Mr. Barron currently is a member of the City Council, where his despicable rhetoric, we are happy to note, has had no visible impact on public policy and civic life. Yes, he embarrassed the city a decade ago when he escorted Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe, a serial violator of human rights, into the Council chambers and proclaimed him to be a “bold African man willing to stand up to the world for his people.” But that episode did no permanent damage to the city’s reputation—indeed, it gave New Yorkers a wonderful opportunity to show their contempt for Mr. Mugabe. Mr. Barron, on the other hand, was exposed as a vicious hatemonger.

Mr. Barron’s time in the Council is drawing to a close, thanks to term limits. But he may not be done. Mr. Barron is running for Congress in the Brooklyn district currently represented by Edolphus Towns, who is retiring. With less than a week before the Democratic primary, Mr. Barron is thought to be in a close battle with Hakeem S. Jeffries, who is seeking promotion from the state Assembly.

To their ever-lasting disgrace, Mr. Towns and the city’s largest public-employee union, District Council 37, have endorsed Mr. Barron. That’s why many observers fear that Mr. Barron might well capture the nomination, which is tantamount to victory in heavily Democratic Brooklyn, next Tuesday.

One person could stand in the way of Mr. Barron’s ambitions. President Obama can and should intervene on behalf of Mr. Jeffries. The president doesn’t have to say a word about Mr. Barron, a fellow Democrat, although it would be nice if he called out the councilman for his horrendous rhetoric. A presidential endorsement of Mr. Jeffries certainly would be a blow for the haters, racial arsonists, and refugees from the 1960s who support Mr. Barron’s candidacy.

The district’s registered Democrats will, of course, have the final say. But the party’s leaders at the local and the federal level ought to make it clear that Mr. Barron will be a pariah if he is dispatched to Washington—if a portion of the district’s voters are looking to send some kind of message to the establishment, well, they’ve rallied behind a flawed messenger.

If Mr. Barron wins, he will have a national forum for his hate-filled rants. To be sure, he will be incapable of turning his views into legislation, but still—he will have greater access to the media and a bigger audience for his insulting rhetoric. And here’s the worst part: He’ll be identified as a Democrat from New York.

Is that what Democrats want? Is that what New York deserves?

Those are questions Mr. Obama should ponder in the next few days.

Towns:

"I regret the fact that this occurred, but I know that has not changed the fact that when you go to him for information, or support for an issue, or to get people to come together to make things happen, or provide leadership for the New York Delegation, there is nobody better than Charles B. Rangel."

In this latest filing period, from January 12 to March 11, Mark Green raised $143,285, but has only paid two bills so far, totaling $17,621. Those bills were for a campaign office and for a $16,006 poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.

Green spokesman Paul Rivera said other expenses – including his own invoice – will be paid later and will appear in future filings. He said they’re more focused on raising money at this point.

Bill de Blasio raised $136,282 from 428 contributors.

Norman Siegel raised $21,542 from 117 contributors, including $60 from political comedian Randy Credico.

Republican Alex Zablocki raised $657 from 39 contributors, including $50 from Jonathan Judge, who was one of the Brooklyn Republicans who voted against allowing Bloomberg into the G.O.P. primary this year.

Eric Gioia's latest finance numbers were not posted on the Campaign Finance Board web site as of Tuesday morning.

Among Green’s contributors are public relations guru Howard Rubenstein, who gave $500. Rubenstein helped orchestrate Michael Bloomberg’s push for the extension of term-limits, which Green has criticized.

Also contributing to Green was a big-shot lawyer and deputy commissioner in the state’s division of human rights, Tom Shanahan, who gave $50.

De Blasio contributors include Representative Ed Towns, who gave $175, Towns’ district director Jennifer James, who gave $50, and the Washington-based “Working for Working Americans” group, which gave $4,950. Among the group’s stated goals is to “pull back the curtain on the damage done by free trade agreements.”

So when, on Dec. 10, his office formally announced his election to the powerful chairmanship of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform—a potentially huge post in these times of economic collapse and bank-industry bailouts crying out for scrutiny—some political observers saw a certain irony in the situation.

“He’s been in the house 26 years,” said Fred Siegel, a professor of history at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in Manhattan. “Any footprints you’re aware of?”

Running the Oversight Committee, the House’s main investigative arm, is all about making footprints, and typically calls for a set of aggressive character traits: energy, good management skills, a willingness to hold government colleagues to account, a flare for wielding the threat of subpoena power and media-mobbed hearings to cow opponents.

The main rap against Mr. Towns—the recurring refrain of his primary opponents for the last 16 years—is that it’s been a long time since he’s displayed anything remotely like those characteristics.

California Democrat Henry Waxman, Mr. Towns’ direct predecessor, was the paradigm, leveraging the position for maximum influence by spearheading high-profile investigations and afflicting the powerful with his peevish demeanor. “Waxman showed what could be done in that committee,” said Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University. “The chair has got a roving commission to go after almost anything, from the spill in Tennessee at that coal impoundment pond to hauling in Citibank executives.”

Expect Mr. Towns’ style to be somewhat different.

“I’m not one of the guys who jumps in front of the cameras,” he told The Brooklyn Paper in August 2008.
Video of Mr. Towns, a North Carolina native, at committee hearings and giving Congressional testimony depict a mild-mannered politician who sticks to his talking points.
“Henry Waxman was a crusader type in that job,” said Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn. “I think Ed Towns will be focused on putting forward the concerns of average people. He is quite connected to his constituents and to what the man and woman on the street are worried about.”

Certainly, “the man and woman on the street” in Mr. Towns’ central Brooklyn district, the 10th, which encompasses East New York, Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Clinton Hill, Canarsie and Fort Greene, have no shortage of concerns.
There’s the violence: The 73rd Precinct in Brownsville saw 31 murders in 2008, up from 26 in 2001, and the 75th Precinct in East New York had 17 murders (down from 35 in 2001). And the poverty: In 2007, according to New York City Department of Planning statistics, 47.5 percent of the residents in Brownsville and Ocean Hill, and 45.7 percent in East New York, received public assistance. 

Mr. Towns, in a phone interview with The Observer, said he would use the powers of his new position to investigate all manner of problems, from the stimulus package, “to see if it’s doing what it should be doing,” to issues related to athletics and the independence of inspectors general.

“We also plan to look at contracting,” Mr. Towns said. “I’m concerned about some things we’re hearing about contractors who will get a contract and then they won’t even pay the taxes on their contract. … And, of course, the other part, aside from that, is the waste, fraud and abuse that goes on in our contracts.”

“I’m concerned about something that’s little known among people—but I’m becoming very interested in this whole selling of body parts,” Mr. Towns later added. “I happened to be on Court Street one day and I bumped into a couple of friends of mine and they were telling me about an incident in their own family. I said, ‘This is crazy.’ I said, ‘Maybe we need to look into it.’ I have not made a decision to look into it or not. It won’t be one of the first things I do because I’m concerned about jobs and whether or not the money we are putting out is doing what we said it’s doing.”

The main thing, Mr. Towns said, is getting people back to work.

Bill Thompson, the city comptroller and a political ally of Mr. Towns, was among those who said that the congressman would handle his new role well.

The chairmanship “suits someone who can establish a vision and can bring energy, and focus,” Mr. Thompson said. “It’s not just being a muckraker, it’s [about] being responsible also. And I think he can do that.”

Not all of Mr. Towns’ constituents are convinced. Public discontent over Mr. Towns’ performance has simmered for years and has prompted a series of challenges by rival Democrats, among them Susan Alter in 1992, Barry Ford in 1998 and 2000, Charles Barron and Roger Green in 2006 and Kevin Powell just last year. (Mr. Towns won only 47 percent of the primary vote in 2006 versus 38 for Mr. Barron, a councilman, and 67 last year versus 33 for Mr. Powell, a former Real World contestant who wrote an autobiographical book about being a recovering misogynist. In both primaries, Mr. Towns made few public appearances and refused to debate his opponents.

The Times, in its 1998 endorsement of Mr. Ford, wrote, “In the competition for most mediocre member of the New York delegation, Representative Edolphus Towns is always a contender. In his 16 years in Congress, Mr. Towns has distinguished himself mainly for his large record of missed votes and his subservience to special interests, notably the tobacco industry.”

Similar complaints continue to this day.

Lucy Koteen, a longtime Fort Greene resident and president of the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, said she rarely sees him at district meetings.

“He doesn’t come out to events; he rarely has forums on anything,” she said. “Even when he had [a] forum on the post office, which I went to four or five years ago, he didn’t discuss any other issues.”

“He has not been helpful with the community’s efforts to battle the Atlantic Yards project,” said Ruth Goldstein, a longtime Fort Greene resident, activist and leader of the Fort Greene Park Conservancy, which recently sponsored the centennial of the Martyrs Monument in the Olmsted-designed greensward.

“He was not supportive [of the centennial],” Ms. Goldstein said. “We got far more support from Tish James and Hakeem Jeffries, Velmanette Montgomery, Borough President Markowitz, Bill DeBlasio and Joe Lentol. Although when I spoke with him twice, he always expressed tremendous support. But we didn’t receive any funding or any tangible help.”

Mr. Towns, in the interview, brushed off the criticism.

“I have faced 13 primaries, and I’m still standing,” he said. “There must be a connection between me and the people.”
In response to the charges of inactivity, Mr. Towns’ office sent over a list of legislation he supported during his time in Congress. The list accounted for, among other things, his chairmanship of the Government Management Subcommittee, which held 23 hearings during the 110th Congress on issues like the independence of Inspectors General and health care for 9/11 responders, as well as bills later passed by the House to keep Starrett City as middle-income housing and to increase funding for historically black and Hispanic-serving colleges.

And there are certainly those in the district who sing his praises, among them Richard Buery, the executive director of Groundwork, a youth empowerment organization in East New York, who has found “Ed Towns to be very responsive to our work, very supportive of the work we’re trying to do in East New York.”

So, too, has Edward Brown, who has served for three years as president of the Ingersoll Houses Tenant Association in Fort Greene.

“Congressman Towns has been very respectful to our community and addressing our needs to date,” Mr. Brown said. “I’ve heard the stories about him, but I have yet to experience the aspects of those stories.”

Mr. Towns’ tenure was not always so controversial, just as his public demeanor wasn’t always so inert.

He was 48 years old when he was first elected to the House in 1982, replacing the scandal-ridden Frederick Richmond, who resigned in disgrace that August. Mr. Towns, a former administrator at Beth Israel Medical Center, had already been baptized by Brooklyn’s political machine, having served five years as Brooklyn’s first African-American deputy borough president under Howard Golden.

His first foray into electoral politics was a resounding victory, and during his early years in office, Mr. Towns the community activist–cum–congressman made frequent appearances in the clips. He was active in efforts to register minority voters, to draw attention to police brutality and to create youth job programs. In 1984, he got himself arrested at an anti-apartheid protest in front of South Africa’s Park Avenue consulate. That same year, Mr. Towns acquired funding for the renovation of 23 Park Slope brownstones—a move that helped resurrect the neighborhood.

By 1991, Mr. Towns had risen to a position of power in the Congress, serving as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus as it fought the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

“This decision is not a matter of black or white, but a matter of principle,” Mr. Towns declared at a press conference. 
At some difficult-to-determine point, that Mr. Towns vanished.

“What happened is that he shifted into neutral,” said a former Brooklyn elected official who has worked closely with him. “He reached the level of seniority in Washington where people were coming to kiss his ass all the time, but he wasn’t a superstar enough to really capitalize it. And then he got sucked into the whole tobacco money stuff. That was a serious blind spot for him. … It was an indication of how he had become captured by the Washington special interests.”
Explaining his opposition to a ban on smoking in airplanes, Mr. Towns told an anecdote about a man playing a harp on an airplane, according to a November 1995 New York Times article about Mr. Towns’ role as one of the top 20 recipients of tobacco industry money in Congress:

“Finally after about 15 minutes of that I said to him: ‘You know, look, this is no concert. This is a flight and I would appreciate it if you would refrain from making the noise.’ And, of course, he responded by saying: ‘What the hell do you want from me? I am not allowed to smoke, and I have to do something or else I am going to go crazy.’ Don’t you think a lot of incidents will occur if you do not allow people the right to smoke?”

In September 1996, the Daily News reported that Mr. Towns was one of two New York congressmen, and one of only 32 nationwide, to oppose a bill denying pensions to congressmen convicted of felonies.

“It’s the classic ‘they get in power and they become just like the people they were trying to get out of power,’” said a Brooklyn Democratic Party leader who endorsed Towns in the last election. 

Other of Mr. Towns’ colleagues are more charitable, noting, among other things, that Mr. Towns spent many of his quiet years as a Democrat in a Republican-dominated institution. 
“I can vouch for the fact that it was demoralizing,” said a former congressman, Major Owens. “I was there. The need to raise so much money for reelection is also demoralizing.”
But that was then. In this new day of a Democratic-controlled Congress and a president apparently bent on eliminating government waste, fraud and abuse, Mr. Towns could regain his footing.

He has taken some steps in that direction, most recently by hiring Albert Wiltshire, a well-connected Brooklyn politico and former Brooklyn Navy Yard administrator, as his chief of staff. And, in December, he helped convene a meeting of black leaders at Medgar Evers College to discuss how Brooklyn might benefit from federal stimulus funds.

Mr. Towns, for one, said he was “very excited” by the opportunity.

“Every time I’ve had a chance to talk to Obama or even listen to him in his speeches, he’s talked about transparency,” Mr. Towns said. “And this committee will be making sure these agencies are transparent.”

The verdict will have an immediate and significant impact on energy, environmental and health care policy, all of which should loom large in Barack Obama’s first-year agenda, pushing a major power center within the House sharply to the left and into alignment with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s governing vision.

There is also fear among some House veterans, particularly members of the Congressional Black Caucus, that Waxman’s triumph – the first successful bid to depose a Democratic chairman in 23 years, and the first time it’s even been tried since 1996 – will embolden more members to challenge the seniority system that, until now, has guaranteed committee chairmanships to members with the most tenure.

Dingell, who has been in Congress since 1955, first began chairing Energy and Commerce in 1981, the year the panel was formally reconstituted to recognize the growing significance of energy issues. (It had previously been the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee.) He held the gavel for 14 years, through the Reagan revolution, the first Bush administration and the first half of Bill Clinton’s first term.

In that time, Dingell, an old-school Democrat with deep ties to organized labor and the auto industry and little interest in the social and cultural agendas of his party’s left wing, occasionally clashed with his more liberal committee colleagues, mainly on environmental issues. But most of his tenure coincided with an era of cheap gasoline, freeing him from pressure to force onerous fuel economy standards on Detroit. It also came during a time when committee chairmen often wielded more power than members of the House leadership, including the speaker.

But when Democrats won back the House in 2006, Dingell quickly learned that the rules of the game had changed. He was given the Energy and Commerce gavel, thanks to the seniority system, but energy policy had become a pressing issue. Gas prices were soaring, global warming had become a trendy cause and, in the wake of 9/11, Americans had grown fearful of their country’s dependence on oil from the Middle East. Plus, after 14 years in the wilderness, House Democrats returned to power with a leader, Nancy Pelosi, who would exercise much more central authority than her pre-'94 predecessors.

When Pelosi decreed that energy policy would be a top priority, Dingell promptly drafted a bill that protected his old friends in Detroit. Pelosi told him this was unacceptable, and she even went and created a new committee – with no formal power – to address global warming, a clear slap in Dingell’s face. And now Waxman, a devout environmentalist with close ties to Pelosi, has taken his gavel away.

In terms of Obama’s legislative agenda, the impact of Waxman’s coup is going to be apparent almost immediately. Had Dingell retained his gavel, he would have used his power to slow down and water down efforts to force even higher fuel economy and emissions standards on the automakers. With Waxman, a liberal whose district includes Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, at the helm, Obama will find a willing partner who, if anything, will be even more aggressive in his desire to overhaul and modernize energy policy. The difference will also be apparent on climate change, a passion of Waxman’s and a topic in which Dingell has only shown perfunctory interest.

Health care legislation will also flow through the committee, but here the difference may be less noticeable. Universal coverage has long been one of Dingell’s pet issues and it’s entirely in keeping with his old-school, labor-friendly ways.

But then there’s the matter of the future of the seniority system.

As Thursday’s vote neared, Dingell’s defenders began framing it as a referendum on the seniority system, which retains wide popularity in the House. Most Americans are probably offended by the idea of a merit-less system that merely rewards longevity, but for many members of the House, it provides the fairest and most reliable path to power possible.

The system is especially popular among the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who have often felt marginalized by the House’s Democratic leadership through the years. (South Carolina’s James Clyburn, who is now the third-ranking House Democrat, has climbed higher in leadership than any other African-American – yet few expect him to climb any higher.) Four decades ago, the Voting Rights Act created a series of black-majority Congressional districts, each overwhelmingly Democratic. As a result, the African-Americans who have won these seats have typically held on to them for multiple terms, often decades. To them, the seniority system is a friend – the reason why, for instance, Charlie Rangel, first elected in 1970, now chairs the mighty Ways and Means Committee.

The fear among seniority-system proponents is that Waxman’s success will devalue the concept of seniority in members’ minds and lay the groundwork for all sorts of future challenges to entrenched chairman. Committee chairmanships, they warn, could end up like regular party leadership slots – the subject of intense campaigns that favor aspirants who rack up favors from their colleagues and shower their fellow Democratic members with campaign cash.

For now, though, this concern is probably overstated. As entrenched as Dingell was, it’s worth remembering that Waxman himself has been in the House for 34 years and has extensive experience on Energy and Commerce. And even with all of the connections he’s made in those 34 years (and, very likely, the quiet support of Pelosi), he was able to unseat the “Dean of the House” by a mere 15 votes. It’s a significant accomplishment, no doubt, but the closeness of the race demonstrates how seriously Democrats still regard the seniority system.

It’s also revealing that the seniority system seems likely to prevail in the race to fill the chairmanship of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Waxman will vacate to take over Energy and Commerce. Next in line for the Oversight gavel is New York’s Edolphus Towns, whose only obvious recommendation for the position is his seniority. Towns has rankled his colleagues and infuriated Democratic leaders this decade by straying from the party line on some key votes, failing to show up for others, and even slipping key committee sessions (as he did recently, when Oversight took up the AIG matter). And yet, reports now suggest that Towns will be given the gavel anyway, even though there is no shortage of Democrats who want it.

Waxman told Democrats that his campaign was about seizing a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to move meaningful legislation through Congress that will actually be signed by the president. His colleagues agreed, and made what may turn out to be a once-in-a-generation exception to the rule of the seniority system.

And here's more! On Monday, a number of members of Congress will endorse Connor at City Hall.

A release promises Carolyn Maloney, Jerrold Nadler and Nydia Velázquez at a press conference, as well as the possibility of Yvette Clarke, and the endorsement of Ed Towns, although he won't be able to make it. (He has to fend off Kevin Powell, after all.)

With only one candidate present, Ken Diamondstone (who recently abandoned a planned primary challenge to State Senator Marty Connor) served as the somewhat superfluous moderator.

The group (crowd estimate: 12) met in a candlelit corner of the Boat Bar in Carrol Gardens. Surrounded by buoys and forced to yell over Buzzcocks played very loudly over the speakers in the bar, Powell gave a speech and took questions and blasted Towns for not being there.

“I think it is unfair and unwise for Mr. Towns not to show up even though we haven’t gotten to the district process,” he said.

It wouldn't be the first time Towns took a low-profile approach to a re-election campaign. Nor would it be the first time one of his challengers complained loudly about it. In 2006, both Charles Barron and Roger Green ran against him, and consistently criticized Towns' failure to show up for events. The final result: Towns 19,469, Barron 15,345, Green 6,237.

“I think part of the reason Mr. Towns keeps getting re-elected is because people don’t actually vote,” Powell said. He illustrated the point with his own experience, as a resident of the district, of simply voting for Towns out of habit.

After the event, Diamondstone told me that Towns’ absence was not related to congressional obligations.

“We went out of our way to have this scheduled when Congress was not in session in order to enable him to take the opportunity to be here,” Diamondstone said.

“The congressmen took the position that he’s not going to debate until after the petitioning. On the other hand, once I say what I want to say, I’m not going to be impartial anymore…” Diamondstone paused. “It would be useful for the congressmen to interact with his constituents. “

Asked for reaction, Towns' deputy chief of staff Karen Johnson said that while DFNYC had notified the congressman about an earlier forum, "this time, they never emailed. We were never notified of the second date." She added later, "Sounds to me they knew we wouldn't come so they didn't even give us the courtesy to say 'no' to an invitation."

And on the topic of Powell's candidacy: "Last time, he tried his 15 minutes of fame. I think he's trying to extend it to 30."

Here's an email that went out on Christmas Eve:

Yes, with the pickup on Tuesday of enough seats to put them in the majority in the House of Representatives, they’ll all be liberated, after a dozen years, from the indignities of minority status. But power and prestige will not be evenly distributed within the new majority.

Instead, each Democrat’s clout will largely be determined by an inexact formula that combines seniority—a tradition suddenly back in vogue, with Democrats tossing out the Republican-initiated term limits on committee chairmanships—and the answer to a timeless question endemic to hierarchical organizations the world over: Are you good with the man at the top?

In this case, of course, “the man” is actually a woman: Nancy Pelosi, the elegantly attired if publicly cold and over-scripted Speaker-in-waiting, who has shrewdly—even cuttingly—tightened her grip on the Democratic caucus into a veritable chokehold. Now it could be payback time for both her friends and enemies.

From a New York–centric standpoint, the new realities of life in the United States House are a mixed bag.

Charlie Rangel, for one, stands to reap vast political and legislative riches. His 36-year tenure—representing perhaps the safest Democratic seat in America—is all that he needs in the way of qualifications to snag the chairmanship of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, an elite posting that the 76-year-old will probably keep until he decides to retire. (Or until the Republicans win back the chamber.)

But more than that, Mr. Rangel has made himself an indispensable resource for Ms. Pelosi—not necessarily through the unblinking fealty her unforgiving and somewhat paranoid style demands, but rather by positioning himself as a vital bridge between the Democratic leadership and the 43-member Congressional Black Caucus, an all-Democratic group whose regular propitiation is supposedly vital to the continued ballot-box devotion of African-Americans to the Democratic cause.

This summer offered a revealing glimpse of the soon-to-be Speaker’s reliance on Mr. Rangel. Ms. Pelosi—horrified that her party risked losing ground to the G.O.P. on ethics—wanted badly to make a public example of William Jefferson, the New Orleans Democrat who, federal agents had discovered, stuffed about $90,000 in cash into his freezer. But forcibly revoking his seat on the Ways and Means Committee risked an ugly election-year food fight with the C.B.C., of which Mr. Jefferson was (and still is) a member.

Predictably, a good chunk of the C.B.C.’s rank-and-file erupted in protest when they caught wind of the plan. But Mr. Rangel, a founding C.B.C. member whose voice carries unrivaled influence within the group, played it pragmatically, privately assuring Ms. Pelosi that he’d see to it that the outcry wouldn’t be universal. So Ms. Pelosi plowed ahead and, very tellingly, Mr. Rangel and several other C.B.C. heavyweights uttered nary a public word on the matter: What could have been a divisive firestorm ultimately amounted to a forgettable mid-summer flare-up.

Mr. Rangel isn’t the only Empire State Democrat who will have hit the jackpot on Tuesday. Louise Slaughter, the feisty 77-year-old coal-miner’s daughter from Rochester by way of Kentucky, will chair the Rules Committee, a huge power center within the House. And Nydia Velázquez, who represents slices of Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, will head up the Small Business Committee, a post that carries much less internal significance but nonetheless offers Ms. Velázquez the ego-enhancing title of “Madam Chairwoman.”

Others—indeed, most members of New York’s Democratic delegation—figure to do well. Internally inoffensive office-holders like Tim Bishop and Carolyn McCarthy, to name just two, may be years, if not decades, away from Rangel-esque seniority, but are sufficiently non-threatening to Ms. Pelosi that they should enjoy the incremental benefits of majority-party membership: better office space, easier access to federal funds and a theoretically open line to the Speaker.

Then there are the exceptions. Like Ed Towns and Joe Crowley.

Mr. Towns, the 72-year-old Brooklynite whose incumbency was extended this year thanks mainly to a fractured primary field, stands to lose something very valuable—namely his perch on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.

It was a year ago that Ms. Pelosi, furious that Mr. Towns had inexplicably breached the party line in voting for the Central American Free Trade Agreement and that he’d skipped out on a key tax vote, ordered him to her Capitol Hill office for a dressing-down, pointedly warning that he had jeopardized his standing within the Democratic ranks. And when Mr. Towns, facing a primary challenge from Councilman Charles Barron, found himself in choppier-than-expected waters back in his district, Ms. Pelosi made it clear there’d be no life preserver tossed his way from D.C.

Her initial anger with Mr. Towns stemmed from her 2006 campaign strategy, which rested on mobilizing Democrats in unprecedented and unrelentingly blind opposition to any and all legislation championed by Republicans. There was in that playbook no room for safe-seat incumbents like Mr. Towns to stray from the flock—ever.

As with Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Towns’ status may depend on whether the C.B.C. puts its full weight behind his preservation. On a personal level, he has strained relations with many in the group, owing to his CAFTA vote and other apostasies. But as a matter of principle, even Mr. Rangel might not be able to stanch the uproar if, for the second time in six months, Ms. Pelosi applied a subjective standard and moved to flush a black Democrat from a committee post.

Mr. Crowley’s case is more complicated, since he has impressively harnessed his winning personality and access to massive sums of the New York financial industry’s money to build a formidable base among his House colleagues. And at 44 years old, the Queens Democrat—who recently succeeded his mentor, the late Tom Manton, as the Democratic chairman in Queens County—has clearly telegraphed a desire to climb his way into the House’s leadership, as opposed to seeking higher elected office.

The problem for Mr. Crowley is that he is one of Ms. Pelosi’s least favorite Democrats, virtually indistinguishable—in her eyes, at least—from Steny Hoyer, her sworn arch-nemesis and, at least for now, the second-ranking Democrat in the House.

The reason can be found in the bitter Pelosi-Hoyer rivalry, which is itself a fascinating study in clashing ambitions—only a year apart in age, they actually interned together four decades ago, in the office of Maryland Senator Daniel Brewster. Ms. Pelosi started on her path to the Speakership in 2001, when she defeated Mr. Hoyer by 23 votes for minority whip, an intensely rancorous contest that had proceeded, through starts and stops, for three years. When, a year later, Richard A. Gephardt stood down as minority leader, Ms. Pelosi slid into his post, and Mr. Hoyer was elevated to whip—an awkward (though, in a roundabout way, unifying) division of labor that has endured.

Working together, though, has not brought them any closer. Both Mr. Hoyer’s and Ms. Pelosi’s camps have routinely used the news media to engage in anonymous sniping at one another. No matter how innocuous, every public action that Mr. Hoyer takes is eyed by Ms. Pelosi as a potential mutiny. Mr. Hoyer regards her conduct with the same suspicion.

Which brings us to Mr. Crowley, who upon his arrival in Congress eight years ago hitched his wagon to Mr. Hoyer’s star. The partnership has brought Mr. Crowley some benefits: Mr. Hoyer named him a chief deputy whip and essentially took him under his wing. But as long as Ms. Pelosi is in power, Mr. Crowley figures to be a very frustrated man.

This reality was rather harshly delivered to him in January, when he stood for the position of vice chairman of the Democratic caucus, a job that is even less weighty than that of student-council secretary, but nonetheless the fourth-ranking post on the minority side as well as a proven stepping-stone. After more than a year of campaigning, Mr. Crowley was the odds-on favorite. And then he was unceremoniously defeated by John Larson, an undistinguished 58-year-old from Hartford, Conn., whose career, under other circumstances, could have maxed out in the State Legislature. Congressional observers couldn’t recall a bigger upset in a leadership race, and the reason was obvious: It was Ms. Pelosi putting Mr. Hoyer’s boy in his place.

That wasn’t the end of it, either. In June, Pennsylvania’s John Murtha—famous now as an outspoken foe of the Iraq War, but the quintessential Congressional dealmaker, and a socially conservative one at that—stunned the House by declaring his intention to oppose Mr. Hoyer for majority leader if the Democrats won back the chamber. Again, Ms. Pelosi’s hand seemed to be at work: Mr. Murtha is one of her closest House allies, as odd a pairing as they come. Mr. Murtha also loathes Mr. Hoyer and—not at all coincidentally—served as Mr. Larson’s campaign chairman in the vice chairman’s race.

Now that their party has won a majority, the Hoyer-Murtha race is on. Mr. Hoyer is the favorite. For his own sake, Mr. Crowley had better hope there’s not another upset.