Darrell Issa vs. Elijah Cummings feud heats up

Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).

Updated 7:31 a.m. ET
Congress may be getting ready for a big bipartisan kumbaya moment at tonight's State of the Union address, but don't expect many smiles between Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the House lawmakers chiefly responsible for oversight of federal agencies and top government officials.

A meeting Monday between the Issa and Cummings, the respective chairman and ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, didn't go well. And in a jab meant in part to raise questions about Cummings's leadership, Issa plans to sit tonight with Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), the committee's former chairman.

Issa believes Towns was pushed aside by Democrats in favor of Cummings because the former chairman worked too closely with Republicans.

The seating snub comes as Cummings is criticizing Issa's plans to issue subpoenas for committee investigations without consulting Democrats. The plans go against the tradition and precedence of seeking the concurrence of the minority party and holding a full committee vote before issuing subpoenas, Cummings said in a letter sent to Issa after they met to discuss committee housekeeping issues.

Cummings wrote that Reps. Tom Davis (R-Va.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) consulted each other on subpoenas when they served as chairman and ranking member during the Bush administration. William Clinger (R-Pa.) and Cardiss Collins (D-Ill.) did it too in the 1990s.

"This approach was also followed in the Iran-Contra investigation, the Senate Whitewater
investigation, and the Senate campaign finance investigation," Cummings said, adding later that Issa promised last fall that to consult Democrats about subpoenas.

Not true, according to a response Issa sent to Cummings early Tuesday. The California Republican chairman noted that Towns didn't always consult him before issuing subpoenas.

"I have clearly and unambiguously told you that I, as Chairman, am committed to doing so going forward," Issa wrote. "I have never stated that I would not bring a subpoena before the committee and would, in fact, seriously consider such a request."

Granting Cummings's wish to be consulted on every subpoena would give the minority party "unprecedented new powers to obstruct oversight," Issa said.

But Democrats aren't the only group concerned about Issa's plans. The Washington law firm Covington & Burling warned Monday that companies under strict federal regulation or receiving TARP or economic stimulus funds "should work now to develop a clear understanding of areas that present potential risks for congressional investigations." The firm, often used by companies and officials called before Congress, urged such companies to hire lawyers "familiar with the unique challenges of congressional investigations, such as Congress's position that it need not recognize the attorney-client privilege."

Republican committee staffers always anticipated that Cummings would strike an adversarial, uncooperative tone. They were surprised when Democrats picked Cummings over Towns and another experienced committee member, Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), suggesting he would serve as more of a partisan bomb-thrower than honest broker.

Indeed, in a seven-page letter sent to Issa last week, Cummings said he hoped to work with him on "responsible oversight," but failed to list proposed topics of inquiry and used six pages to raise questions about Issa's tenure as the committee's ranking member.

"Ultimately, the fellow Democratic members of the committee will have to judge for themselves if they are comfortable with following [Cummings's] path of unilateral obstructionism," Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella said Monday.

As for tonight, Cummings plans to sit with freshman Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), the new vice chairman of the Oversight panel's subcommittee on health care and the District of Columbia.

According to Cummings's office, the pair chose to sit together "because of their mutual interest in the cause of improving pediatric dentistry."

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