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U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, has been all over the cable news stations this year as his role on finance-related committees and subcommittees in the House has thrust him into the spotlight.
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Posted on 03/23/2009 5:28:40 AM PDT by Born Conservative
As the economy tanks and Wall Street and the financial services industry have been placed under a microscope, U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski has been transformed from a member of Congress most often on the sidelines to one of cable television’s go-to talking heads.
It's not a position the Nanticoke native has often found himself in during 24 years in Washington. But he knows it comes with the job. The congressman, now serving his 13th term, said he has never been drawn to the spotlight, but in the past few months it’s found him.
In his position as chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises, he’s been given a chance to show what he’s learned in his 24 years on Capitol Hill. All it took was one of the largest economic disasters the nation has seen in 80 years.
“I’m not uncomfortable with it. It’s just something that has sort of happened,” the 71-year-old said about his new-found celebrity. “And it’s just the result of my seniority, the position I hold in the House and the issues of the day. And they have culminated in an unusual occurrence. I wish the occurrence hadn’t happened and we still had prosperity and we didn’t have these difficulties.”
Those “difficulties” are the collapse of some of the country’s largest banks and mortgage companies, skyrocketing unemployment, more than $1 trillion in government bailouts and controversies over how those funds are being used.
Kanjorski, one of the most senior members in the U.S. House of Representatives, has served on financial committees and subcommittees nearly his entire Washington career. For the majority of his tenure, the economy has been strong. But that changed last year.
Thanks to his seniority and because his Democratic Party has control of the House, Kanjorski has been thrust into the spotlight to help lead the country out of the financial mess some accuse the government of letting the nation get into.
He has become a staple in recent weeks on cable news shows, appearing several times a week or even more frequently. On Wednesday, his subcommittee’s hearing regarding AIG’s decision to hand out bonuses totaling $165 million aired on C-SPAN throughout the morning and afternoon. The same day, Kanjorski also appeared live at 7:45 a.m. on CNBC’s Squawk Box, at 8 a.m. on Bloomberg TV and at 6 p.m. on MSNBC’s Pennsylvania Avenue.
Such is the life of the chairman overseeing a subcommittee involved in the hot button topic of the year: the economy, and particularly the financial services industry. When the head of AIG was called on the carpet Wednesday for agreeing to honor contracts paying out the bonuses – after AIG has received $182 billion in federal bailout money the past year – there was Kanjorski asking tough questions and making stern statements.
Kanjorski told AIG Chairman Edward Liddy that his company’s management ignored warnings from him and other lawmakers not to make the payments because of the potential public outcry.
“Something is seriously out of whack, and AIG needs to fix it now,” Kanjorski said.
Kanjorski now feels so comfortable in front of the camera that when he agreed to sit down for an interview for this story on Thursday, he proposed it be done via videoconferencing. Sitting on a leather chair in his office in the Rayburn office building on Capitol Hill, two bright lamps illuminated him as he spoke to a reporter sitting on a leather chair in Kanjorski’s district office at the Stegmaier Building in Wilkes-Barre.
Speaking for more than an hour about his career, the economy, his newfound fame and the disappointment that a collapsing economy brought unwanted attention to him and his subcommittee, Kanjorski kept weaving between his early years in Congress and the most recent months. The contrast between the two time periods is clear.
Kanjorski has worked behind the scenes for years securing hundreds of millions in funding for Northeast Pennsylvania projects throughout the 11th District that includes Luzerne, Lackawanna, Carbon, Columbia and Monroe counties. He did it without basking in the limelight. Often the candidate on the campaign trail looked aloof or uneasy, nothing like the man you see on television now, according to King’s College Political Science professor David Sosar.
“Where was this during the campaign?” Sosar asked about Kanjorski’s energy and forcefulness.
Kanjorski said he’s more comfortable as a congressman than a congressional candidate.
He emphasized that he put his career on the line last year for the good of the country. While locked in a tough battle with Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta – some polls showed him losing or with a single-digit lead two months before the November general election – Kanjorski disappeared from the campaign trail Sept. 15 and didn’t return until the first week of October. He said he felt compelled to spend his time working on the financial mess.
“As soon as the issue became economic, as soon as it became the potential of losing the country, then the world, that was right up my alley because I spent 24 years in Congress on that question.”
His non-flashy campaigning skills and distaste for patting himself on the back for votes have been pointed out by others besides Sosar.
“Was I always the person that wanted to take an upfront position? No. … I like to be involved in the issues but I don’t call myself a ‘publicity hawk,’ ” Kanjorski said. “Gov. Rendell used to constantly kid me that I’m one of the best congressmen he knows but I’m one of the worst candidates because he said ‘You just don’t know how to brag or take credit for your success.’ There’s a lot of truth to that. I don’t feel comfortable with it.”
His goal of getting things back on track is still taking precedent over self-promotion.
Kanjorski said he has received three invitations to the White House the past two weeks but turned them all down.
“I’m just too busy,” he said with a chuckle.
That’s obvious as he runs between television appearances and hearings. The irony, he said, is that he’s always been hard at work, it’s just now people across the nation are taking notice.
“I was at these hearings for hundreds of hours, thousands of hours over 20 years. I just wasn’t seen. We accomplished a lot. A tremendous amount of legislation,” he said. But being in the background is something he said suits him just fine
“Over the years because of my low-key nature, they sort of call me the workhorse not the show horse. I like to get things done, I don’t particularly waste time making sure I get credit for it or someone else gets credit for it.”
So who is the real Paul Kanjorski? Is he the congressman who spent his first 22 years in the shadows doing the people’s work or the one who is front and center acting as the face and voice of the government’s animosity toward the financial sector? His 24 years in office surfaced when he gave a politician’s answer.
“I think the two people … are one and the same. It’s really circumstances that change the situation,” Kanjorski said.
Wilkes University political science professor Tom Baldino agreed.
“There hasn’t been anything as spectacular as this financial meltdown that has come before his committee that’s given him this chance,” Baldino said.
The professor said Kanjorski “has been a player in this arena for years, it’s just that a lot of people in this area don’t know about that.”
Baldino added that “people in Washington and the banking industry know who he is.”
Kanjorski hopes the spotlight comes off of him soon, because that would mean the financial crisis is turning around.
Sosar, the King’s professor, said when that happens, Kanjorski will go back to being “the representative people have come to know him as. Nothing dramatic. Nothing flamboyant.”
Until then, he’ll continue to appear on television asking questions at hearings and doing interviews. Kanjorski wouldn’t commit to running for another term, but said he hopes the economy is back on track by the time his current term is up. He said he expects to see a turnaround in the fourth quarter of this year or the first quarter of 2010.
U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, has been all over the cable news stations this year as his role on finance-related committees and subcommittees in the House has thrust him into the spotlight.
Ap photo
I’m sure Kanjorski’s sudden need to show his face on TV 24-7 has nothing to do with the fact that he was almost thrown out of office last November.
Hey Paul, could you please go over that $550 Billion run on the US Money Markets that you said took place back in September of 2008 one more time please?
It only makes sense that with the Communists in power, one of the key communists has more face-time with the media.
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