California Democrats insist they can work with new GOP majority in Congress

Congressional Democrats return to Washington this week for the lame duck session, knowing they’ll be the minority party in both the House and the Senate come January. California Democrats are putting the best face on their future. Some of the changes:

• San Francisco Democrat Dianne Feinstein must hand the gavel of the Senate Intelligence Committee over to Richard Burr. Feinstein knows the North Carolina Republican and says she thinks highly of him. Feinstein says she worked well with the former top GOP Senator on the committee, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, and she can work with Burr, compromising to get things done.
• Barbara Boxer also loses her top committee spot. The new chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will be James Inhofe of Oklahoma. The two have clashed for a decade over climate change, but did manage to pound out a transportation bill that included loans to build L.A. transit. 

But will serving in the minority make it more likely that she won't run for a fifth term? Boxer says she'll announce that decision early next year. 

She points out that in the two decades that she's served in the Senate, the majority party has switched seven times. The California Democrat says she likes being in the majority better, but works well with Republicans. In the Senate you have to work with the other side to get anything done, Boxer said last week.

She says she'd like the House to take up the immigration reform bill passed earlier this year by the Senate, but she says she's willing to fight with the new GOP majority over any effort to repeal or weaken the Affordable Care Act.

"I'm not going to stand there and do nothing in the face of millions of Californians losing their health care that's affordable," Boxer says. The House has voted to repeal the ACA dozens of times in the past few years.  "There may be a lot of talk about it," she says, "but I'm not so sure it's going to happen."

The question is whether a GOP majority in both houses of Congress will change the gridlock in Washington. Democratic Congresswoman Karen Bass of Los Angeles says the ball’s in the GOP’s court now.

"They can choose to govern, now that they have the whole enchilada," she says, "or they can choose to continue to be obstructionist."

There are leadership elections this week for both parties. The number two Republican in the House, Kevin McCarthy, is expected to easily be re-elected as Majority Leader. Bass says when Speaker Boehner’s leadership team is in place, she hopes McCarthy will devote his energy to California issues. 

Boxer says Democrats can blame themselves for the mid-term election losses in an election with one of  the lowest voter turnouts in years. "When people don't vote," she says, "Republicans win; when more people vote, Democrats win."

Just one in four registered voters in Los Angeles County cast ballots in Tuesday's midterm election. "I will take responsibility as a Democrat for that," Boxer says.