ShareThisBy LISA MASCARO
Las Vegas Sun
Monday, May 07, 2007
Nevada congresswoman Shelley Berkley pulls her Cadillac into a Las Vegas gas station and immediately feels her constituents' pain, about $60 worth by the time she's done filling the tank.
Residents can't stomach the prospect of $4-a-gallon gasoline any better than she can. She winces as the nation depends on foreign oil from a region hostile to her beloved Israel while the state's vast solar and geothermal energy sources go untapped.
So she introduced sweeping legislation to turn the nation's energy source green.
And it will probably never become law.
Such is the plight of a midlevel, mid-career member of Congress such as Berkley. Even though Democrats control Congress for the first time since she came to Washington eight years ago, Berkley is not likely to see her name on marquee legislation or change Washington the way Mr. Smith did.
For a lawmaker who embodies Vegas with glittery pizzazz _ which last week included hot-pink sunglasses to match a Dana Buchman blazer to match fuchsia manicured nails _ Berkley's power and prestige are more subtle statements.
In the House, with its 435 members, power comes in different forms. There are the obvious faces of the party, the leaders and committee chairs who have risen through seniority and skill. Even young stars enjoy a bit of clout simply by their newness.
Then there are lawmakers such as Berkley, who congressional scholar Norman Ornstein said could simply ride out a career as a backbencher but instead has learned to collect her strength in less obvious ways.
Those who know her say she has emerged as the go-to expert on gambling, nuclear waste and Middle Eastern affairs, someone colleagues and lobbyists can trust for information.
Perhaps even more valuable, she has carved a niche with her ability to nudge and noodle her peers to deliver votes, all the while willing to cede the limelight.
"There are a lot of different ways of approaching a career and breaking out of the pack when you're in these middle stages; she's done it well," Ornstein said.
Her strength plays out behind the scenes in ways few back home will ever know.
"There are some colleagues you see on C-SPAN nonstop," said Rep. Tom Lantos, the California Democrat who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "They may be some of the least respected members of Congress. Shelley is not one of those."
But the chairman, who tapped Berkley to lead a congressional delegation to Europe later this month, said the reputation she has gained makes her better known among her colleagues than "the majority of the women in the U.S. Senate."
As the congresswoman lays out her goals for the session, she plans to have a hand in the big-ticket issues of the day: revamping Medicare, providing health care for the uninsured, improving education, mending Social Security _ many of the campaign themes she shared with Democrats nationally in 2006.
As always, she will continue working to block nuclear waste from being shipped to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and will use her new position on the powerful Ways and Means tax-writing committee to protect the state's No. 1 industry, the casinos on the Strip.
But not many of those topics are found in the 11 bills Berkley has offered this session. The bills include meager feel-good legislation such as one to support the contributions of suffragists.
Others, like her energy bill and legislation to boost veterans' benefits, have strengths, but with 131 other energy bills vying for attention, hers will likely be folded into broader legislation. Her FREE Act _ Freedom through Renewable Energy Expansion _ got a five-minute hearing this month and may never be heard from again.
She is confident her hand will be seen in key Democratic legislation, including the energy bill.
"You're not going to see in the final bill that comes out, it's not going to be in neon 'the Shelley Berkley FREE Act,' " she said in her office.
"I have no expectation that's going to happen," she said. "But I have an expectation that many of the sections of my legislation are going to be in the final legislation."
(Lisa Mascaro can be reached at lisa.mascara(at)lasvegassun.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com.)
