A new era was proclaimed in Washington on Thursday as the Democratic party recaptured control of both houses of Congress after 12 years on the sidelines of power.
”The Democrats are back,” exulted Nancy Pelosi, who went on to make history on Thursday afternoon when she was sworn in as the first woman to become Speaker of the House of Representatives.
”This is an historic moment — for the Congress, and for the women of this country. It is a moment for which we have waited more than 200 years,” Pelosi (66) told Congress. ”Today we have broken the marble ceiling.”
In another first, Keith Ellison of Minnesota became the first Muslim to serve in Congress, taking his office on a Qur’an that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
Amid the celebratory mood among Democrats on Thursday, the official message from Pelosi as well as the new Democratic Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, was about cooperation with their Republican opponents. But the limits of bipartisanship were made starkly apparent when Pelosi signalled that President George Bush, who had a Republican House and Senate in his first six years in the White House, would face new and energised opposition.
”Nowhere were the American people more clear about the need for a new direction than in Iraq. The American people rejected an open-ended obligation to a war without end,” Pelosi said.
Bush on notice
She put Bush on notice that he could expect fierce opposition to his new strategy for Iraq. He is expected to announce next week his decision to increase the United States’s military commitment there with the deployment of thousands more troops.
”It is the responsibility of the president to articulate a new plan for Iraq that makes it clear to the Iraqis that they must defend their own streets and their own security, a plan that promotes stability in the region and that allows us to responsibly redeploy American forces,” Pelosi said.
Pentagon officials said on Thursday there could be an increase of between 20 000 and 40 000 forces, achieved mainly by extending the stay of soldiers currently serving in Iraq while moving forward the deployment of Marine units.
The Democrats will get another chance to question Bush’s judgement on the war in confirmation hearings for John Negroponte, the new Deputy Secretary of State. Negroponte, who was made national intelligence director less than two years ago, is expected to be replaced by retired vice-admiral Mike McConnell.
Bush faces trials on the domestic front too as Pelosi plans to exercise the Democrats’ new majority with an ambitious legislative agenda, beginning almost immediately after the swearing-in with measures to untangle the murky relationships between lobbyists and politicians.
The move, banning such inducements as free seats at basketball games and trips on private jets, was the first step in a Democratic plan to shepherd six new pieces of legislation through the House before Bush makes his State of the Union address on January 23.
Iraq and ethics
In the Senate, where the Democratic majority is wafer thin, Reid said on Thursday that the focus would remain on Iraq. Reid has not ruled out support for a troop surge, but other senators have said they intend to use their new powers to increase scrutiny of the administration, with hearings scheduled in at least two committees on the progress of the war.
In addition to ethics reform, the Democrats have pledged to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade, as well as make federal funds available for stem-cell research. But the limit of their new power was underscored on Wednesday when the White House announced that Bush, who vetoed a similar Bill last summer, remains opposed to stem-cell research.
Bush went on to warn of further confrontations. ”If the Congress chooses to pass Bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal this week.
Bush saw the further dwindling of his band of Texas loyalists on Thursday with the resignation of the White House counsel, Harriet Miers. Her departure had been expected ever since her nomination to the Supreme Court in 2005, which was withdrawn amid an uproar over her apparently shaky grasp of constitutional law. — Guardian Unlimited Â