I don't, I don't. I understand the appearance problem, but we have gone to lengths to keep ourselves separate from their business," he said.

In late 1979, Berman began an ambitious campaign to unseat his political patron, McCarthy, as Assembly speaker. Berman tapped his fundraising network to drum up $5 million for the candidacies of dozens of state Democrats in the primaries, and the power grab ultimately pushed McCarthy out of the job. Berman's efforts came up short in the end, as the legendary Willie Brown (D) narrowly beat him in the race for the speakership.

Redistricting Initiatives

Howard and Michael Berman have been active in trying to repeal California's Proposition 11, passed in 2008, which reassigned redistricting to a citizens' panel, and away from California state legislators. Michael Berman runs, and Howard Berman raises money for FAIR, which supports the California Proposition 27, which would revert redistricting authority back to the state legislators.

1982 House Race

Berman decided to run for Congress in 1982, and he cruised to an easy victory, beating Republican Hal Phillips with nearly 60 percent of the vote. Since that time Berman has never faced a serious challenger, and he routinely wins more than 70 percent of the vote in his reelection contests.

The clout of the Waxman-Berman political team began to wane in 1992 after the pair's favored candidates lost to Sens. Dianne Feinsten (D-Calif.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in the Democratic primaries. By 2004, Berman declared simply, "We don't have a machine any more, if we ever did." Berman nonetheless remains a major figure in California politics, and candidates in west Los Angeles still eagerly seek his endorsement.

Berman considered running for Los Angeles mayor in 1993 and 1997, but opted to stay in Congress.

The Issues

Berman has taken a patient, studious approach to his work in Congress, generally avoiding the limelight while steadily carving out legislative accomplishments. "I prefer to see myself as the workhorse and not the show horse," Berman explained. "There are too many lawmakers who spend way too much time trying to get overblown credit for either worthless or minor accomplishments."

Though Berman has hawkish views on foreign policy, he is a reliably liberal vote on most issues. Berman rarely strayed from party lines during the 110th Congress, voting with Democrats 98 percent of the time.

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In 1986 Berman authored the False Claims Act, legislation signed by President Reagan that empowered whistle-blowers to sue on behalf of the federal government in cases of contracting fraud. The statute - which updated legislation passed to stop fraud during the Civil War - protected whistle-blowers against firing and harassment and let them keep up to 30 percent of the money from a successful prosecution. The program helped the government recoup billions of dollars.

One of Berman's signature issues is foreign aid, and he has worked assiduously to keep monetary assistance flowing to foreign countries, including Israel. He has also been a staunch advocate of punitive economic sanctions against countries that support terrorism.

Iraq

Berman took a hard-line approach to Saddam Hussein's reign in Iraq from the very start, and he was a fierce critic of the Reagan administration's relations with the country. In April 1990, he became one of the first lawmakers to call for strict economic sanctions against Iraq, but his efforts were politely rebuffed by the George H.W. Bush administration. Four months later Iraq invaded Kuwait, and Berman voted for the first Gulf War resolution.

In fall of 2002, Berman led a group of House Democratic hawks that supported President George W. Bush's efforts to authorize military action against Iraq. "Saddam [Hussein] with a nuclear weapon is too horrifying to contemplate, too terrifying to tolerate," he said at the time. Berman's efforts largely undercut Democratic negotiations led by Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.) and helped the Bush administration solidify support for the use of force.

Berman was one the first Democratsto support the Iraq war and also one of the last to turn against it. As recently as June 2006, he voted for a Republican resolution rejecting a timetable for Iraq withdrawal, which he said would be "calamitous."

In January 2007, Berman reluctantly changed coursewhen he announced his opposition to President Bush's troop surge. "My heart wants him to succeed. But my head says, 'No way. This ain't gonna work,'" he said.

Immigration

Berman has worked his entire career on immigration and farm labor issues, and he boasts a mastery of the terrain few lawmakers can match. He was an instrumental figure in the passage of the landmark 1986 Immigration Control and Reform Act.

In 1988, he wrote legislation passed by Congress that created an annual visa lottery to randomly select 20,000 people for entrance to the U.S. When the State Department announced the Berman visa program, interest was so overwhelming it nearly sparked riots at U.S. embassies around the globe.

Berman introduced a 2001 bill to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants who had grown up in the U.S. and wished to attend college. After that effort failed, Berman tried a different approach, co-sponsoring a 2002 bill that would have made illegal immigrants subject to in-state tuition rates with access to federal educational grants and loans.

When the national debate on immigration reform reached an impasse in 1999, Berman quietly approached the agriculture industry and the United Farm Workers and got the two sides talking about a guest-worker program. Years of difficult negotiations followed until finally, in 2003, legislation was introduced to give illegal immigrant farm workers legal status and a path to citizenship. Berman hashed out the details of the legislation, which became informally known as AgJobs, with the help of then-Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), then-Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and then-Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

The AgJobs measure fell on the backburner after President George W. Bush introduced a separate comprehensive immigration reform plan in early 2004. A modified version of AgJobs was eventually folded into the larger immigration reform bill, but that legislation fell apart in June 2007.

Patent Reform

In fall 2007, Berman introduced a sweeping update to the nation's patent laws that passed the House, 220-175.

At the urging of the high-tech industry, the legislation was designed to make it more difficult for companies to obtain patents in hopes of reducing costly infringement lawsuits. Biotech and pharmaceutical companies mounted an intense lobbying campaign against the legislation and the Patent Reform Act never reached a Senate vote.

The Network

Berman will forever be linked to his former UCLA classmate and California assemblyman and now fellow California Rep. Henry Waxman (D). He also still works closely with his brother, Michael, an influential California campaign strategist and consultant.

But but his personal ties in California politics extend far beyond a single individual. He acts as a kind of father figure to the California House delegation. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) appointed him as the senior Democrat on the House ethics committee at a crucial time when work on the committee was stalled because of intense partisan bickering.

Additional Resources

Weinstein, Henry, "New whistle-blower law hailed," Los Angeles Times, Nov. 4, 1986
Davies, Frank, "Lobbying kicks off against patent bill," San Jose Mercury News, Sept. 21, 2007
Turner, Wallace, "Black Democrat named speaker in California with help of GOP," The New York Times, Dec. 2, 1980
Orloy, Rick, "Villaraigosa gets key endorsements," Daily News Los Angeles, Oct. 19, 2004
Loewenberg, Samuel, "Immigration laws drying up farming work force," Politico, Oct. 24, 2007
Friedman, Lisa, "Ex Iraq war supporter Berman says Bush plan 'ain't gonna work,'" Daily News Los Angeles, Jan. 11, 2007
Gilbert, Craig, "Congress Oks force in Iraq," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oct. 11, 2002
Schafer, Susanne M., "Computer to pluck names for 20,000 immigrants," The Associated Press, May 10, 1989.
Ballotpedia, California Proposition 27, accessed Aug. 26, 2010
Washington Post Vote Database
Krieger, Hilary Leila, "Time to rethink," The Jerusalem Post, June 23, 2008
Reich, Kenneth, "Obituaries: Blanche Bettington," Los Angeles Times, March 3, 2001
Miller, Alan C., "Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside," Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1992
Meyerson, Harold, "The liberal lion in winter," Los Angeles Times, Dec. 4, 1994
Balzar, John, "Democrats' powerful alliance thrives," Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1985
Friedman, Lisa, "Berman with GOP on Iraq," Daily News Los Angeles, June 17, 2006,
Hillburg, Bill, "Berman succeeds in silence," Daily News Los Angeles, July 15, 2001