How a freshman senator got something big done

How a freshman senator got something big done
By David Goldstein | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2007



WASHINGTON — Campaigning for the Senate last year, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill blasted the federal government for barely raising an eyebrow as waste and corruption swallowed billions of dollars that were meant to rebuild Iraq.

Shades of Harry S. Truman. As a senator from Missouri during World War II, he rattled his own share of corporate and government cages by going after wartime profiteers.

"He was fearless,” McCaskill said during a speech last year in Independence, Mo., Truman's hometown. “He uncovered … enormous undeserved profits. I believe we need a new Truman Committee. I will fight for such a committee.”

Nine months into her first term, McCaskill is on the brink of pulling that off.

The Senate recently agreed to a plan from McCaskill and fellow freshman and Democrat Jim Webb of Virginia to clean up the Pentagon’s chaotic system of awarding private contracts for work in Iraq. It was added to a big defense-spending bill.

This is another in an occasional series about the political education of a freshman senator.

McCaskill used to be Missouri's state auditor. Government audits are her bedtime reading. She was quick to realize that Pentagon contracts were ripe targets.

Webb is a combat veteran of Vietnam and a former secretary of the Navy. He has an insider’s knowledge of how things are supposed to work — but often don’t.

Their bill would give oversight of private defense contracts to an independent, bipartisan commission. To the eight Senate Democratic freshmen — and one independent who votes with them — the McCaskill-Webb measure symbolizes a pledge to restore government integrity, which they all campaigned on last year.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/20322.html

elections were all about. Hat tip to both Senators.