The pause is long enough that perhaps the question needs to be repeated or clarified. Just then, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) responds. It's a straight answer but not straight from the hip.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman is familiar with questions. He has asked tens of thousands of them in his 34 years in the lower chamber, grilling policymakers in countless letters and hearings. So there is little use in trying a trick question when interrogating the interrogator.

“It’s better to be in the majority,” a smiling Waxman said in his spacious Capitol Hill office last week.

He gives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D), his California colleague, high marks for setting up a leadership hierarchy that coordinates policy and messaging with panel chairmen while providing them “with some independence as well.”

Yet he doesn’t always stick to the party line. In February, he announced he was not going to request any earmarks this year, claiming the earmark process has spun out of control.

He made the case to the Democratic Caucus that the use of earmarks should be studied “to figure out what to do in the next Congress.”

Waxman said he got three responses: “Some people said, ‘Great idea,’ some people said, ‘Can I have your earmark money?’ and others said, ‘You’re wrong, you’re wrong, don’t mess with that.’ ”

He adds, “So I decided I would just do what I thought was right in hopes others would follow along. I had no guarantee, and I still don’t see people jumping on the bandwagon, but I think I should do what I think is right.”

While his colleagues may not be following him on earmarking, that’s not Waxman’s signature issue — oversight is.

A whole lobbying business has built up around the fear of a subpoena from Waxman or one of the other Democratic chairmen wielding a tougher brand of oversight than had been seen in the previous six years. But Waxman says he tries to be judicious about the use of subpoenas.

“Before I became chairman of this committee I never issued a subpoena,” Waxman said. “Even when I was chairman of the [Commerce panel’s] health and environmental subcommittee and we would have tobacco executives testify, I never issued a subpoena to anybody.”

His committee has issued fewer than 40 subpoenas in this Congress, according to Waxman’s staff.

He said if a Democrat wins the White House, he’ll be just as aggressive: “Even if there were a Democratic administration and a Democratic control in Congress, I think it’s important for the Congress to do oversight.”

Waxman’s steroids-related hearing that featured Roger Clemens attracted the most attention this year — and provided ample fodder for late-night talk shows. Nevertheless, Waxman uses his oversight spotlight most often on the environment and healthcare, issues he gathered expertise on during his 16-year tenure as subcommittee chairman.

He secured that position after the 1978 elections by running and ultimately defeating two more senior Democrats to get the post.