The Paper Chase

The scariest guy Obama will have to face in the next two years won't be John Boehner or Eric Cantor, but Darryl Issa, a Southern California congressman who will have a host of new powers:

Here are the top three ways Washington will be different after this week’s midterm elections:

First, President Obama will have to go through John Boehner and Co. to pass any bill. Second, Republicans will be held politically accountable for their actions in a way they haven’t been during their years in the minority. And third, Rep. Darrell Issa and his fellow GOP committee chairmen in the House will have subpoena power come January.

What exactly does that mean? A congressional subpoena allows House committees to compel the administration and any federal agency to produce documents or testimony related to a broadly-defined “legislative purpose.”

Courts have rarely interfered with this privilege and presidential administrations don’t often fight it.

Subpoena power, in other words, means that Issa, who will soon be the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, can legally compel the Obama administration to hand over virtually any document it has.

Issa is downplaying his new role, telling reporters, “My job is to make the president a success” by helping him eliminate waste and abuse in the executive branch. He is also talking up a series of relatively benign subjects as his top priorities heading into the next Congress: continuing oversight of the FDA’s food safety regulations, eyeing the Postal Service’s financial difficulties, and extending subpoena power to the inspectors general across all the federal agencies.

In reality, Issa’s new powers pose great peril to Obama — and to Republicans, too, if they overreach.

The GOP will need to pick their battles because the media will play every investigation as an overreach.  Petulant Democrats will cry foul with every request, so I'm hoping Issa will keep his investigations to the really important stuff.