If Rep. Danny K. Davis is a man who deserved a seat near former Sen. Sam Ervin, it may be sadly fitting that last week he found himself in the same room with Rep. Dan Burton.
Davis, 55, is a black reformer and former Chicago alderman who is a freshman Democratic congressman. He is marked by the good intentions, soaring rhetoric and modest achievements of one who has rarely had many cards to play.
Most notably, he was a supporting player in Chicago’s “Council Wars” of the 1980s, as Mayor Harold Washington faced off against an aldermanic majority headed by Ed Vrdolyak. The national press corps, never wary of facile caricature, tagged the city, “Beirut on the Lake.”
Partisans of honest government admire Davis. The Arkansas native who ran a community-based health-care project on the impoverished West Side when the federal folks insisted on such local involvement, long has said the right things and voted the right way, but he has procured few of the spoils of influence.
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He also exhibits little of the ambition and sheer will that can move ancillary figures to center stage, as was true with a once-belittled Georgian, Newt Gingrich.
Instead, there is the restraint that can come of defeat, to which he is no stranger. He had tried running for Congress before, and for mayor of Chicago, and also for Cook County treasurer, and been on the short end.
He was serving on the Cook County Board when the ineffectual Cardiss Collins retired, prompting him to run again and finally replace her as standard-bearer for the 7th Congressional District. The bad news is he gets to spend his waking hours on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
Along with its Senate counterpart, the panel will provide what passes for legislative entertainment this summer and next fall as it investigates campaign finance abuses in the 1996 presidential campaign. Its likely failure was on view last week, just as the town was reminiscing over the 25th anniversary of Watergate and the most fabled congressional inquiry.
There had been reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, President Richard Nixon, White House counsel John Dean, the special prosecutor Archibald Cox, burglar G. Gordon Liddy and, of course, Ervin. A nation placed the avuncular Southerner on a constitutional pedestal as he oversaw the Senate probe with devastating equanimity.
Twenty-five years later, the Republicans seek the scalp of Bill Clinton. Instead of tapes, they have canceled checks, along with witnesses hiding abroad and an uninterested public back home. Journalists labor mightily, for the public good and Pulitzer Prizes, but come up short. The TV networks may take a pass on the hearings.
The Republicans press on. In the House, they are led by Burton of Indianapolis, who is to Ervin what Vrdolyak was to Winston Churchill.
Burton’s is a mind unencumbered by complexity, except when it involves his penchant for conspiracies. They include the ones he links to former White House lawyer Vince Foster (murder, not suicide, he says), Cuba’s Fidel Castro (agent of worldwide communist plot) and, now, Clinton (funnel for hostile, influence-peddling Asians).
In pursuit of Clinton, Burton does not kindle memories of Ervin.
He tries to change his combative image but seems as comfortable as an alligator in an Armani. His single-mindedness reflexively surfaces like Peter Sellers’ Nazi salute in “Dr. Strangelove.”
It plays into the hands of Democrats who would like to derail Clinton-bashing, or at minimum it highlights the surely similar examples of dirty money on the GOP side.
Whereas Ervin & Co. sought answers, Burton Inc. seeks the president’s hide, damn the opposition. The Democrats, whose claims of virginity are a stretch, fume when accused of obstruction. The proceeding wears the patience of even a loyal C-SPAN viewer on Quaaludes.
“After listenin’ to comments from this side of the aisle,” Davis was moved to declare during a six-hour Wednesday session, his rich, bass voice dropping the “g’s” at the end of words in earthy, trademark manner, “it is clear to me we’re not opposed to an investigation. However, we do believe in somethin’ called fundamental fairness.”
Davis noted to the assembled how, of 165 subpoenas issued by Burton, 156 involve Democratic fundraising. Of 127 requests for documents, 126 involved alleged Democratic abuses.
“I know, Mr. Chairman, situations can be one-sided,” Davis said. “But I don’t believe the distance between the Chicago Bulls and the rest of the NBA teams is that one-sided,” referring to Burton’s subpoenas.
Ultimately, Davis and the Democrats lost in the procedural tussle, which involved Burton’s right to seek documents unilaterally. Testiness was rampant.
“Absolutely, it reminds me of the Washington-Vrdolyak days, the 29-21 (City Council makeup),” Davis said the next day. “Pretty much the same thing. We had the mayor; they had the council.”
“Back then, the legislative branch tried to usurp the authority of the executive, the mayor, but also attempted to use the power of their majority status to paint the mayor in a negative way. Here, the Republicans are attempting to paint the White House and president in a negative way.”
He easily imagines aldermanic colleagues here. “I can see some Bill Henry, David Orr, Tim Evans, Larry Bloom, Vrdolyak and (Edward) Burke,” said Davis, whose contemplative manner, and graying sideburns and beard, suggest a black Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Those who have followed Davis can recall his pre-council days as a West Side independent who helped an interracial independent movement that gained success electing state representatives and even an alderman in the late 1970s.
He became a Harold Washington stalwart but once harbored doubts, voting against a Washington endorsement by the Independent Voters of Illinois when it backed Washington’s first mayoral run in 1977.
He, too, ran for mayor twice, once officially and the second time unofficially, ditching all intentions the second time when Ald. Tim Evans entered the 1989 campaign. Decent motives, a fair measure of dignity and awful organization marked his efforts.
As an alderman, later a County Board member, during the era of Daley II, he never has been a sycophant. The same is likely to be true in his new life, which generally consists of three long days each week–Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday–before returning home.
He’s rising earlier than he was accustomed to, usually at 6:30 a.m., and he goes until 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. The days occasionally are marked by fundraising-related matters in the morning, legislative duties later and hobnobbing at pseudosocial (actually, lobbying) gatherings each evening at which special interests try to curry favor with politicos.
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“I have a sister and brother-in-law who live in Virginia. I have not visited with them since the inauguration,” Davis said. “I have lots of friends in the area. I mean a lot. I have not seen any.”
He has seen Gingrich and has a certain grudging respect. “I think he’s an excellent communicator.”
They are opposed on most issues. When Gingrich gave an address on race last week, Davis was there but disagreed with virtually everything. Gingrich bashed teachers unions, which Davis feels have helped lift the profession from its once second-class status. The speaker derided affirmative action, which Davis supports.
In hammering Clinton fundraising, Gingrich does not necessarily have an enemy in Davis. Davis is “convinced that he who pays the piper plays an awful lot of the tune.
“Unless there is real reform, how does John Doe Citizen really get his or her interest protected, especially when self-interest fuels the tank?”
It’s a good question. But it’s one unlikely to be answered in a committee on which, amid the fulminations of Burton, Davis is likely again to be an odd man out.