R.I. delegation plans busy ’08

After hours of tough exchanges late last month between Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Senate Democrats, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse shifted from the dispute over waterboarding to praise the nation’s chief lawman for quelling a separate clash over the independence of federal prosecutors.

Whitehouse thanked the new attorney general for restoring the so-called “firewall” that had for years blocked most contact between White House political appointees and the Justice Department officials in charge of criminal investigations.

The moment conjured up last year’s fierce battles between newly ascendant congressional Democrats and a Bush administration that they accused of expanding presidential power to the point of damaging the integrity of the nation’s top law enforcement agency. The Senate Judiciary Committee was the main stage for a bitter political drama that climaxed with the resignation of President Bush’s longtime friend and counsel, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Mukasey won favor with Whitehouse and other Democrats by beginning an inquiry into the U.S. Attorneys matter shortly after he took office last fall.

For Whitehouse, the interlude was a marker of progress that underlined how much of a lawmaker’s work is done outside the realm of lawmaking. Like the rest of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation, freshman Whitehouse foresees a busy and potentially fruitful session on Capitol Hill — even though chances for landmark legislation are slim in the last year of a lame-duck administration.

A look at the local legislators’ agenda also shows that the slowing economy will dominate many political and policy discussions this year, even as Congress continues to grapple with national security issues.

The state’s senators and representatives joined in the rare bipartisan drive for an economic stimulus package, mostly through tax rebates. They will seek longer-term fixes, especially programs that get federal dollars to Rhode Island. But they will gravitate toward work of their congressional committees.

Soon after he was sworn in, Whitehouse joined senior Democrats who had begun to probe charges that the Bush administration had bent the rules to push from office several federal prosecutors because — according to the Democrats — they were insufficiently loyal to the White House political agenda.

The Senate Judiciary Committee launched inquiries on other fronts: the legal rationale developed for harsh interrogation techniques and other anti-terror programs, for example. The administration strongly disputed suggestions of wrongdoing. Gonzales resigned under political fire but he was never charged with breaking any laws.

Whitehouse ran with one thread in investigations: the quiet expansion of the number of White House officials permitted to communicate with the Justice Department’s criminal investigative wing. In a succession of speeches and hearings, with the aid of complicated charts, Whitehouse made the case that these contacts breached the firewall protecting career prosecutors from political interference. At one point, the Judiciary Committee passed a Whitehouse measure to establish the firewall in law, but soon after Mr. Bush replaced Gonzales, Mukasey moved to restore the firewall.

For this year, Whitehouse has staked out the ambitious goal of the “restoration of the Department of Justice” under Mukasey. He has lauded the new attorney general’s work on the firewall and in other areas, but Whitehouse said he will remain “on patrol” for the cleanup of “the residue” from Gonzales’ tenure.

On interrogation techniques, on wiretaps of suspected terrorists and related issues, Whitehouse said that the classified information he gleans as a member of the Intelligence Committee “informs my work” on the judiciary panel.

Whitehouse also sits on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which has produced a bipartisan bill to curb global warming. Enactment of that sweeping initiative is the panel’s top goal for this year. Even if it does not become law, Whitehouse said, the spadework will be valuable to the next president and to the next Congress.

Like Whitehouse, Rep. James R. Langevin has access to secret information — he sits on the House Intelligence Committee — that helps him on the House Homeland Security Committee. As chairman since last year of its subcommittee on emerging threats, he has begun to specialize in biological warfare and other such challenges.

Much of the heavy lifting is in “oversight” — congressional lingo for the research and hearings that committees undertake to oversee the government agencies under their jurisdiction. Closely related is the committee “authorization,” the budget and policy bill that frames the work of each federal agency — in Langevin’s case, the Homeland Security Department.

A high priority this year for the panel on terrorist threats is to see that the department stays on schedule to equip U.S. ports and border entries with “radiation portal monitors,” devices that can detect nuclear weapons or their radioactive components.

The pursuit of comparable sensing devices for chemical and biological weapons is more worrisome, according to Langevin, because such weapons are cheaper and easier to make than nuclear bombs but more cumbersome to detect.

Langevin’s committee work has led him to a sideline that is likely to make news in the months to come. Under the auspices of an independent think-tank, he is chairman of a commission that will write a blueprint to help the next president respond to the growing threat of cyberterrorism.

Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy has devoted much attention to medicine — more specifically, the treatment of mental illness. He said last month that his long campaign for equal insurance of mental and physical ailments has a good chance of becoming law this year.

Kennedy said his next big undertaking will be “at the intersection between veterans’ mental health and the criminal justice system.” He described plans to seek budget increases and policy adjustments across a range of jurisdictions, rather than tackling a single, comprehensive change in law — the approach he has taken on mental health parity.

As a senior member of subcommittees in the House Appropriations Committee, with jurisdiction over several federal agencies that work in health care and law enforcement, Kennedy said he has some influence to jawbone officials to make administrative changes that will improve the plight of veterans who suffer from such conditions as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Kennedy said he also aims to work on improving the connections between the Pentagon’s health system for active-duty personnel and families and the Veterans Administration, to ensure that sick and injured veterans get the best treatment during the often-troubled shift from active duty to civilian life.

Kennedy said his seat on the appropriations panel also helps him to support high-tech military programs that are good for the defense industry in Rhode Island. Such programs include electronic control systems for warships, being developed by several local companies.

A glance at Sen. Jack Reed’s schedule so far this year suggests the range of his influence as a relatively senior member of the Senate majority. Reed is among the senators who are leading the effort to increase heating assistance for low-income households.

He also held an emotional news conference with survivors of last year’s Virginia Tech shootings — part of his longtime efforts to tighten restrictions on certain firearms sales.

Reed has also weighed in on efforts to deal with the subprime mortgage crisis — a problem that he and his colleagues looked into during hearings last spring before the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. “Wall Street was in denial about the problem,” Reed recalled.

He said he will be active this year in a number of related issues — including such vital but esoteric matters as the damage that the crisis has caused to the vast technical apparatus of the financial industry.

Reed also sits on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where his priorities will range from programs to train teachers to preparing for possible expansion of children’s health programs in the next Congress.

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