The first floor of my building was filled with news cameras this morning; their lenses trained on the door of the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing room. Beginning in the afternoon, the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on the recent Toyota recalls and held as a witness James Lentz, the President and Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. I caught snips of the hearing on C-SPAN throughout the afternoon, where Lentz was cross-examined and brought under near inquisition by members.
Congressman Henry Waxman’s questions regarding the cars’ sticking pedal and sudden unintended acceleration issues were especially interesting. After reading Waxman’s How Congress Really Works, I saw in-action how he prides himself on being a protector of the consumer. In specific, he directed questions in a way to hold Toyota accountable for the incidences and for any negligence that may be involved. Also interesting was Waxman’s sometimes-adversary and sometimes-friend in the committee, Congressman John Dingell’s, marked performance for the hearing. Dingell used a hard-line approach to questioning Lentz: simply, he asked a succession of “yes or no” questions in which he refused to listen to any explanation with which the witness tried to supplement his answer. At one point, Dingell even stopped the witness mid-word and retorted, “I’m just a poor Polish lawyer from Detroit. Will you please answer yes or no so I can understand.”
After work today I attended Congressman Abercrombie’s farewell party in anticipation of his official resignation on February 28th. Unfortunately, Mr. Abercrombie never did attend, albeit with good reason: he was submitting one of his final votes for the Native Hawaiian Reorganization Act (Akaka Bill) late into the evening. The bill, which contains a recently added amendment by Abercrombie, passed the House 245-164 and will now be moving to the Senate.
Though I still have not had the chance to meet Mr. Abercrombie in person, his farewell party drew several Hill celebrity sightings. First, Senator Inouye made a brief appearance at the beginning of the evening. However, his appearance was trumped when I discovered that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, had dropped by and was literally standing three feet away! She made a quick exit before we could meet her, but appearance left me feeling a little star-struck. Lastly, Congressman Mike Honda took it upon himself to chat with Mari, myself, and our other friends at the table. He was hilarious- he cracked jokes with us for over half an hour before he left, just on time, to cast his vote for the Akaka Bill.
While Congressman Abercrombie was successful in seeing the Akaka Bill passed in the House before his resignation, the fate of the bill will lie elsewhere. The House has twice passed the original version of the bill- in 2000 and 2007- yet each time it has died in the Senate. It will be interesting to see if Abercrombie’s amendment, which includes language that will give Hawaiians inherent power similar to other federally-recognized Native entities, will provide for a different debate or even a different fate in the Senate.
-Christy
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