Calling Chairman Dodd

There are few times when Capitol Hill chairmen bypass an opportunity to hold headline-grabbing hearings that thrust them into the center of attention.

If the lawmaker has presidential ambitions, the allure of klieg lights illuminating a show of muscular leadership on a big issue is all the more potent.

All of which raises the question: Where’s Dodd?

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

From that perch, he can influence post-Katrina insurance fixes, predatory credit card lending abuses and a national response to the meltdown in the housing market.

Any one of those issues could become the bedrock of a campaign aimed at the middle class.

But, to date, Dodd has moved only modest reforms at best on industries that also represent his biggest donors.

Of the $8 million Dodd raised through the third quarter, $5 million came from the financial, insurance and real estate sectors.

His chairman’s gavel has “been his No. 1 driver in fundraising,” observed Scott Reed, campaign manager for Republican Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential bid — a campaign that was also launched from the Senate floor.

On post-Katrina insurance fixes, Dodd recommends a commission to study major reforms.

On credit card abuses, Dodd has been upstaged by his colleague, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), in the push to rein in the credit card industry.

And, on the housing issue, he has moved his own family to Iowa — where at least 22,600 families took out subprime mortgages in 2005 and 2006 — but has pushed only modest reforms to help homeowners now at risk because of exploding interest rates.

Meanwhile, the House on Thursday is scheduled to pass an aggressive subprime reform plan developed by House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

Dodd’s office says more ambitious legislation on the mortgage lending crisis will be coming soon.

But even that will come months after presidential candidates John Edwards and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) offered outlines of what they would have done and fellow Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) introduced his own bill.

To be sure, Dodd’s campaign is emphasizing his 30-plus years of congressional experience.

In television ads and debates, he reaches back to some of his accomplishments, including a seven-year fight to pass the Family and Medical Leave Act and his work on the Sarbanes-Oxley business reform law.

In addition, he regularly pounds away on the issue of Iraq and Congress’ failure to rein in presidential power.

“His experience runs the gamut from foreign policy to domestic policy, children and families to health care to the banking industry,” said Colleen Flanagan, his campaign spokeswoman.

But Dodd’s reticence to seize on some of the most pressing home-front issues of the day to provide a fresh show of his leadership skills runs counter to the tactics of his opponents and offers a glimpse of the challenges of running for president from the Upper Chamber.

No president has been elected directly from the Senate since John F. Kennedy captured the White House in 1960.

Pushing legislation through the Senate — particularly one as narrowly divided as today’s chamber — takes an enormous amount of time and attention. Most often, it also requires excruciating negotiations with Republicans.

A presidential hopeful has to weigh that requirement against the demands of the campaign trail, said Tad Devine, who was a top strategist for former Vice President Al Gore in 2000 and Sen. John F. Kerry in 2004.

Is the issue sexy enough? Will it grab — and sustain — media attention?

Does it matter to Iowa and New Hampshire voters?

Those questions also must be mulled, said Devine, because “you’re certainly going to trade off the time you could have spent speaking drectly to them or soliciting funds you would need to be considered a credible candidate.”

Another risk, says Dennis Goldford, an Iowa caucus expert at Drake University in Des Moines, is that the candidate winds up looking like, well, a senator, and not a president.

“Senators are like engineers. They’re legislators. They know how to make things, they know how to get things done. … We couldn’t live without engineers,” Goldford says.

“But what people want in a president is an architect, somebody who will sketch a vision and inspire people.”

Dodd’s competitors from the Senate today are trying to blend the two tracks, borrowing from their Senate service to add heft to their presidential aspirations.

Obama touts his leadership in “cleaning up Washington” and pressing for ethics reforms. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Biden (D-Del.) points to his ability to win bipartisan approval for a “Sense of the Senate” resolution urging a three-state partition of Iraq.

And Clinton claims that nobody in the White House or the Senate “has worked harder or longer to improve health care.”

Dodd’s campaign defends his record, saying he has used his committee chairmanship to address today’s major issues.

He spoke out on the subprime crisis as early as February, gathered major lenders and consumer advocates to a closed-door summit on the Hill, convened hearings, and pushed regulators to step up oversight.

He moved through his committee a bill to help distressed homeowners refinance out of foreclosure using updated Federal Housing Administration loan guidelines, though the House had passed a more ambitious version of the bill under Frank’s watch a day earlier.

Dodd’s FHA bill still hasn’t come to the Senate floor.

Despite these efforts, Dodd was still slow to embrace a more aggressive stance as the crisis worsened through the summer, maintaining until September that heightened scrutiny from federal regulators was the right course.

In early September, Dodd reversed his position and published a detailed outline of legislation to squash predatory mortgage lending as part of a broader issue platform called “Realizing the American Dream.”

The Dodd camp argues his plan is more comprehensive than the other candidates’ plans. He is also holding foreclosure-related campaign events across Iowa.

“He does see this as a critical issue [and] a centerpiece of his campaign,” Flanagan said.

But Dodd still hangs back on other policy fights.

On matters related to Hurricane Katrina relief, he has advanced several bills through his committee, including an overhaul of the flood insurance program, though, again, Frank’s House committee was out ahead.

On the “big idea” front, Dodd has abstained from bold moves.

While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) pushed a bill that would involve the federal government in natural disaster insurance — a bid to win votes from homeowners facing skyrocketing premiums — Dodd trumpeted legislation to create a committee to study federal involvement.

Clinton, on the other hand, signed on as co-sponsor of the Senate companion to Pelosi’s bill.

The day after, Dodd introduced two measures aimed at providing coastal homeowners and businesses short-term relief.

Those close to the congressional action say Dodd has good reason for his approach.

Senate staffers maintain Dodd is doing his “due diligence” on subprime and other legislative issues. That’s because moving legislation — even crafting it — requires some Republican help.

So while Clinton and Obama may have been out first with ideas, Dodd may actually cobble together something that could pass.

Consumer advocates pushing mortgage curbs admit they’re a little frustrated with Dodd’s pace, but mostly they understnd what he’s up against.

“We’d rather make sure they get it right,” said a consumer advocate.