Pelosi team tries to steer Democrats to the center

WASHINGTON -- Anxious to chart a centrist course with Democrats' new majority in Congress, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her top deputies are busily working in private and public to rein in the liberal ambitions of some senior party heavyweights --including proposals to reinstate the military draft and end the Pentagon's ban on gays in uniform.

Pelosi has urged House Democrats, including incoming committee chairmen, to use the first weeks of next year's congressional term to focus exclusively on proposals on which the party is unified and legislative goals that are within reach, according to Pelosi allies and aides.

Yesterday, Pelosi and the incoming House majority leader, Representative Steny Hoyer, quashed talk of reinstating the draft one day after Representative Charles Rangel said he will file a bill to make that happen. Rangel, a New York Democrat, is in line to become chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, one of the most powerful posts in Congress.

"The speaker and I have discussed scheduling; it did not include that," said Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat.

Already, House Democratic leaders have extracted a promise from the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, to rule out impeaching President Bush. Conyers is the lead sponsor of a bill that would investigate whether to recommend "grounds for possible impeachment."

Pelosi has also tempered hopes of reversing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on the service of gays and lesbians in the military, after two key Democrats -- Representatives Martin T. Meehan of Lowell and Barney Frank of Newton -- said last week that they want to repeal the policy.

Though Pelosi believes homosexuals should be able to openly serve, she has made clear that she believes Democrats have more urgent national-security priorities -- including changing course in Iraq and investigating war-related contracting.

Pelosi and Hoyer outlined an agenda yesterday for early next year that Pelosi said will relieve "the middle-class squeeze." It avoids hot-button issues such as tax cuts, gay rights, and abortion for popular issues such as a higher minimum wage, more affordable student loans, and congressional ethics reform.

"These issues are bipartisan in nature," Pelosi said. "That's why we recommended them. We thought they were areas that are relevant to the lives of the American people, and that would have bipartisan support."

During the past two years, Democrats have shown remarkable unity battling the Bush administration and Republican leadership in Congress. Since Democrats won control of the House and Senate two weeks ago, however, that unity has been strained.

Last week, rank-and-file House Democrats bucked Pelosi to elect Hoyer as majority leader instead of her choice, Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania. Although Democrats won the House with an incoming class of moderate-to-conservative candidates, an old guard of liberals who have been waiting 12 years to retake power will rise to House committee chairmanships.

Besides Rangel, Conyers, and Frank, who is set to take over the Financial Services Committee, presumed chairmen from the left include Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California on the Government Reform committee, and Representative George Miller of California on the Education and the Workforce committee.

Committee chairmen are generally selected on the basis of seniority and influence; Dingell has been in Congress for 26 two-year terms and Conyers has served 20. Frank, Waxman, and Miller each have held office for more than a dozen terms.

With the chairman's gavel comes wide leeway to call hearings, launch investigations, and send bills to the House floor. If Pelosi allows her chairmen to impose their agendas unchecked, it could turn off voters and Democrats could quickly lose the majority, said John J. Pitney Jr., a government professor at Claremont McKenna College in California

"This is a huge problem for Pelosi," Pitney said. "A lot of these committee chairs have been around a lot longer than she has. They don't owe her anything."

Rangel, who won a 19th term earlier this month proved that point by sticking to his call for reinstating the draft, which he believes will guarantee that the burden of military service is shared equally across socioeconomic lines. Yesterday, Rangel brushed aside Pelosi's assertion that he has no jurisdiction on the issue since he's on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

"I'm a member of Congress, and it's true my plate is filled, as it relates to taxes, Social Security, and trade," Rangel, who represents Harlem, said on MSNBC. "But I think more people are now saying that we need to send more troops in Iraq. I can't be quiet and say, 'Where are you going to get these troops? Are you going to come back to neighborhoods like mine?' "

On the campaign trail, Republicans warned voters that if Democrats took power they would promote a "liberal agenda," and pointed to Rangel, Frank, and Conyers. Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz said those three, and others, are confirming their suspicions.

"It doesn't seem they're as focused as they say they are on doing the people's work," Diaz said.

Representative Ellen O. Tauscher, who leads the centrist New Democrat Coalition, said Pelosi is lowering expectations of the incoming chairmen, because maintaining the legislative majority takes moderation.

"Nancy is very cognizant of the fact that a muddied message now sends the wrong signal," said Tauscher, a California Democrat. "She is deeply committed to be sure that we have a workable majority that is representing the people who brought us -- Democrats, independents, and disaffected Republicans -- and that we stay in the majority."

That's why Pelosi is highlighting the widely popular items in Democrats' "Six for '06" campaign agenda. She wants to deliver the first batch of accomplishments within the first 100 legislative hours in January, said Representative Michael E. Capuano, a Somerville Democrat who is leading Pelosi's transition team.

"We hope to get something done that's serious, that's beyond political," Capuano said.