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Congresswoman
Jane Harman has risen from the ashes of Sept. 11 to national prominence
When the attack came, South Bay Congresswoman Jane Harman was on her way to a meeting of the House Intelligence committee, which was to occur in a room directly under the dome in the Capitol Building. A few hundred miles away United Airlines Flight 93, the plane that eventually crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, was in the control of terrorists who intended to bring the plane to Washington DC. Their target, it is now believed, was the Capitol dome.
About 200 members of Congress and their staffs were evacuated. As the Pentagon went up in flames and the twin towers of New York collapsed, these members of Congress were wandering around the lawn in front of the Capitol. "In hindsight, an incredibly foolish place to be," noted Harman later. They were all trying unsuccessfully to use their cell phones, but the system was down. And they were all trying desperately to grasp what was occurring.
"It's a metaphor of what went on in the country," said Harman of the dazed reaction of her and her colleagues. " It would not happen again."
As the ranking Democratic member of the new subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Defense, it is now very specifically part of Harman's job to see that nothing like this happens again. She has co-lead the main congressional investigation of Sept. 11, and has sponsored a half-dozen bills aimed at fixing the flaws in national security made apparent that tragic day.
"I believe that the most important thing that I can do on the behalf of everyone in this district, and everyone in America -- is to work my hardest to prevent a second wave," said Harman in a speech in Redondo a few weeks ago.
It was more than a sound bite. Harman, even by her own busy standards, has become a one-woman flurry of legislative activity. She has sought an immediate $1.5 billion for improvements to the Centers for Disease Control, whose dilapidated state Harman refers to as "a national disgrace." She has sought to improve intelligence sharing between local and national law enforcement agencies, and last week introduced legislation to give local public safety agencies more radio broadcast frequencies, thereby improving the "interoperability" of their communications. She has also introduced legislation that would give priority to workers laid off since Sept. 11 for new airline security jobs.
The biggest campaign she has been waging, however, is an uphill battle to obtain more authority for the director of the Office of Homeland Defense, Tom Ridge. Harman introduced legislation that would give Ridge a cabinet position complete with budget authority. Ridge's good friend and sponsor in Washington, George Bush, is against giving such authority to the office. So is Ridge. They argue that it is unnecessary to confer cabinet status on the office because Bush can provide whatever clout is needed for the new agency.
"The White House and Ridge are saying they don't need it, at least not for now," Harman said. "It's the same circular argument. Why don't they need it? The reason they say they don't need it is because the bureaucracy is resisting. And the reason the bureaucracy is resisting it is because they don't want to change. And the reason Ridge can't succeed without it is that the bureaucracy doesn't want to change."
The way the homeland defense agency works right now is the sort of collegial, Bush way. "The biggest tip-off was when the council on homeland security had its first meeting. The chairman was George Bush," said Harman. "He sat at the meeting surrounded by Rumsfeld and Powell, and Ridge sat across the table. That's not a good start, for something that he should be directing."
Harman thinks this represents the triumph of bureaucracy over public safety. Members of the cabinet, she said, are protecting their "turf," dissuading the president from supporting the creation of another cabinet position because it would mean ceding some of their own power. She argues that more than 40 federal agencies exist with a stake in homeland defense, and they need a central authority with real power, which in Washington as elsewhere means control of purse strings.
"We learned some lessons," she said. "We are much more vigilant, and certainly our law enforcement and our intelligence agencies are much more focused now than they were. But in terms of what really caused the failure, we haven't learned from that. What really caused the failure, in my view, was not somebody not doing his job. I don't think you can blame this on any person, or past or present president. The failure was an organizational failure, and we are not fixing it."
Flowerpots, terrorists, ghoulish accusations
Some things have changed in Washington. There are, for instance, large concrete flowerpots outside the entrances of the all buildings on Capitol Hill. "They haven't gotten around to the flowers yet," Harman said. "We clearly know these are roadblocks. It's not a subtle reminder of what is going on." As one congressional staffer wryly noted, "Apparently terrorists are terrified of flowerpots."
There are also many more armed people present, both National Guard and the Capitol Police, and inspection stations stand outside the congressional buildings. "I go to work in an armed fortress," said Harman. "To drive my car in front of the Capitol, which is where I often park so I can escape when the final vote is over, I have to stop the car. They use mirrors under the car and bomb-sniffing dogs. And open my trunk, even though I have congressional plates on my car and I am the only person in it. How could it not affect me, or anyone else? It feels like a bunker."
Harman's job has also changed. Ellia Thompson, her press secretary, said that Harman's schedule is "way beyond hectic," with 14-hour workdays the norm and 2 a.m. votes not unusual. Furthermore, in her new role as a member of the Homeland Defense subcommittee, Harman has a bigger profile within the beltway. She is a more frequent visitor to the White House and to Larry King Live, oddly enough both measurements of increasing sway within congressional politics.
Harman didn't just stumble into this new role. It is likely she would never have returned to Congress - she quit after three terms to run for governor in 1998, only to return last year--had she not been assured of certain committee appointments. The Intelligence Committee is a key one for the congresswoman, who as the representative of the 36th District, has major intelligence equipment contractors as her constituents. The new generation of spy satellites, a top-secret project out of a low-profile federal agency called the National Reconnaissance Office, is believed to be bigger in scope than the Manhattan Project, with a cost estimated at $25 billion over 20 years. Two contractors from El Segundo, Raytheon and Boeing, are involved in building the new satellites. Harman's position on the Intelligence Committee means she is one of the few people in the country who is regularly briefed on this highly classified project.
"She's a fairly major player," said Dan Koslofsky, a political analyst for the Council for a Livable World. Koslofsky's group is often at odds with Harman as it lobbies against military spending. "Democrats in general -- especially, in general, Democrats who are women are particularly sensitive about appearing soft on defense," he added. "She is no exception to that. But she is somewhat open-minded, and obviously very competent. She knows how to move legislation."
Harman's interest in military matters has earned her the moniker "GI Jane" among critics and friends alike, and she has unquestionably been an effective advocate for local military concerns. She helped protect the Los Angeles Air Force Base from being targeted in the last round of base closures, and she has been a staunch defender of the C-17 cargo plane, which is produced in Long Beach.
Harman's interest in homeland defense - something she has been involved with since well before Sept. 11 - also comes from a local concern. On Dec. 14, 1999, an Algerian man named Ahmed Ressam was arrested at a Washington state ferry landing with 130 pounds of explosives in the trunk of his car. Ressam, a suspected member of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, allegedly planned to plant the explosives at Los Angeles International Airport. Harman, who served on the House Intelligence committee in her earlier incarnation in Congress, was actively outspoken in her concerns about the threat of terrorism even while out of office. She was part of a congressionally appointed panel, the National Commission on Terrorism, that issued a report in June 2000 warning that US intelligence agencies were not taking adequate counter-terrorism measures. The report specifically criticized the FBI for falling to "bureaucratic and cultural obstacles" in its counter-terrorism efforts, and faults the CIA as being "overly risk-averse."
In August of this year, Harman convened a forum of local and federal public safety experts in Manhattan Beach, with the task of improving the county's preparedness in case of terrorist attacks. She was already calling for improved "interoperability" in the communication between local and federal public safety agencies. She told the Daily Breeze newspaper that improved preparedness for a terrorist attack was her biggest priority. "We need more public awareness of what these threats are and what to do in these threats," she said.
Harman is still very worried about the vulnerability of the South Bay. "We are a target," she said. She hinted that she possessed classified information substantiating such a claim, but said that it also just stands to reason.
"These terrorists were interested in attacking the icons of America, the symbols of America. Capitalism: that would be the World Trade Towers in New York. Our military might: that's the Pentagon. Politics: that's why there is strong belief that the airplane that crashed was targeting the Capitol. And our culture: arguably, it is centered in Los Angeles."
The ascension of Jane Harman to the national stage has not come without some severe criticism. According to the conservative National Review, many Republicans thought Harman was using her new role as a fund-raising tool when she conducted a conference call on Sept. 26 with the New Democrat Network. The group describes itself as "a political venture capital fund." It was founded by Al Gore's running mate Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator John Breaux. Conservative columnist Gerard Jackson went so far as to call it "ghoulish behavior," but the rush to finger pointing was highly partisan, given the inextricable link between most day-to-day politics and fundraising. Conference calls to potential donors are part of business as usual in Washington, although this one occurred in an unusual time. "Fundraising wasn't even mentioned," said Ellia Thompson. "It was just a heads-up call to some prominent business and political leaders in LA."
It is also worth noting that a politician who used $16 million of her and her husband's fortune to run for governor, something that she has also been severely chided for by conservatives and liberals alike, is a little less likely to be reduced to phone canvasser. Her husband, Sydney, is the executive chairman of Harman Industries, the makers of audio systems. In August he cut an $850 million deal to provide entertainment systems for Mercedes automobiles.
The mother and the godmother
During a recent visit back to her home district, Harman spoke at a breakfast sponsored by the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce at 7:30 on a Tuesday morning. In the question and answer period after her speech, an earnest young man stood up to ask her a question. He identified himself and began to launch into an obviously well prepared question, like the best and brightest kid in a classroom, secure in his teacher's love. Harman cut him off at the pass.
"He just got a new job with the Justice Department and his Mommy is really proud of him, and so am I," she said. The audience laughed, the young man blushed, and Harman paused for a few moments, letting the full embarrassment sink it. "I have sons your age and I would do the same thing to them," she explained, blushing a little bit herself.
It is something Harman does frequently when speaking publicly - shift quickly into the self-described role of "middle-aged mother of four" and then quickly back to the matter at hand. One gets the idea that no matter how knee-deep she stands in the mire of a 14-hour day full of non-stop politicking, her children are never far from her mind. The first calls she tried to make from the lawn in front of the Capitol on Sept. 11 were to her two adult children. Both work in downtown New York.
When describing her heightened political drive since the events of that day, Harman was quick to tie her motivation to her family. "It certainly focuses the mind on what I am here to do," she said. "I am trying to make sure that every citizen - every law abiding person in America -- has the protections that I would like to have for me and my family."
Out on Bellagio Road in West Los Angeles, Roz Wyman is watching Harman like a proud political godmother. Wyman, a legendary politician who was the youngest person ever on the LA City Council when she was elected at the age of 22 in 1953, was present at the inception of Harman's career. Wyman has been the role model for a whole generation of women politicians in California, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Diane Feinstein, but Harman actually grew up in her district and has admired her since childhood. Wyman is positively glowing with pride for Harman these days. "I've been at it 50 years, and there is a separation between a lot of people who run for office," Wyman said. "I have to tell you, she is really good. Jane Harman is as competent an elected official as I've known over the years, and I've known a lot of them."
Wyman can't resist the opportunity to speak on behalf of Harman's children, either, mixing child rearing and politics every bit as abruptly as the congresswoman. "Her children are just as lovely as the day is long, and I think that's a real testimony to somebody, too. I think there is a balance in Jane. She is very, very smart, and she is very well prepared, and she cares about issues deeply. I think that makes a tremendous elected official." ER