Congressman Waxman Speaks Out on Prop.8 and House Ethics

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Congressman Waxman Speaks Out About Prop.8, Ethics Scandals

Exclusive interview with Congressman Henry Waxman on Prop 8 and the Ethics Scandals in the House of Representatives

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Representative Henry Waxman (D-West Los Angeles) strongly endorsed the decision of U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to overturn Proposition 8 and he told NBCLA in an exclusive interview that he hopes the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court uphold this decision.

"People should be allowed to get married," he said, " Proposition 8 is an unreasonable and unconstitutional barrier, discriminating against people who are gay."

Congress is currently dealing with two ethics scandals involving long-time colleagues of Waxman, but he does not believe these cases will have any impact on the November election.

"Whenever a member of Congress is involved in an ethics scandal," he said, " I feel extra badly because I know the esteem of members of Congress goes lower" adding " though it's hard to find it going lower than it is already at the present time."

Waxman said he thought his colleagues should be able to have a trial and a review of their cases to determine whether they'd done anything wrong.

"If they have actions that are wrong," he noted, " they ought to have sanctions applied to them."

Waxman said the impact of these cases should not be compared to what happened four years ago when Republicans were running the House. He said those ethics scandals showed a pattern of corruption in running the institution while the cases of Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters focus on individual problems and whether they did something wrong.

Waxman believes the Democrats will retain control of Congress in the upcoming elections. "I think we're going to win," he said, "and still have the majority. We will lose some seats and that's inevitable."

He said this is because a non-Presidential election draws fewer voters to the polls. But he added, " I think we'll do fine."