page_title: Henry Waxman
section_title: Tenure
hierarchical_section_title: Henry Waxman / U.S. House of Representatives / Tenure
caption_attribution_description: Pictured left to right: Frank Oldham, Jr. (President and CEO, National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA)), Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), Julie Scofield (Executive Director, National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD)), Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), President Barack Obama, Ernest Hopkins (Policy Chair, Communities Advocating for Emergency AIDS Relief (CAEAR) and Federal Affairs Director, San Francisco AIDS Foundation), Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Jeanne White-Ginder (Ryan White's mother), Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
context_page_description: Henry Arnold Waxman is an American politician who served as the U.S. Representative for California's 33rd congressional district from 1975 to 2015. Waxman is a member of the Democratic Party.
  His district included much of the western part of the city of Los Angeles, as well as West Hollywood, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, and was numbered the 24th district from 1975 to 1993, the 29th district from 1993 to 2003, and the 30th district from 2003 to 2013, changing because of redistricting after the 1990, 2000, and 2010 censuses. He now serves as chairman at Waxman Strategies, a DC-based communications and lobbying firm, working on healthcare, environmental, energy, technology, financial services, labor and telecommunications issues. In addition, he serves as a Regent Lecturer for University of California, Los Angeles, and as an advisor and lecturer at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
context_section_description: Before the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in 1995, Waxman was a powerful figure in the House as chair of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health and the Environment from 1979. In this role he conducted investigations into a range of health and environmental issues, including universal health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid coverage, AIDS and air and water pollution.  In 1994, Waxman forced the chief executives of the seven major tobacco companies to swear under oath that nicotine was not addictive.
  Waxman's stated legislative priorities are health and environmental issues. These include universal health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid coverage, tobacco, AIDS, air and water quality standards, pesticides, nursing home quality standards, women's health research and reproductive rights, the availability and cost of prescription drugs, and the right of communities to know about pollution levels.  As an example of Waxman's thoughts regarding tobacco, on April 13, 2010, he requested that Major League Baseball ban smokeless tobacco in all its various forms - snuff, dipping tobacco. chewing tobacco, snus, etc.
  With the Democrats' victory in the 2006 midterm elections, Waxman became chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the principal investigative committee of the House. He was the committee's ranking Democrat from 1997 to 2007.  In 1998, while he was still ranking member, he created a "Special Investigations Division" to investigate matters that he felt the full committee had neglected. This was possible because the committee has broad powers to investigate any matter with federal policy implications, even if another committee has jurisdiction over it. He has also harshly criticized the Republicans for ignoring their "constitutional responsibility" to conduct oversight over the government.
  On March 16, 2004, at Waxman's request, the Committee on Government Reform Minority Office published "Iraq on the Record, the Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq" a detailed and searchable collection of 237 specific misleading statements made by Bush Administration officials about the threat posed by Iraq. It contains statements that were misleading based on what was known to the Administration at the time the statements were made. It does not include statements that appear mistaken only in hindsight. If a statement was an accurate reflection of U.S. intelligence at the time it was made, it was excluded even if it now appears erroneous.
  In 2006, Project On Government Oversight, a government watchdog group, presented Waxman with its Good Government Award for his various contributions to government transparency and oversight.
  On the day after the 2006 elections, Waxman directed his aides to draw up an "oversight plan" for the panel. He had already let it be known that he wanted to investigate Halliburton, as well as its alleged malfeasance related to government contracts in Iraq. It is very likely that he could also investigate the numerous scandals surrounding Jack Abramoff. This led to concerns among Democratic aides that the Government Reform Committee under Waxman would stage a repeat of the committee's performance under the Clinton administration, when it issued over 1,000 subpoenas. However, Waxman told Newsweek that he is interested in accountability and not retaliation.
  In 2009, he began serving as the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee after defeating Chairman John Dingell in a 137–122 secret vote of House Democrats on November 20, 2008.
  Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming once described Waxman as being 'tougher than a boiled owl.'
  Waxman is proud of his "strong Jewish identity" and has drawn political conclusions from his exploration of the religion. "Judaism is about acting and doing the right thing, not simply believing in it or mindlessly following ritual," he said in a speech presented by the University of Southern California's Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life. Waxman said he applies Jewish ethical values to his con
caption: Waxman stands behind President Obama at an October 30, 2009 bill signing ceremony
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