LOS ANGELES - The lawmaker who may cause the most headaches for the Bush administration when Democrats take control of Congress is a grocer's son from Watts who's hardly a household name off Capitol Hill.
"There is just no question that life is going to be different for the administration," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the current committee chairman. "Henry is going to be tough. ... And he's been waiting a long time to be able to do this."
Balding and quiet-spoken, with glasses, a snub-nose and a mustache, the 5-foot-5-inch Waxman isn't an in-your-face bruiser. But he doesn't shrink from a fight, either.
At age 28 he challenged and beat a Democratic incumbent to win a seat in the state Assembly. Once in Congress, he muscled aside a more senior lawmaker to become chairman of an Energy and Commerce subcommittee, using the post to summon the heads of big tobacco to the famous 1994 hearing, depicted in the movie "The Insider," where they testified that nicotine wasn't addictive.
He refers to their testimony as "one of the biggest miscalculations of corporate America."
As Government Reform chairman, Waxman's priorities will include probing government contracts for Hurricane Katrina cleanup, homeland security and the Iraq war.
Waxman said he has little interest in revisiting Bush administration failures he said are already well known, such as Iraq war intelligence.
He wants to do it all with the help of Republicans.
"We want to return to civility and bipartisanship," Waxman said. "Legislation ought to be based on evidence, not ideology."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061212/ap_on_go_co/profile_waxman
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