Edison Orellana10/9/2010 8:08:34 PM

Period 3Bibliographic Entry: The Waxman Report. New York: Twelve, 2009. Print.

Thesis: “Congress is far from perfect and would benefit from some important reforms—but at a fundamental level it not only works, it is a tremendous force for good. I wrote this book to explain how congress really works and to give an idea of the many accomplishments that are entirely overlooked, misunderstood, or drowned out by partisan attacks.” (Waxman xii)

Introduction

Waxman begins the book with an example of what he calls “one of the great Washington Dramas.” He is referring to a bill that was passing through congress about cigarettes. More specifically Waxman spoke of how the tobacco industry sued the EPA for libel because they said the secondhand smoke was polluting San Francisco.

While explaining these examples Waxman throws in general statements that can be taken out of context and still make sense. Here is one such example on page xii: “The other guys always have more money. That’s why Congress is so important. Run as it should be, it ensures that no special interest can ever be powerful enough to eclipse the public interest.” This quote has to do with what Waxman is talking about however it still can make sense and provides information when it is just quoted like above. I like this style of writing in this book because Waxman doesn’t bore us with scrupulous details.

Waxman’s thesis (above) is very assuring because when I chose a book on congress I was afraid I was going to get something that resembled a legal document. Instead it is a story like explanation from the eyes of a congressman. The whole introduction really leads up to his thesis because he centers around how people think congress is a bunch of old white men that argue and never get anything done. While many think this is not far from the truth, it is the self-proclaimed duty of Waxman to tell us contrariwise.

One. The Early Years

The basics: born in 1939 in LA, Russian family. His father was into politics which brought him into it too. Waxman grew up with very positive influences about government. He viewed government as an institution that helped people.

Waxman talks about his community among other things. He mentions the Waxman Reporter which was a newspaper that was marketed to minorities around where he lived. This was important because of the name association that comes with it. Since Waxman’s last name was on the minority paper he had a higher chance of getting the minority vote. Anyways, he talks about how this was

important because he had been campaigning to become the leader of the Young Democrats group he was a part of in college. Waxman was a very liberal democrat as a youngster and wanted to get himself and his friends, who were also liberal democrats, to be the leaders of the young democrats. In the end Waxman got his way and the liberals did take over the Young Democrats.

All of this exciting political involvement as a kid turned out to be what he would end up doing as a career. In 1968 Waxman ran for office. He would fill in for a congressman who was retiring that year. He eventually got a man named Colonel Leon Washington to support him in his campaigning because he remembered him from when he was younger in one of the few liberal newspapers in the community. Waxman won his position and beat McMillan who had changed his mind about retiring and decided to try and get reelected.

Two. California State Assembly to Congressional Subcommittee Chairman

“The absence of a strong party organization meant that there was no “machine” to dole out desirable appointments and committee assignments or to handpick candidates and mediate their disputes.” In this chapter Waxman explains how elections are influenced within the government. One important idea that is repeated throughout the chapter is that Democrats (or any political party) would raise money for the people within their committee so that they can have a strong committee where they all agree on the same things making it easier to get things done.

Later in the chapter Waxman offers a bit more personal biography about how he moved back to LA from Sacramento so that he could run for congress again. He got his spot in congress and went on to stay with what he loved which was politics. The seniority system within congress was getting in his way however and that takes up a good portion of the chapter. In 1971 a resolution was passed that made seniority less of an important factor to getting into high places.

This was happening around the time of Watergate therefore people had negative sentiments about government and congress fell under this category. That was a challenge that he had to deal with when trying to get his committee members elected.

“…congressmen routinely tailor their presentations for television by using visual props and colorful sound bites.” Page 29. I connected to this quote to that Jon Stuart video we watched about the media being able to convey a certain message using only cutting out parts of video and sound. It turns out that not only do the editors for The Daily Show do it, but also congress itself.

Waxman returns to his argument that he brought up in the beginning of the chapter about congressmen choosing their leaders very cautiously and supporting the ones they like. “Jesse Unruh built and maintained a Democratic majority by seeing that his legislators had the means to get reelected.” “Money is as important to the substantive work of Congress as a bill or an election. Everything intertwines.” “Having a good committee lineup broadens the possibilities of what can be

achieved (Just as a bad one limits them.” “Year after year, many of the members I supported have cast votes on important legislation.” All of these quotes show just how important it is to have good people under you in Congress. I can summarize this whole chapter as follows: Get your people in office by paying for their campaigns; it is a good investment because once they’re there, you have an easier time spitting out good legislation.

Three. HIV/AIDS and the Ryan White Act

The chapter begins with Waxman’s tale of dealing with the AIDS epidemic in 1981 now as the chairman of the house subcommittee on Health and the Environment. David Stockman working for the OMB was a budget manager that was looking to cut spending on many health programs. This would have been very bad because many medical institutions would be left without funding. There was an AIDS epidemic spreading throughout LA which was giving way to the hysteria of the “gay disease.” Waxman briefly outlined steps for dealing with an epidemic:

1. Draw attention to it.2. Provide research money.3. Prevention and treatment

There was partisan dispute on how to handle the epidemic. Since liberals and conservatives differ on gays it was hard to handle the epidemic because the Republican solution to AIDS was to ban homosexuality but the Democrats wanted to treat it medically as to not interfere with one’s choice of sexual orientation. The only legislation that was able to be passed to help the cause was the Public Health Emergency Trust Fund which provided funds for dealing with epidemics. Reagan’s “budget hawks” always got in the way of doing anything about the epidemic.

Later on Waxman and others in his committee wanted to start a bill that would better protect AIDS victims from discrimination and would enforce confidentiality. They were afraid that since it was helping gay people it would become known as a gay rights bill which they wanted to avoid because the conservatives would shoot it down. The bill did get to the floor however a man names Jesse Helms places a hold on the bill that would not allow it to pass. This was a real life example of a filibuster that relates to our reading! Anyway, he told Waxman, “I don’t want any confidentiality on these records. Nothing at all.” Waxman told him that people could potentially lose their lives. (Not literally) He replied that they would be lost because of a gay disease. This shows the stubbornness that partisanship creates.

There was a kid who got AIDS from a blood transfusion named Ryan White. This kid was thirteen years old and took no action in sexual activities or drug use so he did not fit the stereotype of the gay disease. Yet he was kicked out of public school. He became the liberal “poster boy” for the AIDS cause. Now that they had Ryan White’s story on their side it was going to be a lot easier to get AIDS legislation to pass.

A new bill was written that included counseling, testing, confidentiality, treatment, and research for AIDS victims. It was called the Ryan White CARE Act and it passed as a law and is still in effect today. A victory for the liberals in the end and a victory for mankind.

Four. The Orphan Drug Act

The chapter begins with talking about the event that led to a series of events in congress. A woman called congress to ask for a favor. Her son has Tourette’s and she had a friend fly to Canada to pick up a medication for her to give to her son but she got stopped during air travel and the medication was confiscated and she wants it back so she called her congressman to do something about it.

The drug that the mother wanted fell under the category of an orphan drug. An orphan drug is a drug that is made to treat a rare disease which also makes in unprofitable for pharmaceutical companies to manufacture so they decide not to. The drug was not approved for use in the US therefore it was confiscated. This chapter is the story of how congress changed that.

They met with the boy, named Adam, and had him testify before congress about his story. The story was touching and was further inspiration to do something about the orphan drugs. Later they got other families that were affected by orphan diseases and they all testified which was very moving to everyone; so much so that they came to tears in the room. They got a man named Klugman to bring public awareness to the orphan drug problem through his involvement with the media. An ad was organized on a show called Quincy and it helped raise awareness. It was also featured on the front page of the New York Times.

They began the process of writing the Orphan drug Act which would make incentives for the manufacturing of the orphan drugs. It had three parts:

1. Market exclusivity provision (A seven year monopoly)2. Collaborative consultation with the FDA3. 90% percent tax credit

The original bill with the ninety percent tax credit was too extreme for the bill to be passed by both parties. It underwent some editing. After the editing, the bill was feasible and it ended up getting on the floor quickly because both committees agreed on it. It was put on the suspension calendar which allowed the bill to be put on the floor for forty minutes before being put on the president’s desk.

The president was going to veto it anyway though because he did not want to mess with the spending at the time because he didn’t want the government to be blamed for “wasting” money. Waxman tried to persuade the president by making a speech about it at a Christmas party. Eventually they were able to get the president to sign the bill into law. The rest of the chapter talks about the long term benefits of the bill. NIH now researches orphan diseases and has passed thousands of drugs that are used to treat them. All in all this was another victory for Waxman and his bills.

Five. The Clean Air Act.

The Clean Air Act was a landmark piece of legislation because it was the first piece of legislation that sought to regulate pollution from industrial plants and cars. Waxman was really excited about passing the legislation but Ronald Reagan was not. According to Waxman Reagan claimed that trees caused pollution. With this absurd claim Waxman knew that he would have his hands full.

Reagan was a business oriented kinda guy and when business and jobs interfered with the environment; it was the environment that would have to take a hit. As time progressed the Reagan Administration would come up with multiple reasons why things like the clean air act would be costly and ineffective. It was the job of Waxman and the House Energy and Commerce Committee to come up with the explanations about how much it would reduce pollution and how cheap it would be. He did his job well.

Waxman described this legislation as a triumph of David over Goliath. There were many people and factors working against the clean air act but he was able to get it done. In this chapter Waxman brought up an important point about congress. Which is that there is seldom ever any compromise. He said that Compromise doesn’t work because it doesn’t solve the problem that was raised in the first place. Because of this Waxman was going to have to get everything he wanted in order for the Clean Air Act to work.

After Waxman had proposed his bill there was a large fear that it would be defeated in the house. He feuded against John Dingell who was known to be a forceful man which wouldn’t help in getting the bill passed. A term was named after him; diddling- to diddle someone was to aggressively work them over in a very public way and keep going after them until they submitted.

Later in the push for the Clean Air Act Waxman got some feedback on his bill. What was known as the Lou Harris Poll showed that clean air was one of the “sacred cows” of the people. On the house floor Dingell defeated all sixty proposals that Waxman and his committee had brought forth. Waxman knew that he would have to slow down this “steamroller” in order to make progress. There were protestors that came into a subcommittee hearing one day who ripped off their shirts and showed the “Dirty Dingell” t-shirts underneath.

Things were now getting serious for the Energy and Commerce Committee. In the upcoming voting for the Dingell Amendment which would make it harder to pass clean air legislation they recruited a conservative democrat named Marc Marks. Because of his vote the Dingell Amendment faile which was of the first victories for Waxman’s committee. This was the beginning of a new attitude for the committee to succeed. A turning point in the battle for clean air legislation.

The next challenge was acid rain. Everyone agreed that acid rain was a problem but no one wanted to do anything about it because of the cost. It would be expensive to outfit the electric companies with specialized smokestacks to prevent acid rain and that cost would get passed in to the people. This was the cost of modernization. Despite all of this battle over the acid rain and its cost

Waxman allied with Bill Dannemeyer again and together they were able to propose the Dannemeyer-Waxman Amendment. This bill required dirty power plants to adopt pollution control technologies and the government would cover the cost through the electricity bill fee. The money would come from constituents from other parts of the country. In the end it was voted down with one vote by Dennis Eckhart.

Waxman described the shifts in the debate over legislation. He said that it is very possible for people to change their minds slowly and sometime right away. In this case it was right away. On December 3, 1984 a power plant in India leaked forty tons of toxic gas which killed 3,000 people and injured 100,000 more. This was the perfect incident for the Clean Air Act to work off of.

Despite the incredibly horrific event the EPA was not ready to regulate air pollution yet. The EPA would not declare a substance toxic until they were prepared to regulate it and they would not regulate any substance that it did not deem as toxic. This circular logic was preventing anything from being done.

Waxman had a man named Greg Westone. He was to go and survey power plants and the environment. He found that there was a power plant in Kanawha Valley that was identical to the one in India. Around there public safety was an afterthought. Every day the plant would spew out tons of toxic materials but nothing was ever to be done about it. The Committee began to do research and found that there was far more pollutants being pumped into the air than they had imagined. After all of this research they needed companies to give information about all that they were doing at their plants. This was added to the bill too. The Clean Air Act was approaching its day and Waxman and his crew were preparing for the challenge.

With all of this research in place the Committee had a solid argument to stand on. Already there were many people who were in favour of the bill. Constant events that showed the need for the act kept occurring. Medical waste supplies were showing up on the shore on New Jersey and the Exxon oil spill.

The Clean Air Act now included multiple parts: acid rain, smog, toxic air pollutants, and now recently they would add ozone depletion. The discovery of the harmful effects of CFCs were now apparent and they would bring an end to it. They brought an end to the harmful practices already in place and patronized new cleaner inventions for the sake of saving the environment. This gave way to the catalytic converter.

The bill was now surely on its way to the president and everyone is excited for the passing of the first major environmental legislation ever. Beforehand the bill was talked and talked but it was definitely going to be considered. “You know the difference between being in a medium security prison and being in congress? There isn’t any. In both facilities you can walk around all you want—you just can’t leave.”

The bill was inevitably signed by president Bush in 1990. The Ozone harmful chemicals were reduced by 90%, tail pipe standards went up, cars became more efficient, and mother earth was happy. Waxman says there are many lessons to learn out of the Clean Air Act:

1. Success is possible despite an overwhelming opposition.

2. Industry will lie, and exaggerate about what they can and can’t do.3. Good legislation works as intended.

Six. Nutrition Labeling and Dietary Supplements.

In the 80s a health craze swept the nation and everyone was eager to get lean and expel all sorts of nasty sounding additives from their diets. Unfortunately people who were serious about eliminating bad foods from their diet had no ability to decipher between good and bad foods because manufacturers were able to put whatever they wanted on their labeling. There were no laws that required food manufacturers to put anything on the foods that they sold. Manufacturers could make any health claims that they wanted, even things like disease prevention. No one could make anything of these labels thus making them unreliable and ineffective.

Kelloggs All Bran cereal was the first product to link their product with disease prevention. After them many other companies followed and marketed their products like medicines. Federal policy said that disease preventing elixirs must be tested before making the claims. Kelloggs was technically in violation of this but Reagan chose to let it continue. Campbells referred to themselves as health insurance. Bertolli Oil called their oil light just because of the colour it had and nothing else. Wonder bread slapped on no cholesterol label on their bread even though breads don’t ever have any cholesterol. Obviously, manufacturers were taking the health craze out of hand.

“In congress the most commonsense ideas are the ones that draw the most heated protests.” Waxman knew that is was necessary to have a way for people to access basic nutritional information and to stop the dangerously misleading health claim associated with foods. Waxman was preparing the Nutritional Labeling and Education Act. “The grocery store has become a tower of Babe, and consumers need to be linguists…” There was a definite need for a change in food labeling.

The main concern of the manufacturers of NLEA was that once people found out what was in their food they would stop buying them. Waxman knew that this bill would only get passed with clever drafting rather than intense debate. The Parlimentarian played a role in the debate of the bill. He had a lot of power for the passing on the bill since he was almost equal with the speaker of the house and was on his party. In the debate to differentiate carcinogens and nutrients the Parlementarian voted in their favour which was a large step forward for NLEA.

Although they had successfully brought NLEA to drafting and debating stages they were unsure if they could get it through senate. That would be the big challenge to them. Since the Senate has the power of the hold and the filibuster it was possible that it could get caught up in the Senate.

The next issue was exceptions. There were so many exceptions for the bill. Most notably was the exception of candy. Since candy wrappers are so small they cannot fir all the nutritional information on the wrapper. This exception is what makes lawmaking somewhat tedious according to Waxman. In every

piece of legislation there is always going to be some exceptions that cannot all be accounted for. And good legislation is the kind that can accommodate those exceptions while still maintaining its effectiveness.

Waxman commented on how it was amazing that a bill can undergo major revision before it goes to the president, even adding completely new amendments and get passed. Bush signed the bill into law on November 8, 1990.

Although they had won and their bill had passed there was still the issue of letting the FDA regulate dietary supplements. Fortunately the FDA decided that the same standards placed on foods under the NLEA should be applied to the dietary supplements. However there was one deciding difference. The FDA said they could still make the disease preventing claims. So the government stepped in and said they were going to change this. The dietary supplement companies took this as a threat of taking away vitamins. This lead to a big lobbying movement where people united in the thought that the government was going to take away vitamins. Which was of course not true. There was a commercial where the FDA bursts into Mel Gibson’s house and takes away his vitamins. This led to a conspiracy theory that the government needed people to get sick so that the pharmaceutical companies could make money.

In order to keep everyone happy so that they can have their vitamins Hatch attached a rider to the bill that would allow vitamins as long as they had the NLEA specifications. For a time Waxman was looked as the evil government villain who wants to take away things from the people. With this last issue accounted for Clinton signed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act into Law.

In retrospect, the NLEA has been enormously beneficial to all of Americans sine it has made finding nutritional information easier than ever. It has also kept them safe by properly warning them of carcinogens in foods. “We’re a healthier country because congress acted.” However Waxman did point to the only thing that he thinks was a failure: the DSHEA. He didn’t like it because it was too lenient on the supplementary drugs. But it was worth it to keep the people happy I suppose.

Seven. Pesticides and Food.

Waxman introduces this chapter by hinting towards how the pesticide problem was a great example of bipartisan cooperation. Pesticides had been a problem for a long while and it was due time for congress to take on the task of making law that the industries could comply with and that would keep people safe. Pesticides were a growing problem. Nancy Chuda explained to Waxman how her daughter had died due to pesticides. Pesticides were agents used in biochemical warfare and to kill weeds on our foods. While this may sound bad there were many people who were not aware of such problems and this unawareness caused people to not view pesticides as an immediate threat considering long term exposure was what really harmed people. The immediate effects of air pollution were easier to get people to rally over.

There were measures that were taken before to combat pesticides but all of them were ineffective. There was a bill during Clinton’s presidency that got nowhere. And the Delaney Clause which was a law in NY that didn’t allow any cancer causing carcinogens in foods was not enforced. And this was a bad law anyway because it would make fruits totally illegal in NY since the smallest traces of carcinogens can be discovered in the fruits.

Waxman retells the story of when the Republicans took control of congress. He makes it out to be a really bad event. He talks about how the Republicans came in and they tied everyone up and put duct tape on the democrats mouths and started passing right wing legislation and repealing democratic ones. Congress had stopped acting as a legislative body and instead became a rubber stamp for the Republicans. Consensus was a bad word.

Waxman knew the republicans would sell out to businesses instead of protecting people from the pesticides. This meant repealing the Delaney Clause. Bipartisan agreement came soon though when the Republicans didn’t have any accomplishments to give come the next election day. Eager for something to give as an accomplishments they partnered up with the democrats and Waxman thought this was the perfect opportunity to get his pesticide bill passed. The two parties agreed to three days’ worth of discussion. Waxman said that this was one of the few instances where trading bad politics for good policy was a good idea. Waxman and the group had one problem which was the Delaney Clause which would, in theory, put a ban on fruits since trace amounts of pesticides were found in all fruits. So they came up with the reasonable certainty to cause no harm clause of the bill that stipulated that there had to be a reasonable certaintly that the foods would cause no harm.

After this the two parties had effectively worked together to have the law ready. The victory was silent so the media did not make hype about it. No one else did either. Waxman said that the only things that made It possible were his relationship with Tom Bliley and the cooperation of both parties.

Eight. Fraud, Waste, and Abuse.

Waxman preludes this chapter with a brief introduction of the important but overlooked part of congress: oversight. The overseeing of the executive branch helps by identifying problems that may need new laws or evaluate the execution of current laws. Most importantly, it is up to congress to make sure that all the money is getting spent wisely. It is up to the Oversight committee in the house to make sure that every suspicion of fraud is investigated and that all the money is accounted for. Waxman presided on this committee for thirty years.

Once the Republicans were in office they began to do all that they could to discredit the Clinton administration even if that meant resorting to McCarthyist tactics. They even went off to detain a Chinese man because they suspected him of giving Clinton campaign contributions in exchange for information so that Clinton could slowly sell out to China. Waxman summed up these practices with the quote by Lord Acton: Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Waxman contrasts this with the change in president when president Bush came into office. The republicans spent so much time investigating the actions of Clinton but Bush was left to do whatever he wanted. Since Waxman didn’t have enough power to bring this problem to the attention of the executive branch he began writing letters. So many letters that the Washington Post nicknamed him The Man of Letters. These letters were being sent to the white house and various government agencies. Waxman was mobilizing his subcommittee to take on the task of oversight. They started opening up tip lines to get information and gained some very damning evidence. For example, Ken Lay was recorded encouraging buyers to buy stock that he expected to fail.

All of these actions against public trust were cause for a concern so Waxman prepared a committee with the purpose of bringing these injustices to attention and to learn why the government malfunctions and how to fix it and how to prevent it. One of the injustices they faced were no bid contracts. In the beginning of the Iraq war a man called Halliburton was overcharging for products that the military would use. He was taking advantage of our money and pocketing his profits. The government was paying money out of their ass to have all sorts of things done. Waxman looked into the overcharging problem and found that the contractors that were hired to clean up hurricane Katrina or to sell to the military were the ones that were doing the oversight so they had it setup for maximum profit for them while taking away from taxpayers. Waxman knew that doing something about this wool require public attention rather than private action.

The first report they were working on was the rising price of prescriptions for seniors. The report alone was enough to draw lots of attention to the issue which was what they were looking for. It was these reports that were so important. Once they saw that they could bring so much attention to these

issues just by writing reports about them they began writing lots of them the reports were known as “Waxman Reports” which owes the title to the book.

Waxman then began to put his strategy to work to accomplish his goals. Firstly, he wanted to pursue fraud, waste, and abuse; then ensuring that government was working as it should be; and lastly, to hold the executive branch accountable for its performance. They began with four consecutive days of oversight hearings. This was the beginning of taking action. During the hearing they discussed how 8.8 Billion dollars had vanished. It was sent to Iraq and then was unaccounted for. They blamed Blackwater USA which was a private military contractor of “losing” the money. Next came a hearing on the spending for ships in the Navy that couldn’t stay afloat. Boatloads of money was being given to fix the boats when oversight would have prevented the boats from being built wrong in the first place anyway. The next set of problems came when the pharmaceutical companies were raising prices on Medicare and Medicaid. By law they were to charge the cheapest that they could but the companies were looking at ways around that. It was up to Waxman and his crew to fix it. He saw problems and looked to find someone in government to be help accountable.

The jurisdiction can also apply to the private sector as exemplified by Waxman’s action into looking into the payment to CEOs. In 2007 CEOs were making staggering amounts of money and Waxman and his committee took on the responsibility of finding out why. Waxman held a hearing about this issue. And immediately he found out how powerful the companies were. They began bombarding him with phone calls as to why he should reconsider the hearing. The question at the hearing remained, however. The question was how can CEOs be doing so well when their companies are doing so poorly? This lack of accountability was the key problem for the economy.

The problem arose from a vicious cycle of buyers and sellers. Investors had incentives to make money in illicit manners because they were being paid by the CEOs that money went to. The industries’ regulation of themselves was at the heart of the problem. The circular incentives of profiting themselves made the industries so backwards. Waxman brought all this to the table. He ends the chapter alluding to the future of business under Obama.

Nine. The Tobacco Wars.

Waxman says that the fight against the tobacco industry is the defining part of his career. Waxman felt very strongly about regulating tobacco seeing as it kills 440,000 people a year making it one of the deadliest killers in America. Waxman made a pragmatic and almost cold statement when he said that the people that were dying were a loss in productivity. It was like he referred to the people as merely worker bees. No matter his reasoning, he still believed that something should be done about these tobacco companies. Unfortunately the tobacco companies knew how congress worked and they used that to their advantage; they had government whipped. They were able to exist without government oversight. Primarily the interest group, big tobacco, played a key role in controlling Washington.

Tobacco companies were one of the largest contributors to party committees, so in effect, they were buying their way to less oversight. Neither party particularly wanted to do anything with the tobacco industries and thus the situation looked bleak. The cigarette companies had two ways of keeping industries on top of government. The first way was to make smoking something that was commonplace. They did this through advertising cigarettes everywhere and making it seem like it was the normal thing to smoke. At this point Waxman reveals that he used to smoke. He said that when he was first starting out cigarette companies would offer the politicians cigarettes all the time to make it seem normal and to get them on their side. Another way that tobacco industries would get their product out was to make sure that no one really knew if cigarettes were really harmful. The companies would hire their own doctors to research smoking and come up with conclusions that it was not bad for you. Of course it is always up to the person to make a choice to smoke or not but Waxman people wouldn’t smoke if they knew the true effect that tobacco had on people.

Since Waxman wasn’t in the position to pass a major ban on smoking law he figured he would start small. They had extensive research done as to the harmful effects of smoking. Starting in the 80s Waxman held numerous hearings to bring these studies to attention. They also got celebrity endorsements against smoking but these could not pose a lasting effect on people. They began working on warning labels. Currently the warning labels vaguely linked smoking to negativity. Waxman got legislation passed that would link the cigarettes to specific diseases. He also made all forms of advertising have these warnings on them which included billboards and magazine ads and such.

Another problem was chewing tobacco. Snuff was unregulated from any sort of warning labels. Luckily there was a high school student who chewed tobacco and got cancer and had his tongue cut out and other surgeries until he died. He became a martyr for snuff and caused legislation to get passed for the regulation of the advertising of snuff. The goal of Waxman and his committee was always to raise awareness that might help to get anti-tobacco legislation passed. The first to get the ball rolling on anti-tobacco legislation was Dick Durbin of Illinois. He wanted to ban smoking on flights lasting less than two hours. During the debate over this piece of legislation secondhand smoke came up as a major issue. The bill was looking negatively because everyone had the mindset of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Waxman was disappointed at how well the tobacco industries had conditioned people to believe that smoking was so normal that nothing should be changed.

Eventually Waxman began making progress once the industry started opening up information. Waxman and crew got their hands on a report that talked about secondhand smoking a class A carcinogen. The report was compiled by the EPA. According to the FDA the tobacco companies were manipulating the nicotine levels to get more people addicted. There was a movie made by the Wall Street Journal called “Smoke and Mirrors.” The documentary shed light on the “conspiracies” about the tobacco companies. Eventually Waxman got enough hype within the government to have the issue taken seriously. But the attention was still overlooked by the public. The hard part was appealing to the public.

The next problem was dealing with the doctors hired by the tobacco industry that said they didn’t think smoking was unhealthy or weren’t sure. The problem was that the tobacco industries had

the best lawyers, doctors, lobbyists, and admen on their side. With this advantage they were able to hide the truth about tobacco. The truth that the CEOs of the tobacco companies depended on people to buy their product and that meant selling as much as they can regardless of public health. Regardless of the efforts of the industry the issue was gaining lots of good public opinion and that was good for the Waxman crew.

To raise even more awareness they invited Kessler, an insider, to testify about the practices of the companies. In his testimony he talked about the extra care that was put into the engineering of the cigarette for maximum addiction rate and nicotine intake. And how there were designed to bypass health test by the government. At the hearing, the tobacco companies were quickly being shot down in all their arguments. Many inconsistencies were popping up. At every chance the industry would deny that cigarettes are addictive. They also denied marketing to children, which they clearly did evident of their ads. At the end of the hearing the good guys won and the tobacco companies surrendered studies that proved that cigarettes and nicotine were indeed very bad and very addictive.

The tobacco industries were then working with what they had and started accusing the government of wanting to start another prohibition on tobacco. This was not true. Big Tobacco was losing its public image and its credibility. Their arguments were being shot down. The movie The Insider was based off of the people in this hearing that had connections with the tobacco industry and they testified about the doings in government. Our good guys had proven that nicotine was very addictive with a study using rats that eventually became so addicted to nicotine that they preferred it over water. Information that leaked from within the company revealed that they had known they were selling an addictive drug for years.

When democrats got kicked out of office the job became much harder. The Republicans won back congress and Waxman was out of his seat as chairman of the House Energy Commerce Committee which put him and his posse in the minority. What was hardest about this was that they could no longer bring studies to the attention of the house floor because they had no legal jurisdiction in the area. This was particularly bad timing because they had gotten a hold of a firsthand document entailing the tobacco companies’ plans of marketing to younger demographics. Tom Bliley was the new head of Waxman’s committee and together they formed a bipartisan alliance to continue their anti-tobacco plans. Together they came up with legislation that would penalize the tobacco companies if they were suspected of marketing to kids by a higher tax. Since the legislation was market based the Republicans would like it. Unfortunately it died on the floor because everyone was too partisan.

As the tobacco war dragged on the industry eventually wanted to make a 206 Billion dollar settlement to end all of this. That was not good enough for Waxman however. The FDA lacked authority to regulate tobacco which left it up to congress to pass a law to regulate it. When Bush took office, the political process on the tobacco war ceased. Bad timing everytime. Eventually the Senate approved a bill for giving the jurisdiction to the FDA. Waxman and Tom Davis drafted a Bill called the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act giving the FDA authority to regulate tobacco. It was only a matter of time before the bill would get passed.

Waxman concludes the chapter with a reflection on how terrible the tobacco wars were. Tobacco was a drug that was deadlier than any other dangerous thing on the market like cars or food or medicines and it went relatively unregulated for years. Congress had effectively attacked the big tobacco image and brought them down from their pedestal. With all this battle it eventually paid off when President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act and made it law.

Ten. Steroids and Major League Baseball.

In the 90s everyone started noticing that baseball players were starting to out-perform anyone that had come before them. Baseball players were consistently performing with superhuman ability. Being the chair of the health and commerce committee the word eventually got to Waxman. Reports were being sent to him that steroid use was increasing in all areas of major sports and even in kids. A former major league baseball player, Jose Canseco, published a memoir about his life in steroids and in the book he accused many other current stars of using steroids. Waxman was afraid that steroid use would travel its way down each level starting from the professional level, then to college, then to high school; what was even more concerning was this was actually happening. And even more concerning than that was that the commissioner of the MLB dismissed the book as fictional choosing to ignore the problem. It was the issue of accountability again. No one was accountable for anything and baseball was self-regulating.

Taking action on the issue Waxman decided to partner with Tom Davis who chaired over the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to have a hearing about the steroid abuse. They wanted to bring players to the hearing to testify including Canseco. MLB did not react pleasantly to the notion of investigation and they retaliated by trying to say that they had no jurisdiction. The MLB refused to hand over steroid policy and were not cooperative. The media was not helpful either because they were making the government out to be the bad guy; the one who wanted to end baseball. MLB later stated that they wanted to be the one to handle their own problem with a new steroid policy that they thought would help stop the steroid use. At least they began to address the problem. However once the new plan was released Waxman thought it was too lenient because it did not fine the players enough for their use of drugs. The policy seemed to allow the players chances to get away with steroids. The banned substances list was missing many of the steroids that were out there; players had opportunities to cover up their urine samples to be clean.

Waxman says that cases that are high profile like this one are harder to manage because there are more people that are reporting on it constantly and anything you say can get misinterpreted. These hearings were becoming so high profile that the real intention of the cases got off course and it was just hearings to find out who was doing steroids. The use of steroids in some of the hall of fame players came as a large shock t to many fans. These kinds of hearings also distracted from another major problem of steroid use which was abuse in minors.

Now that everyone had known that there were indeed players in the MLB that were abusing steroids, it suddenly became a major issue that needed to be addressed. The MLB steroid hearings were really popular and very controversial; so controversial that not only were the hearings on c-span but they were also seen on ESPN. Tom Davis and Waxman began working on their legislation called the Clean Sports Act on 2005. They also got Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to begin looking into the extent of the problem in the MLB. For the next two years drug use never became old and when new information on who was using became known the media knew too. The Mitchell report entailed all the suspected players for steroids. At the hearing reputations were ruined and many people acme forward to either admit their use of the drugs or because they had finally been caught.

Although they didn’t want to single out baseball, baseball was where steroid use was most prevalent. After the hearings there has been more regulation of steroid use in all sports than ever. And colleges and high schools are seeing a dramatic decrease in steroid use as well. Waxman and his crew were able to bring the issue to the table and make enough awareness about it to get something done. In that field, they were successful.

Conclusion.

Politics goes in cycles. Waxman was elected right after Nixon and Watergate. This meant that there was a public distrust in government and perhaps specifically in the Republican Party. Waxman had always had a goal of bringing accountability to government and abroad. He wrote this book to show how it has been done. According to Waxman congress makes it a lot easier to prevent laws than to make them. This is why bipartisanship is so important to law making. Law making is a tedious process where there is obscene amounts of work. The goal of a congressman should be to be very expressive and let everyone know what they think is right. The dialectic is what is important according to Waxman. In order to pass a landmark piece of legislation you have to do something that people care about. No one cared about pesticides. Everyone cares about baseball. “Landmark legislation” means something that is high profile. If anyone should be cynical about government it should be Waxman. But he isn’t, because he believes the following: Passing a few good works of legislation is better than none. It is those few pieces of legislation which make his job worthwhile.

Did Waxman Meet His Thesis?

Waxman set out to explain why congress was not a removed body of old men that sit in a board room all day doing paper work. He wanted to show that congress does work for the people and that they can actually get things done. He wanted to present this process in the truest form, hence the title, How Congress really works. I believe that congress has demonstrated the fun, lesser known side to the process and the politics of law making in congress. He has shown that congress is much more involved than just paperwork. Before reading his book I didn’t know the extent that congressman take towards legislation outside the office. I also didn’t understand what a prominent role that interest groups and such play in provoking and sustaining legislation.

In the chapter about pesticides Waxman talks about how bipartisan cooperation was the key factor in getting legislation passed in regards to pesticides. None of the public cared and the Republicans sure didn’t care but they both united anyway in order to see good legislation get passed. Waxman tells this story so that we understand it and at the same time it is agreeing with what he said he was set out to do in his book within his thesis. Waxman wanted a true first hand story of congress and that is what he gave. He avoided sounding like a textbook; I really felt like Waxman was speaking first person to me about his story.

I believe what Waxman meant by showing how congress really works is the background of congress; behind the scenes congress. After reading the Waxman report I believe I have a more insightful view on the workings of congress and what actually happens as opposed to what the steps are for a bill to come a law. I was also surprised at how commonplace the filibuster can be. I thought that it was something that was reserved for high profile cases. Which leads me to another point about congress that I had previously not known. Legislation is only “good” legislation if it becomes popular among people. If people don’t know about it before it is passed then no one will really care about it. Which a sad fact about people’s interest in politics.

In summation, Waxman did an excellent job in supporting his thesis in telling the reader how congress really works in a story like manner rather than a textbook fashion. I believe that Waxman has addressed all parts of his thesis including information in his book about when parties have worked together to make good legislation and when good legislation has passed that few people knew about.