Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Photo by Kevin Kelley)

Kucinich: Committee chairmanship helps constituents
By Kevin Kelley
Westshore
Published Jan. 24, 2007

Rep. Dennis Kucinich said his recent election as chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be beneficial to his constituents in the 10th Congressional District and shed light on issues affecting all Americans. The congressman and presidential candidate believes his new authority on Capitol Hill, together with his early opposition to an Iraq war gone bad, will give him influence he has not previously wielded over America’s future.

Speaking at a press conference Monday at his Lakewood office, the six-term Democratic congressman declared his intention to fight not only the Bush administration’s proposed troop surge in Iraq but press for a U.S. military withdrawal from that country.

Kucinich was elected to chair the Domestic Policy Subcommittee Jan. 17 by all of his 23 fellow Democrats on the committee. The newly formed subcommittee has broad oversight authority over nearly all federal departments and agencies except the Defense and Homeland Security departments.

Kucinich said the subcommittee will be a powerful vehicle to reshape domestic policy.

“The beauty of this subcommittee is that it gives me the ability to ask questions,” Kucinich said.

“I am going to use this subcommittee to determine whether or not deregulation has helped or hurt ordinary people,” the congressman said. “Whether privatization has helped or hurt ordinary people.”

Kucinich said he would also investigate whether federal workplace safety laws and tax laws on corporations are being enforced.

“We’re going to investigate whether our government remains by, for and of the people or whether it acts more often by and for large corporations,” Kucinich said. “I see this domestic policy subcommittee as being a tool for every working person in Cleveland to get more from their government -- to get more justice, more fairness, more truth and more liberty.”

The former Cleveland mayor said the problems his constituents face  are experienced by people all across the country.

“Having traveled the country, Cleveland is at the center of America as far as I’m concerned,” Kucinich said. “All of the things that we care about, the American people care about.”

Health care, utility matters and workers’ rights will be among the first issues the subcommittee will tackle, Kucinich said.

“I’m free to create my own agenda here,” Kucinich said, adding that he’s holding meetings with committee staff this week.

Kucinich said the biggest challenge as chairman will be to decide which issues to examine. Areas that relate to people’s pocketbooks will be at the forefront, he said.

In his first act as chairman last week, Kucinich said he wrote to CEOs of several major telecom companies seeking information about whether they provided the Bush administration with telephone records of U.S. citizens.

The subcommittee will not only conduct investigations but also make recommendations on domestic policy, which Kucinich said has been “like the dark side of the moon” under the Bush administration.

Kucinich said the war in Iraq is preventing the country from meeting its domestic needs.

“Until the United States changes its direction in Iraq, this country is going to continue to lose hundreds of billions of dollars to the war, not to mention the loss of life of our soldiers and innocent civilians,” Kucinich said.

“As long as we’re mired in Iraq, this country will not be able to meet its domestic needs,” he added.

Kucinich said he can give proper time and energy to the subcommittee and also campaign for the presidency.

In fact, Kucinich said he is in the best position in his 40-year political career thanks to his initial opposition to the Iraq invasion. And the new subcommittee chairmanship gives him a prominent leadership role on domestic policy, he said.

“So bringing those two areas together — both international and domestic — I’m in an excellent position to have an influence on policy within the Congress and also as a candidate nationally,” he said.

To whatever extent he has political clout to set the agenda during the presidential campaign, Kucinich intends to make resistance to the Iraq war the central issue.

“People are starting to pay close attention to the initiatives that I’m bringing forward,” Kucinich said, “because they see that time has shown that I’ve had the judgment and clarity and the wisdom to be able to call exactly what was going on.”

Other Democratic presidential candidates from the Congress either voted for the Iraq war or continually approved funding for it, Kucinich said.

“There’s only one who had the clarity and the judgment to resists the pressures to go along with the president’s war,” he said. “And that was me.”

Kucinich said he agreed with the aggressive agenda recently set by the House Democratic leadership, known as the “First Hundred Hours” which included a minimum wage hike.

“But I’ve said the second hundred hours had better be about Iraq,” Kucinich said. “The second hundred hours had better be about a new course — not just against the escalation but opposed to our occupation.”