Sen. Joe Lieberman (BiggerPictureImages flickr)

When Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) switched from Democrat to independent in 2006, Democrats needed him to remain in their caucus to control the Senate with 51 votes.

Yet many Democrats openly disdained Lieberman for championing the war in Iraq. The disdain escalated this year, when Lieberman campaigned tirelessly for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Republican nominee for president.

It was something of a surprise, then, when a newly configured Democratic Senate caucus — no longer clinging to a one-vote majority — decided Tuesday, by a vote of 42-13, to keep Lieberman as one of their own. He will even retain his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which is responsible for oversight of the executive branch.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

The vote appears to be less about Lieberman and more about Democrats and President-elect Barack Obama building a consensus. While highly critical of Lieberman’s straying allegiance, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was careful never to cut him loose. And Obama signaled that that he wanted Lieberman to remain in the caucus.

“The Democrats wanted to string up Lieberman by his toes and hit him with a broom,” said Kenneth Dautrich, a public policy professor at the University of Connecticut. “But by extending this olive branch, they’ve learned to overcome their emotional response and not be vindictive.”

“The result of the vote is not because the Democrats want to forgive him,” said Dautrich. “It’s because he’ll be an important vote.”

The 55-member Democratic Senate caucus — including at least five newly elected members — also allowed Lieberman to hold onto his chairmanship of an Armed Services subcommittee. But it stripped him of his chairmanship of a subcommittee of the Environmental and Public Works Committee.

After the caucus meeting, Lieberman said the vote “was done in a spirit of reconciliation.”

The vote came after 11 months of Lieberman stumping for McCain. The Arizona Republican even wanted Lieberman as his running mate before GOP strategists persuaded McCain to choose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

That didn’t stop Lieberman from delivering a speech at Republican National Convention exalting McCain and blasting Obama.

“Sen. Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man,” Lieberman said in his Sept. 3 address. “But eloquence is no substitute for a record — not in these tough times. In the Senate, he has not reached across party lines to get anything significant done, nor has he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party.”

Two days after Obama won the presidency and Democrats widened their margin in the Senate, an aide to Reid told the Associated Press that Lieberman would likely lose his chairmanship of the homeland security committee. Reid himself told a CNN reporter that, “Joe Lieberman has done something that I think was improper, wrong — and if we weren’t on television, I’d use a stronger word of describing what he did.”

The statement made headlines but Reid also hinted at reconciliation. “Joe Lieberman votes with me a lot more than a lot of my senators. He didn’t support us on military stuff, and he didn’t support us on Iraq stuff. But you look at his record — it’s pretty good.”

Then last week Obama informed Reid that he held no grudges toward Lieberman and wanted him to remain in the Democratic caucus.

“Once Obama intervened on this, it made it more likely that Democrats would treat Lieberman gently,” said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Julian E. Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University, praised Obama’s support for the Connecticut independent as consistent with the president-elect’s calls for post-partisanship. “The Obama strategy of wanting to keep broadening his coalition is genuine,” Zelizer said. “Obama’s aware of the political flack he’ll take. But it’s a pragmatic move. He’s a non-ideologue.”

With Lieberman in the fold, the Democrats still have an outside shot of a 60-member caucus that could end Republican filibusters. That possibility hinges on yet-to-be decided races in Georgia and Minnesota.

“Lieberman will be a senator until 2012,” said Dautrich. “In the next four years, there will probably be votes on health-care reform legislation and Supreme Court nominees. … The Republicans will try to filibuster and the Democrats will need 60 votes.”

Lieberman, a senator since 1988, has had a rocky relationship with Democrats since he lost to Ned Lamont in the 2006 Democratic primary in Connecticut. After declaring himself an independent, Lieberman went on to defeat Lamont in the general election. He vowed to continue to caucus with Senate Democrats.

His chairmanship of the homeland security committee was largely viewed as both a reward and an incentive to prevent his defection to the GOP.

But the same issues that cost Lieberman in the Democratic primary also made him an oft-criticized chairman, especially his unflagging support of the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq and overall “war on terror.”

It is unlikely that Lieberman will provide tougher oversight of an Obama administration that has welcomed him back into the Democratic Party.

“Lieberman is a very calculating politician,” said Zelizer. “I don’t think he wants to spend his political capital on investigations.”

Lieberman is thus expected to tread carefully. Thanks to the new configuration of the Senate, he needs the Democrats at least as much as the Democrats need him.

It’s not as high profile as stumping for McCain, but Lieberman’s performance as oversight chairman was also a betrayal of the Democratic Party– and, more important, Congress’ role as a check on executive power.

While colleagues like Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) spent the past two years investigating the Iraq war and torture, Lieberman never probed any Bush administration conduct related to national security.

A piece I did in February looked at how Lieberman refused a request to investigate Blackwater after its security employees opened fire on civilians in an Iraq public square. Since February, the Senate oversight committee has held hearings on important topics like FEMA’s response to Hurricane Ike and the workplace rights of government employees. But Lieberman has steadfastly refused to use his subpoena power to investigate the biggest administration scandals.

Besides foreign policy, Lieberman was also noticeably silent on the financial crisis. Maybe he would be more interested in investigating an Obama administration. But it looks like he won’t get the chance.

Donald H. Rumsfeld (left) and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (WDCpix)

On Sunday, the eve of the Iraq war’s 5th anniversary, Sen. John McCain, the presumed GOP presidential nominee, arrived in Baghdad — accompanied by his good friend, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman. They have been traveling together a good deal recently, for the former running mate of Al Gore has been campaigning for McCain. In fact, though both men are leading supporters of the surge in Iraq, this visit might be viewed partly as a campaign trip for McCain, who is returning home via London, where he is stopping for a fund-raiser.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Since Congress’s authorization of the fighting in Iraq, Lieberman has publicly staked his reputation on his high-profile support for the Bush administration’s Iraq policy and its broader “War on Terror.” In doing so, this Connecticut Democrat turned Independent has dramatically realigned his political allegiances and ruptured his lifelong ties to the Democratic Party.
What’s less known about Lieberman are his leadership responsibilities in Congress. He is the chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which is responsible for government oversight and reform. The anonymity of his oversight role is surprising given the regular news made and scandals uncovered by the counterpart House oversight committee, Henry A. Waxman (Calif.).
But the way Lieberman runs his committee demonstrates that he is the anti-Waxman. Since January 2007, after six years of watching the GOP Congress support President George W. Bush, Waxman has held strongly partisan hearings and investigations into the administration. Lieberman, however, has stayed out out of the headlines — and, for the most part, out of the administration’s hair.
“It is [Lieberman's] general political outlook,” said Norman J. Ornstein, a political scientist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “His inclination would not be to go after the Bush administration.”
Lieberman has garnered some praise for the first part of his committee’s responsibilities — holding hearings on management problems within the Dept. of Homeland Security and the overall federal workforce. But, as the chairman, he controls the agenda, and he has held more hearings on combating Islamic extremism than any other issue. Such subject dovetails with both his passionately hawkish, pro-Israeli viewpoint and White House policy.
Lieberman’s job as chairman is regarded as part of the bargain for his agreeing to caucus with the Democrats — despite winning re-election in 2006 as an Independent. Lieberman’s vote is the difference between the Democrats being the majority or minority party in Congress’s upper chamber. “If the Democrats had 55 or 56 seats, I would be surprised if he had a leadership position,” said Kenneth Dautrich, a public policy professor at the University of Connecticut. “They just wouldn’t need him.”
But while the Democrats need Lieberman, Lieberman acts like he doesn’t need them. “Lieberman is the maverick of the Democrats the way McCain was maverick of the Republicans,” said Dautrich. “Clearly the war is his biggest priority…[and] that’s why the Democrats feel right now that he’s betrayed them.”
An oversight committee chairman has broad discretion over what issues to monitor. For Waxman that often means pet environmental and public health concerns as well as a recent interest in wartime government contracting. Lieberman, however, holds few hearings on matters that don’t directly relate to homeland security or the running of the federal bureaucracy. When he does, the focus circles back to the “War on Terror.”
“The war in Iraq is the defining issue for this Congress,” Lieberman said last July during a summit of the controversial evangelical lobbying group, Christians United for Israel. “Let there be no doubt — an American defeat in Iraq would be a victory for Al Qaeda and Iran…the two most threatening enemies America and Israel face in the world today.”
Seeking to combat those enemies, Lieberman, for example, held five hearings last year on the subject, “The Internet: A Portal for Islamic Extremists.” Leslie Phillips, Lieberman’s spokeswoman, explained that “essentially we’re looking at how young Muslim men in America can become radical over the Internet.” Phillips said to expect more of the same this year, when combating Islamic extremism is to be the committee’s main focus, along with the homeland security-related issue of nuclear preparedness.
Phillips even promises a full report on the problem of Islamic extremism on the Internet. It is an unusual step for a committee that has launched few notable investigations, in contrast to the Waxman committee’s recent original reports on missing White House e-mails and the politicization of the Environmental Protection Agency. This has enraged some government watchdog groups, who tie Lieberman’s lack of investigations with his support for the administration’s hawkish Middle East policy.
“He’s done a terrible job,” said Melanie Sloan, the executive director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “He doesn’t believe in oversight of the Bush administration.”
Many critics sounded most aghast when talking about Lieberman’s refusal to investigate Blackwater. Last September, the private security company’s guards opened fire in an Iraqi public square, allegedly killing at least 17 Iraqis. Waxman was all over the grisly incident, bringing in Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and releasing a report chronicling other instances where Blackwater employees killed Iraqis without punishment.
Lieberman, meanwhile, said at the time, “You’ve got to set your own priorities and it was clear to me that other committees were going to pick this up.” But, in fact, Senate Democrats saw the need to set up a special wartime contracting commission after the Blackwater shootings. The bill had 28 sponsors and co-sponsors. Lieberman wasn’t one of them.
When the topic does move from Iraq and the “war on terror,” Lieberman is a less polarizing figure. He even draws praise as a consensus builder.
Joan B. Claybrook, executive director of Public Citizen, said Lieberman and the committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Me.) did a “stellar job” getting both parties to come together on lobbying and ethics reform. Lieberman and Collins have also begun to wade into the myriad problems of the 22-agency, 210,000-employee Dept. of Homeland Security.
“There should be a committee where Homeland Security is the only focus,” said Ornstein. Ornstein added that on issues like border security and domestic nuclear detection, Lieberman has done a “modestly positive job” in providing much-needed oversight.
Lieberman has also won kudos from public employees unions for his work on governmental affairs. On this subject, Lieberman, and to a lesser extent, Collins have confronted the Bush administration, challenging their effort to wipe out the collective bargaining rights of civil servants. “Lieberman has been a stalwart champion of federal employees and their families,” praised Beth Moten, legislative and political director for the American Federation of Government Employees.
The cooperation between Lieberman and Collins goes beyond committee work, for Lieberman is raising money and stumping for Collins in her tough re-election bid. Collins, however, is reluctant to embrace Lieberman too much on the campaign trail, because of his unwavering stance on Iraq.
This bipartisan comity between Lieberman and Collins is at variance with the House oversight committee. There, Ranking Republican Tom M. Davis (Va.) typically scoffs at Waxman’s investigations as fishing expeditions. Even the recent hearing on whether Roger Clemens used steroids broke along partisan lines.
But Lieberman’s work with Republicans is perhaps ultimately defined by his allegiance to neoconservative Middle East policy, not working to improve the federal bureaucracy. That political destiny means his friends in the Senate are not Democrats, but Republicans. like McCain, who may be moderate in other areas but define themselves by vowing to continue the Iraq war.
It also lays bare another crucial difference between Lieberman and Waxman — the length of their chairmanship. Waxman has been the House Democrats’ oversight czar since the 1980’s and, considering the party congressional majority, he shows no signs of leaving.
Lieberman, however, probably won’t have his chairmanship after the election. With more Democratic senators expected win in November, it is unlikely that the party will need his help to control the Senate. “Lieberman’s not dumb,” said Dautrich. “He knows his days are numbered.”
So while his stumping around the world with McCain is based on their shared beliefs, it also may be a matter of political survival. “If McCain becomes president, certainly one of the major Cabinet positions could be offered to Lieberman,” Dautrich said. “He would probably be quick to take it.”
If Lieberman becomes secretary of state of the McCain administration, he might complete his evolution from the anti-Waxman to anti-Democrat.