“I asked him if he’d look into it, and he just said yes,” he said.

Even though Waxman represents Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, the contributor list to the congressman’s political war chest is not star-studded. Tom Hanks and Paul Newman donated to him in the 2006 cycle, but they are the exceptions, not the rule. Waxman does not spend his down time schmoozing with movie stars. He has never attended the Oscars, according to the Almanac of American Politics.

He was, however, not among the 60 percent of House Democrats who voted against the Iraq war.

When asked about the 2002 vote, the smile dissipates and there is no pause. The 17th-term lawmaker said he “was misled by this administration when [it] argued that Saddam Hussein was bound to have nuclear weapons,” adding that it used “very clever propaganda.”

Days before the war started, Waxman called on Bush to postpone troop action until questions about intelligence that led to the war were addressed.

“I believe that they knew, or should have known, better,” Waxman said. “But they were determined to go to war.”

President Bush cannot be found on Waxman’s walls even though other GOP presidents — such as Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — have prominent spots.

“It’s being framed,” Waxman says, the grin returning. He is not joking, however. The picture of Bush will be going up, but seven and a half years into the president’s reign, Waxman is not rushing it.

Excerpts of interview with Rep. Henry Waxman 

Q: What have Democrats learned from the first year and a half in the majority?

A:  Well, the first thing I have learned is that winning is not enough if you don’t win it all. You need the presidency and then 60 votes in the Senate.

Q: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t believe that superdelegates in effect should overturn what Democratic primary voters decide. Do you agree?

A: I think we have to see how the election, the primaries, pan out. I think that if Barack Obama continued to have a present course of winning primaries or even if he lost some by very narrow margins, it would be hard to turn around and then nominate Hillary Clinton.

Q: Would you be as aggressive on oversight with a Democratic president?

A:  I think the Republicans in the Congress did a disservice to the Bush administration by allowing it to become more secretive. And by not using the institutional powers under the Constitution for oversight. I think President Bush and the people in his administration would have had an opportunity to think again about some of the ideas and get feedback about how certain policies were not succeeding.

Q: Why did you make the decision earlier this year not to seek earmarks?

A: I’ve been here in Congress for decades and it wasn’t until the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, did I ever see the number of earmarks and the amount of money going to earmarks that we now see. I never had people knocking on my door for earmarks before that and if I did, it was very rare. In Washington there is a whole industry created around earmarks. … So I decided I would just do what I thought was the right thing to do 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.

Q: You’ve conducted oversight on the census and the Commerce Department’s recent decision to scrap handheld devices to use for the census. How concerned are you with the census?

A: So much depends on the census being accurate. We’ve spent maybe as much as $3 billion on this census and we may not even have an accurate one. The secretary of Commerce wouldn’t come to our committee meeting the other day, which disappointed me — we may still have to have him come in. But they spend money on a contract or something that sounds like it should be doable on hand-held computers … they’re going to have to go back to pencil and paper because the contract is not a successful one, costs so much money. So I’m worried about the census.

Q: What can be done when the administration doesn’t work with you? What recourse do you have?

A:  We have a power to issue subpoenas and to enforce them properly. But we’re trying to be reasonable, but we just keep pushing.

Let me just tell you a story … I spoke to a group and I was supposed to be there at 8 but I got there at 8:30 because I thought it was at 8:30 instead of 8. And so they put their speaker on that was supposed to follow me, and it was Andrew Card, who is no longer the chief of staff for the president.

He had a speech that he was delivering that went on at length and I think he delivered the speech many times before. And I asked, “Is he getting paid for this?” They said, “Yes, he is.” And I said, “That’s interesting.” And then when I got up I said that I was impressed that they had Andrew Card speaking there. [I said,] “We’ve been trying to get him to come testify before our committee. And we have the power of subpoena. We haven’t quite gone that far. We haven’t been successful.” And someone in the audience yelled out, “You ought to pay him for his speech.”… So we don’t really have the carrots, we do have the sticks.

Q: Do you get the feeling that if Democrats win the White House, next year could be one of the busiest years up here in history?

A:  I think it is going to be very busy and I hope very productive and a lot of that depends on if the president will give us leadership on issues of healthcare reform, to get universal coverage, and to start dealing with the most enormous environmental threat that we’ve ever had in global warming and climate change. I think we’ve got to deal with both of those issues.

Q: What about this year?

A:  We may try to set the stage for the legislation. I am pessimistic about the legislation passing this year, becoming law.