Congressman Dreier
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233 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Office (202) 225-2305
Fax (202) 225-7018

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510 East Foothill Boulevard
Suite 201
San Dimas, CA 91773
Office (909) 575-6226
Toll Free (888) 906-2626
Fax (909) 575-6266

In The Press

March 1, 2012
San Gabriel Valley Tribune



Our View: Dreier served Valley with heart and head


IT doesn't matter your political stripes - or at least it ought not to matter, if you're paying attention, and if you're able to honestly evaluate outside party lines - Rep. David Dreier is a class act.

The congressman who has represented a district stretching from Claremont to Pasadena for an amazing 32 years is one of an almost disappeared breed of electoral animals who lives and breathes American government and yet doesn't make the political personal.
In an age of mean campaigners, of screamers, and of politicians who ironically affect a disdain for politics simply because they know the outsider approach is good for their own election chances, Dreier stands apart.

Not entirely - oddly enough, the local members of Congress in our time who remind us most of Dreier in terms of their smarts, Washington savvy and even-keeled personalities are former Rep. Jim Rogan and current Rep. Adam Schiff, who defeated Rogan in a bitter race that was the most expensive in congressional history at the time.

But Dreier, who announced Wednesday he is stepping down from the San Dimas-based seat he has held since 1980, is the kind of elected official we are unlikely to see again - unless we get very lucky.

A gentleman and a scholar - and more than a bit of a policy wonk - Dreier is a congressman with such deep understanding of congressional history and procedure that he usually knows more about the ways the House of Representatives really works than whomever happens to be the current congressional parliamentarian, charged with providing members and their staffs with their expertise about the intricacies of the lawmaking process.

He will be missed by his constituents, for whom he was always an effective provider of services in the district, from the time of his first election, when as a Republican he championed the environmental issue of finally closing the BKK Corp. Landfill and defeated the incumbent Democrat Jim Lloyd of West Covina, who continued to champion the dump - and who Dreier was eloquent in his praise of just recently when Lloyd passed away.

But Dreier - though never perhaps famous to the general public across the nation, and denied any posts such as House speakership that would have made him better known - in his stepping down will be a huge loss to the GOP and indeed the entire Congress because of the vast institutional knowledge he brought to his role as chairman of the almost absurdly powerful House Rules Committee. He could make or break an issue with that insider procedural knowledge.

Given his love for Congress as an institution, we understand why he chose the unusual step Wednesday morning of resigning during a speech on the floor of the House he so reveres.

He's entitled to be fond of the place. But we can't say we share the sentiment he expressed during his speech: "I am a proud institutionalist, and I believe that this institution is as great as it has ever been."

There are individual members of the Congress who are indeed great - or at least pretty good. But we know, as does the American public, that the current crop of members has, with its partisanship for partisanship's stake, with its tin ear for sensible debate, with its inability to find the middle of the road, that we've never had a worse Congress in the history of the republic.

And with the departure this coming fall of Dave Dreier, who was essentially drawn out of office in the new California redistricting, the Congress will be that much poorer. He was a mainstream conservative of the old school, which means that while operating from a solid base of principles, he came to his work each day with an open mind. May that be a lesson to a new generation of young politicians who might just restore our faith in the American way of governance.