An Antiwar Freshman Leader Faces His Constituents

By Lois Romano And Mary Ann Akers
Thursday, August 9, 2007

T im Walz-- the newly installed president of the freshman Democratic congressional class -- was among the 30 members swept into office in November as reformers, vowing to change what they called a culture of corruption and to end the war in Iraq.

But after seven months in office and especially last week's raucous march to the summer recess, the affable former high school teacher is returning home to a skeptical electorate in Minnesota with little progress to report on the war. Like the rest of his colleagues, between now and November 2008 he will have to prove to his constituents that they made the right choice to hand control of Congress to the Democrats.

And he's trying not to sound worried as Republicans circle his seat.

"My constituents are thoughtful and pragmatic people who focus on outcomes rather than ideology," he said. "They want good government and ethics reform. . . . They need to have their faith restored in government. We can't just sound good."

Walz, 43, was a popular geography teacher and military veteran when he launched his new career as a candidate with an eye toward the 2006 election. As Reps. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and Chris Van Hollen (Md.) scoured the country for moderate Democratic challengers who could be credible speaking on the war in Iraq, no one came knocking on Walz's door. But he was certainly what they were looking for: He had spent 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring, not happy with the direction in Iraq and willing to say so.

He said running for office hadn't really occurred to him until after he volunteered for the campaign of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and some local Democratic leaders, impressed with his organizational work, approached him about taking on six-term Republican Rep. Gil Gutknecht. But they might have been the only ones who thought he could win. Minnesota's 1st Congressional District was pretty low on the Democrats' target list. Gutknecht seemed fairly entrenched in the district, which runs along the state's southern border with Iowa, and had even started publicly articulating doubts about the war.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, led by Emanuel, didn't offer any help until October, when the race had tightened and party leaders began providing money and other help. Walz was relentless in his campaign, convincing voters through his plain-talking approach that he could offer a fresh set of eyes and a strong voice on Iraq.

"I joked with Rahm that he better not take credit for my race," Walz said.

Walz became freshman president in an unusual power-sharing arrangement with Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.). Both wanted the presidency and decided that, rather than square off against each other, they would split the year. Hodes took the first half, and Walz assumed the job three weeks ago.

Electing a freshman class president has been a tradition for at least three decades in the House, enabling junior legislators to exert influence as a group. This year, they pushed for passage of the ethics bill.

Walz got his first chance in the spotlight right after arriving in Washington. In January, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) chose him to make the rebuttal to the president's weekly radio address. And he wasn't shy about referring to the war in Iraq on the floor as a "failed policy" soon after taking office.

He said that if the Democrats want to stay in control they'll have to make good on all their pledges and said that last week's passage of ethics legislation was one of those promises that had to be kept. As for the war, he concedes that he continues to have a "sense of frustration" because the Democrats have not been able to do more to alter Bush's strategy. "But every veto, every threat of veto from the president," he said, pushes the administration further from the wishes of the American people.

As for 2008, he has no worries about getting the D-Triple-C's attention this time: He sits front and center on the Dems' priority list.

Field of Dreams I

A dreamer and a baseball fan, freshman Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) likes to think of the House chamber as a baseball stadium. (Call it the House That the People Built.) In one of his more bleary-eyed moments during the raucous, round-the-clock shout-fest that marked the waning hours before adjournment last week, Cohen dreamed it and they came, one Jew after another. This dream team formed -- for the first time anyone can recall -- a Jewish section.

Cohen notes that Congressional Black Caucus members often sit together in the "lower box seats, so to speak," while Blue Dog Coalition members take seats in center field and some of the Hispanic Caucus members stake out the "upper deck, in kind of right-center field, if you take it from home plate being the rostrum."

So during that late night, Cohen grabbed a seat near a voting box in left field. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.) sat next to him. Soon John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) and Steve Kagen (D-Wis.) joined them. Next came Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Steve Israel (D-N.Y.). Before they knew it, two more Jewish congressmen, Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), sat down. When Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) came by, Cohen joked, "I told her she couldn't sit with us because we were being Orthodox. She had to sit in the back row."

"It was like the Jewish section," he marveled in his thick Memphis accent. "It was the first time we'd had that. And we had some laughs."

Will the laughs continue in a newfound Jewish tradition when the House reconvenes next month? Probably not, Cohen concedes. "I think it will be when God decides that we should, and it'll probably mostly be on Friday nights."

Field of Dreams II

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her GOP counterpart, Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio), have their obvious policy differences and were equally resolved in their opposite reactions to Barry Bonds's record-breaking homer Tuesday night.

"Barry Bonds etched his name into baseball's history books and took his rightful place among the sport's immortals," Pelosi said in a statement about her district's controversial home run king. She wasn't at the stadium to see Bonds hit No. 756, breaking Hank Aaron's record, in the fifth inning against the Washington Nationals. But she declared: "It was a great night for baseball and a great night for San Francisco -- the crowd went wild. It was particularly exciting to see Willie Mays embrace him on the field and see Hank Aaron congratulate him on the Jumbotron. As a season ticket holder, I am particularly glad it happened on the Giants' Italian night."

Boehner, a Cincinnati Reds fan, was less thrilled. Asked by radio host Frank Beckmann of WJR in Detroit whether Bonds should have an asterisk next to his name in the history books because of alleged steroid use, Boehner replied: "Absolutely, absolutely. I'm a big Hank Aaron fan. He did it the right way -- he earned it."