Posted on 08/05/2008 1:15:51 PM PDT by SmithL
WASHINGTON — On her first day in office, Rep. Jackie Speier criticized the Iraq war and John McCain, eliciting boos from Republicans. By her own count, three committee chairmen have chastised her for her questions during recent hearings.
And her first bill won national attention with its effort to mandate lower speed limits to save gas.
At 58, Speier, a San Mateo County Democrat who replaced the late Tom Lantos in April, is not your average new member of Congress. By speaking bluntly, rocking the boat and not shying away from controversy, she has established a higher profile in three months than some representatives manage in years.
"I'm too old to come to this institution and sit on my hands for 15 years before I make a peep," Speier said. "That's not my personality, that's not my style and that's not why I was elected by the people in my district.
"I'll make waves when I think that's necessary, but I'm also a team player," she said.
She is conferring with several members, including Republicans, on ways to restrict House members' ability to secure earmarks for pet projects — a practice she says has been abused.
Speier's sense of urgency and direct approach stems from her belief that the war, the economy and the need for government reform demand immediate attention, she said. But it may also be the result of her remarkable personal story.
Thirty years ago, Speier was a young aide accompanying Rep. Leo Ryan of South San Francisco on a visit to Jonestown, Guyana, to investigate the People's Temple cult. As Ryan and his staff waited at an airstrip to leave the area, cult members opened fire on them.
Ryan was killed. Speier, shot five times, lay on the tarmac for 22 hours while more than 900 cult members were coerced to commit suicide by their leader, Jim Jones.
Speier recovered, ran for Ryan's seat and lost. She then launched a career in local and state politics, serving 18 years in the state Legislature. She was pregnant with her second child when her husband was killed in a car crash.
"My life experiences have helped me to be less fearful," she said last week. "In politics, that has allowed me to take on issues sooner rather than later."
Speier won a special election after Lantos died in February, and she took office in April, 29 years after she first ran. Moments after she was sworn in, she used her first speech on the House floor to urge the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq and chided McCain for suggesting, "We could be in Iraq for 100 years."
Republicans booed and hooted. Some walked out.
The congresswoman said she was surprised by the reaction: "I had no idea a new member was supposed to say, 'Thank you very much,' and sit down. I saw it as an opportunity to make a substantive speech."
Last month, Speier clashed with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and her Financial Services Committee chairman, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, during a hearing.
Speier sharply questioned Bernanke over whether he was doing enough to regulate investment banks. She conceded that she had little expertise, but said the committee should do more to avoid future bailouts like that of Bear Stearns in March.
Frank quickly jumped in: "I very much disagree with the gentlewoman's statement." He wondered if Speier had been present for the entire hearing.
"I was," she replied quickly.
It was not an isolated case. "Three chairmen in the last two weeks have told me, 'You're new. You're wrong,'" she said.
Speier worries that the lack of federal regulation of high-risk investment practices may have consequences, "and I don't think the American people will tolerate another bailout of a Bear Stearns."
As gas prices soared this summer, Speier asked people to make a sacrifice. Her bill would lower the speed limit to 60 mph (65 in rural areas) to conserve fuel, reduce demand and possibly lower prices.
"This is something that can be done right now and have an impact," she said. Speier knows the bill will go nowhere this year but has hopes for 2009.
Perhaps Speier's biggest accomplishment so far was landing a seat on the major investigative panel in the House: the Oversight on Government Reform Committee.
Under the aggressive leadership of Rep. Henry Waxman, a Los Angeles Democrat, the committee has investigated such things as military contractor scandals, the Valerie Plame spy case, health insurance and steroids in sports.
Speier's experience leading a state Senate committee investigating fraud in state government helped her get the new post.
"Oversight is as important as legislating," Speier said. "We have to make the bureaucracy — the government — work better."
Her motivation, she said, comes from voters, whose urgency matches hers: "They want change. Not a label 'change.' They want the real thing."
Media-speak for "She's crazy as a %$#&house rat."
Well, she’s way ahead of Senator Obama already...
Well, she can definitely claim to be a certified moonbat.
I kinda agree with her on one issue though - the bailout of financial institutions and banks and subsidizing their recklessness/irresponsibility/unethical behavior with tax payer money is an abhorrent practice.
Wall Street has no right to take the profits without getting hurt by the losses. This is just socialism of a different kind but one that’s designed for the rich and the powerful financial dons.
Another wide-eyed demokrat discovers the system is intolerant of “do gooders” ............
My esteemed congress critter.
She inherited her rotten borough district when her predecessor died and will be in congress until she herself dies. Thus our great republic.
He meant "mentally present."
So interesting she was almost killed by Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple cult members.
She certainly has lived an interesting life.
She was in Guyana with Leo Ryan, who I believe was the only U.S. Congressman ever killed in the line of duty. . .right before the Peoples Temple mass suicide, which I believe was the largest mass suicide in modern history.
If she thinks that's why they booed, then she's as clueless as three other chicks from her state, Boxer, Pelosi and Feinstein.
They were booing because she was taking McCain's words and twisting them, the way the MSM and all the other Democrats were doing. McCain wasn't saying that we WOULD stay, or HAD TO stay for 100 years, but that we should continue our presence there, as we've done in Europe, Japan and S. Korea.
If she had such an independent brain as she thinks, she could have reasoned that for herself, but I guess she IS just there to toe the party line. I admire her for overcoming her personal struggles, but that doesn't excuse ignorance OR stupidity.
I didn't know this.
I thought there were no survivors.
You know what galls me about Spiers? She knew the Democrats in SF are how Jimmie Jones got all his people and his power. Since the days of the Guyana Massacre, and reading her initial reactions, post 9-11; I’ve always wondered how much she knew before Leo and the Two Reporters flew down there. Leo Ryan was a decent man. There used to be some decent Democrats in CA. I don’t consider Spiers one of these.
There.
Fixed it for her.
OMG! It’s Bella Abzug 2.0!
All decency went out of the SF Democrat party when the People’s Temple bussed their people in from Ukiah to vote Moscone over the top.
I don’t think she had any advance knowledge of what was going to go down in Guyana - she’d have been far, far away.
I’ve spoken with her (I’m no longer banned from town hall meetings as I was under Lantos - for now). She’s an intelligent person but I cannot for the life of me understand her reasoning. You would think that after what happened in Guyana, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the hemisphere, she would understand that guns exist and all gun control does is keep law abiding people from protecting themselves. Instead she has this ‘would that there were no guns all would be right in the world’ attitude that is impervious to reasoning. It’s a classic example of a liberal failing to recognize that reality doesn’t bend to their preconceptions and being oblivious to the law of unintended consequences.
Not that ugly and somewhat straighter.
BTW, word has it that if Feinstein retires or dies she'll be the northern candidate for the seat, Jane Harmon representing the south.
FWIW, I think the few words I found most disturbing in the whole piece were these:
‘You’re new. You’re wrong,’
In that kind of environment, the real risk is that “new” and “wrong” become de facto synonyms; that even if you’re right. you’re wrong, only because you’re new.
None of that is to say she’s right; she’s not, but the fact that she’s new has nothing whatever to do with it.
Fact is, D.C. is the ultimate “Old Boys Club”, and “new” just can’t be allowed to be “right” very much; it makes the old hands look bad if they get one-upped by some greenhorn upstart.
So, the noobs in D.C. don’t get to be “right” very often — at least not without approval from Party leadership — until they’ve paid their dues.
And that goes for BOTH sides of the aisle.
And THAT is what’s TRULY wrong with this country.
All decency went out of the SF Democrat party when the People’s Temple bussed their people in from Ukiah to vote Moscone over the top.
Nodding. I still have newspaper clippings of the cult from before and after Guyana.
I don’t think she had any advance knowledge of what was going to go down in Guyana - she’d have been far, far away.
I initially thought so too. But reading her periodically through the years, her words and actions are not in synch with what a normal/rational person would have said or thought. As you've said below:
She’s an intelligent person but I cannot for the life of me understand her reasoning. You would think that after what happened in Guyana, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the hemisphere, she would understand that guns exist and all gun control does is keep law abiding people from protecting themselves. Instead she has this ‘would that there were no guns all would be right in the world’ attitude that is impervious to reasoning. It’s a classic example of a liberal failing to recognize that reality doesn’t bend to their preconceptions and being oblivious to the law of unintended consequences.
And you were in Lantos' district. I've lived only in Democrat run SF Bay area districts when in CA. I think it's gotta be more fun to be a tourist. I remember when the Bay Area was thriving; a great and fun place to live and work.
With all that Lantos' has been through; you'd think he'd have a real clue too!
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