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Key role for Miami lawmaker.
By Oscar Corral
ocorral@herald.com
U.S. Rep. Lincoln
Díaz-Balart is poised to become vice chairman of the pivotal House Rules
Committee, boosting his influence in Congress.
U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, R-Miami, will become the next vice
chairman of the House Rules committee, giving him considerable power
over every piece of legislation that goes before Congress, including
Social Security and the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
As the next in line to become chairman, Díaz-Balart, 50, has reached one
of the most influential posts ever for a Cuban-American member of
Congress.
He and his Republican colleagues see it as major step toward regaining
the power in Congress that defined the era of the late South Florida
congressmen Dante Fascell and Claude Pepper, who was chairman of the
Rules Committee when he died in 1989 at age 88.
''Being chairman of the Rules Committee is why Pepper was the
extraordinary institution that he was,'' Díaz-Balart said in an
interview. ``No law change can go to the floor while I'm there. To have
a position of that responsibility is very important for our community.''
The Rules Committee acts as the traffic cop of the House. It decides
whether a bill will go to the floor, how long it will be debated and if
amendments can be offered. In another day, the committee was the burying
ground of civil rights legislation.
Díaz-Balart's unexpected ascent into the position means the decades-old
economic embargo against Cuba will receive a boost Jan. 25, when the
position becomes official. Besides the embargo, Díaz-Balart said he will
also closely monitor legislation involving Social Security and Medicare
reform, Everglades restoration and immigration, all of which can deeply
affect South Florida.
As the second in command on Rules, Díaz-Balart will have the power to
determine legislation to send to the House floor for a vote, giving him
the ability to kill any attempts at loosening the embargo before they
even come to a vote. He said he has already flexed his muscle as a Rules
member for anti-embargo legislation.
''That's why they never get to the floor,'' Díaz-Balart said of bills
that try to relax the embargo. ``Why do you think the Cuba debates here
are limited to amendments in appropriations bills?''
Kevin Hill, a Florida International University political science
professor who has worked on the campaign of Lincoln's brother, Mario
Díaz-Balart, said that economic sanctions against Cuba will now be
practically airtight.
''There's a lot of Republicans who want to loosen the embargo,'' Hill
said. "That is dead. Lincoln will never let that stuff come to the
floor.''
Pepper was the last South Florida congressional member with such power
on the Rules Committee. He became chairman when he was 82. Now a legend
in Dade politics, Pepper skillfully employed his position to South
Florida's benefit by becoming a congressional watchdog for the elderly
and the poor.
`ROLE MODEL'
''I consider him [Pepper] in many ways a role model of what a member of
Congress can do for a community,'' Díaz-Balart said. ``I have to admit I
idolize him.''
At their prime in the 1980s, three Democratic congressmen from Dade all
held major House chairmanships -- Fascell at Foreign Affairs, Pepper at
Rules and Bill Lehman at the appropriations panel on transportation.
They collaborated to help fund major projects in South Florida,
including Metrorail.
Today, a new generation of Miami-Dade leaders -- this time Republican --
is ascending the ranks in Congress. Ros Lehtinen is chairman of the
Foreign Relations Middle East subcommittee, and Mario Díaz-Balart,
Lincoln's brother, is a member of the House transportation committee.
''The next move is to get Mario Díaz-Balart or Kendrick [Meek] into
appropriations,'' Ros-Lehtinen said.
Chairmanships of most congressional committees are based on seniority,
but the members of the Rules committee are appointed by the House
speaker. Díaz-Balart's ascent to the vice chairmanship began early last
year when the vice chairman at the time, Porter Goss, resigned to be the
head of the CIA. But there were still two people ahead of Díaz-Balart --
Reps. John Linder of Georgia and Deborah Pryce of Ohio.
But they both left the committee in the last few months -- Linder to
become a Republican point man for tax reform and Pryce to chair the
Republican conference, Díaz-Balart said. Rep. David Dreier, of
California, has been Rules chairman since 1999 and was named to his
fourth term in the position by House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
MOSTLY AGREE
Dreier said he and Díaz-Balart see eye to eye on many issues, including
immigration and Cuba, and he looks forward to working more closely with
him.
''This is a very important new position that he has, and he is going to
be very valuable to me and to our leadership team,'' Dreier said in a
telephone interview.
Díaz-Balart already had power in the Rules Committee. For example, he
said that last year, he stalled a bill that eliminated money for
Everglades restoration until funding was restored.
One fellow Republican who has in the past tried to loosen the embargo,
U.S. Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, said Díaz-Balart's new position on Rules is
a testament to his popularity in Congress, not his position on Cuba.
''Lincoln is one of the best-liked members of the House. He is deeply
convictioned on the Cuba issue,'' Leach said in a written statement.
"But his promotion relates principally to the respect with which his
colleagues hold him.''
U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano, a New York Democrat who has worked for years to
try to lift the embargo, said that Díaz-Balart will not hesitate to flex
his new political muscle in that role.
''He will use that position in many ways, and one of them will be to
stop any legislation coming to the floor that would allow the U.S. to
have a different position toward Cuba,'' Serrano said. ``He'll make it a
powerful position because he is that aggressive.''
Otto Reich, former assistant secretary of state and President Bush's
special envoy for the Western Hemisphere from 2001 to 2004, said Díaz-Balart's
influence in this new position is in no means limited to the embargo
debate.
''It affects all legislation, not just the embargo,'' Reich said. "He
chose the Rules Committee precisely because it has such a pivotal role
in determining what legislation gets to the floor and in what shape.''
Source:
www.netforcuba.org
January 22, 2005
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