Democratic pups are top dogs in the House

In the traditional pecking order on Capitol Hill, newly elected lawmakers are supposed to be seen and not heard, left to labor in powerless obscurity until they bank several years of seniority.

But the Democrats who control the House are upending that tradition, treating their party’s 42 freshmen like royalty.

Democratic leaders are already working overtime to ensure that the newcomers are reelected in 2008 -- no easy task, because many of them come from conservative political territory.

They are being mentored by a hard-driving senior power broker, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who coaches them on media and constituent relations. A special political action committee has been set up to raise campaign money for them. They have been showered with coveted committee assignments that new members rarely get -- including four spots on the Rules Committee, a powerful arm of the leadership. And they have been peppered with advice on strategy, including a warning to avoid appearing on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” which has run a series of often-scathing segments with members of Congress.

The unusual hyper-focus on lowly backbenchers underscores an important political reality: The Democrats’ hold on the House majority is tenuous, because many of their new members are political flukes, Democrats who were elected in heavily Republican districts with the help of the 2006 anti-GOP tide.

Twenty-one of the new members won in districts that two years earlier had voted to reelect President Bush. That is a big chunk of the Democrats’ 233-201 advantage in the House.

Republicans are recruiting candidates to challenge the newcomers in 2008. They are trying to turn up the heat by attacking the freshmen for their alliance with the party’s liberal leadership, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), on such issues as last week’s bill that included a deadline for withdrawing from Iraq.

After the Iraq vote, the National Republican Congressional Committee headlined a news release attacking Rep. Nancy E. Boyda (D-Kan.): “Boyda Follows General Pelosi’s Orders, Marches With MoveOn.org’s Left-Wing Army.”

Said Ken Spain, press secretary to the campaign committee: “Those Democrats who ran campaigns as ‘moderates’ or ‘conservatives’ will have great difficulty explaining their votes away now that they are accumulating records and toeing the liberal line for Nancy Pelosi.”

But Democratic leaders are doing what they can to help first-termers blunt such attacks. For example, Boyda represents a district with a big military presence, so they assigned her a coveted seat on the Armed Services Committee.

“It’s a huge focus of the entire leadership,” said Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly. “Everybody understands they are the key people here.”

Senate Democrats are also working to help their eight new members get their feet on the ground. But there is less urgency there because Senate terms are six years. House members, whose terms last two years, began running for reelection almost as soon as they declared victory in November.

The special treatment afforded these newcomers is a far cry from the heyday of the seniority system, when freshmen humbly waited weeks or months to make their maiden speech on the House floor. Former Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) recalls a senior Democrat lecturing his freshman class in the mid-1960s that they would not be taken seriously until after they had been reelected at least once. Another old bull warned the freshmen that “the greatest single danger that could occur ... above all else is thinking for yourself,” Foley wrote in his memoir, “Honor in the House.”

After the post-Watergate Democratic landslide of 1974, the big freshman class had tremendous influence and helped change-oriented liberals weaken the House’s seniority system. But even after that, freshmen often got short shrift from party leaders who were reluctant to confer favors until after new members had gained experience.

In 1994, another power-shifting year, GOP leaders gave choice committee assignments to the party’s 73-member freshman class, which put Republicans in the majority for the first time in 40 years. Dan Meyer, who was chief of staff to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), said that move backfired in some instances when little-known newcomers turned against the party leadership on key issues, such as healthcare.

“It may have been a little bit of a mistake to give plum spots without letting them get reelected at least once so we could find out who they were,” Meyer said.

The current freshman class of Democrats is a cohesive group, meeting regularly to discuss issues and to find ways to enhance members’ power. Strategists say they played a big role in encouraging the leadership to take a strong stand on Iraq and include a withdrawal deadline in the funding bill -- even though it was a tough vote for those in conservative districts.

“There’s an impression that leadership pushed them [on the Iraq bill], but they have been leading the way,” said a Democratic strategist who asked not to be named while discussing internal party matters. “They just came off the campaign trail and know where their constituents are.”

Pelosi has acknowledged their importance by giving the freshmen regular face-time that is usually reserved for committee chiefs or other power brokers: She has breakfast with the class every Wednesday.

She has given them prominent roles in major legislative issues. Rep. Patrick J. Murphy (D-Pa.), the House’s only Iraq combat veteran, gave one of the closing speeches in the Iraq funding debate last week, a prized slot. As the House marched through its first-100-hours agenda -- which included a minimum-wage increase and drug-price controls -- each issue had a freshman among its lead sponsors.

The recently established Democratic Freshmen PAC received about $70,000 in its first month of collecting cash -- not a large amount for such a big class, but the group has just gotten started.

Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, is the point man for teaching new members political survival skills. He was a logical choice because he had a big hand in electing them last year, when he was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He brings the same kind of badgering intensity to his new job that he had in the campaign.

When Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), a retired Navy admiral, was tapped to appear on a Sunday morning talk show to discuss Iraq, Emanuel’s staff spent four hours on a Saturday coaching the freshman.

To maximize lawmakers’ political capital back home, Emanuel has produced a handbook on how best to spend time in their districts.

“He’s a taskmaster,” said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.). “Rahm is constantly reminding us of the need to get back and do things, to raise money and see constituents. It’s like a mother who nags.”

Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) talks to Emanuel so frequently that last weekend his 5-year-old son asked, after he ended a long phone conversation, “Is that your Rahm?”

They don’t always listen to Emanuel. Boyda, a surprise winner in a Republican district, declined a special effort by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to promote her fundraising. She said she preferred to maintain her independence in campaigning.

Emanuel was infuriated at first, she said.

“It took him three weeks to come down from the ceiling,” said Boyda. “What I would sense now is I have earned his respect.”

Cohen ignored Emanuel when he warned him against appearing on “The Colbert Report” -- a show that is taking an irreverent district-by-district look at House members who are willing to subject themselves to satiric treatment.

The result: Cohen said he was deluged with positive reactions from his constituents. “I got more response -- comments, e-mails, letters and asides -- from being on ‘Colbert’ than for my vote on the Iraq supplemental,” Cohen said.

janet.hook@latimes.com