Titus separates herself from the pack

By Lisa Mascaro

Sunday, April 12, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Moments after being sworn in at the Capitol as Nevada’s newest congresswoman three months ago, Dina Titus briskly made the quarter-mile walk back to her office in unexpected discomfort.

Marble halls are not kind on tired feet, especially those in dressy multi-inch heels.

She hustled down the long corridor, past other lawmakers and their families on that festive day. Dozens of guests were waiting to celebrate at her office.

The scene brought to mind another ever-witty Democratic politician with a distinguished Southern drawl: Ann Richards, the former governor of Texas, who joked about women doing everything men do — but, as Ginger Rogers showed, backwards and in high heels.

In the nearly 100-day sprint since, Titus accomplished what she often taught her political science students at the UNLV was impossible for a freshman lawmaker in Washington: She has been noticed.

Titus has been invited to the White House (twice), emerged as spokeswoman for her party on educational issues, had muffins with Bono.

Part of the attention comes with the territory. Titus knocked off the Republican who held the suburban Henderson seat since it was created. She was hand-picked by party leaders in desperate need of a credible candidate and became, as she tells it, election guru Rahm Emanuel’s “personal project.”

(Which helps now — she has the White House chief of staff’s number. He invites her to the West Wing.)

But being the chosen one lasts only so long. At some point you have to show what you were chosen to do.

“Once you’re given a chance you have to earn it,” Titus said one recent Friday before boarding a plane to Nevada. “I’m not taking any of that lightly.”

Titus arrives at an important moment in the nation’s history and as Nevada suffers through the recession.

President Barack Obama’s own 100-day dash astounds Washington. Not since Ronald Reagan or even FDR has a president sought to so transform the nation.

Lawmakers have kept pace passing landmark legislation — an expansion of children’s health care, equal pay protection for women, the massive economic recovery package to prevent a deeper recession.

All easy votes, Titus said.

Only Obama’s budget plan to reduce tax deductions for the wealthy elicited her opposition. But that protest also was smart politics. It separates her slightly from the president, helping to shield her from the rubber-stamp label that plagued her predecessor during the Bush administration.

Eventually she gave Obama her vote there, too.

“People in my district don’t want ‘no,’ ” Titus said. “They want to see us do something that can help, and I think we are. It’s slow, but the little economic signs we’re looking at now seem to maybe suggest things are starting to have a chance to turn around.”

Opposition researchers at Republican campaign headquarters are using nearly every vote to mount an attack. She has been surprised at how quickly she must again raise money needed to win reelection.

People wonder why she gave up being the state Senate leader for a lowly freshman congressional seat.

The days and nights have been long. Those early weeks, staff answered 100 constituent letters daily, Titus taking a red pen to each before it went out.

Now this might sound corny. But Titus’ response comes in the Mary Tyler Moore look on her face, as if she’s ready to toss a hat in the air.

“I just can’t think of a place I’d rather be,” Titus said. “I came back here to work hard and get things done and, boy, we’ve done it in the first 100 days.”