The government was up late Friday night, but not because congressmen were sweating over 11th hour amendments.
After waiting two weeks as more senior representatives got the cream of the crop, the day finally came when newly elected reps could pick their offices. Apart from doling out pork projects to their district, it could be the most important personal decision many of them make during their time in Congress.
Which would explain why the large room in the Rayburn House Office Building seemed to be buzzing all afternoon.
Rep.-elects and their staffs were packed into chairs facing the assigning committee, riffling through floor plans of all three congressional office buildings like blind foremen desperately trying to understand M.C. Escher’s architectural drawings. Projected and flashing on three of the walls were the names of the rep.-elects, their pecking order and the rooms that had already been spoken for. Everyone clutched notepads listing their room preferences, many of which by this point had been crudely scratched through.
On one end of the room stood a firing line of TV cameras, which couldn’t possibly make the scene exciting for viewers unless C-SPAN suddenly decided to jump on the 3-D bandwagon. On the other end of the room, a bank of computers had been commandeered by young assistants to the rep-elects, who often had to navigate the advanced room-hunting technology for their much older bosses.
For the incoming freshman reps, this was their first strategy session. They eyed the wall-wide monitors intensely and sat twitching in their seats.
“Is that what you will end up picking,” one aid could be overheard saying. “I think that was smart.”
Another aid offered his boss — who was one of the last to pick a room — some words of comfort.
“Don’t forget, when you get reelected you’ll have sooooo many offices to choose from.”
This was the scene of the rep.-elect lottery. In short, it looked like freshman orientation at Beltway University. And for a government that uses backscatter technology, the process was about as advanced as an ole fashioned pat down.
At 9 a.m. on Friday, the incoming freshman pulled numbered chips from a box. With 85 total spots available, the numbered chips would designate the order in which each newly elected member of Congress chose their room. After picking the chips, the rep.-elects scattered, spending the next four hours hunting the best digs still available in the three House office buildings — Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn. At 1 p.m. the rep.-elects returned to wait for their name to be called. Each rep.-elect then had 20 minutes to pick an office.
So what type of room were they looking for?
“It’s all personal preference,” said a Kyle Anderson, communications director for the Committee on House Administration. Anderson, along with seasoned staff members of the Architect of the Capitol’s (AOC) office, coordinates the moving process after every election. “Some are looking for access to elevators, or proximity to the floor. Some have specific goals in terms of committee assignments so they’re looking for rooms closer to the committee offices they think they can be assigned to.”
Others, he said, were interested in the dynamics of a specific building: the Cannon’s historical importance or the Longworth’s modern flourishes. All the Rayburn offices had already been spoken for, which is probably for the best. The style of Rayburn’s innards is somewhere between an inner-city public school and a condemned funhouse.
Despite the confused incoming freshman and their plethora of room preferences, the AOC staff said this year’s lottery went very smoothly. They were particularly pleased because the 2010 class is quite large. While political commentators have spent hours of footage and miles of ink describing the midterm election’s anti-incumbent wave, it’s often overlooked that these newbies have to be tagged, categorized and placed in their designated pens. It’s a job many at the AOC have been doing for years, or in Bill Wood’s case, 37-years to be precise.
“When I came here, we had the same lottery box, the same type of numbers. For three days, these guys could pick rooms and we did the entire Congress,” said Wood, the AOC’s assistant superintendent for the House. “What happened was, the dean of the House didn’t have to come in there the first day. He’d come in at the end and get any room he’d want. There was continual bumping [and] people filing over others. It was chaotic.”
Wood said the overall process hasn’t changed much in the past 100 years, though there have been a few technological tweaks and rules put in place to keep the representatives in line. In 1908, for example, Wood said the system for divvying out rooms included pulling numbered marbles from a big box. The only difference now? A House page is no longer blindfolded and told to reach his hand in the box.
It wasn’t until 1978 that members’ selections were divided by class. Even then, when reps had 24 hours to choose, there were issues.
“The first time we did it in ’78, we didn’t have the 20-minute rule and I’ll never forget,” said Wood. “A member came up — he’s still here — and drew his number…and then he walked out of the room. He was gone for four hours while these [other] guys were waiting their turns. And they were mad.”
These days, if a member does not make their choice in their allotted 20 minutes, they lose their place in line.
All of the AOC staff who spoke to TheDC agree: computers streamlined the process. One staff member spoke of the 1988 transition as if recalling an ugly battle long fought but never forgotten. There’s also the moving itself. After the big 1994 Republican sweep, the AOC had to move every committee, subcommittee and support agency.
“That was a lot of fun,” said one staff member.
“Back in the day, we didn’t have computers, we just had grease boards,” said Wood. “Before, there was a lot of pressure on the staff in selecting the rooms. Now, the member can look on his Blackberry.”
With the AOC’s online database, reps can search based on the size, dimensions, and proximity of the office to other locations. There are also photographs and virtual tours. As for House pages, they are now regulated to serving drinks, sans blindfold.
After selecting their rooms, the rep.-elects scurried down the hall where architects helped them draw up plans. With their intensely focused aids, the rep.-elects crouched over their office floor plans, picking out the perfect paint job, the appropriate shag carpet and asking, on occasion, whether they could perhaps knock out this room’s wall to make space for a fainting couch, if it’s not too much trouble?
When TheDC spoke to Wood, it was 7 p.m. and he was still trying to get all the incoming freshman through the process. It was important to finish the job because after orientation week, most of incoming freshman class would be heading back home. That and the AOC has strict deadlines to keep.
“We probably have around 250 moves total,” said AOC superintendent Bill Weidemeyer. “We start moving on Dec. 1 and made a commitment to complete the moves Jan. 3.”
Despite the seemingly chaotic environment, everyone seemed to be in good spirits.
“[The rep.-elects] are all very excited,” said Weidemeyer. “They’re entranced with the idea of being here and being able to select.”
Wood said the incoming freshman class was the liveliest and most boisterous he has ever seen, with plenty of cheering and shouting.
“We’ve seen people do lucky dances [before the selection] and it’s put them at ease at having a busy week with House administration and freshman orientation,” said Wood. “They seem to yuck it up. I think it’s settled in that they’re about to be members of Congress. This is the first real thing they can grasp, picking rooms. And then they’re like ‘wow, I guess I really do get a voting card.'”
If a lucky dance is what it took to snag a primo office, Corey Gardner, Republican for Colorado’s 4th, must have performed every role of the Nutcracker — he got the No. 1 spot. In general, though, the soon-to-be freshman all seemed pretty content.
“I get an office, which is the good thing,” said Republican Wisconsin Rep.-elect and former MTV “Real World” cast member Shawn Duffy, who got the 49th pick. “I would have liked more space, I would have liked Cannon but as we were [picking] the only space was on the back side of Cannon. They were the only ones that were left.” Instead, Duffy will be featured on “Real World: Longworth.”
Others were even less fortunate.
Asked what he was looking for in a room, Republican Idaho Rep.-elect Raul Labrador shrugged listlessly and said, “we really don’t have much of choice … it didn’t really matter what we wanted.”
“Really, though, it’s an honor just to be here,” Labrador added. “Any room is fine.”
Labrador had drawn the 78th spot.
If Gardner performed Russian ballets, Virginia Republican Rep.-elect Robert Hurt must have tried to do an interpretive dance based on the life cycle of shale stone. He got dead last in the drawing. It wasn’t all bad for the incoming freshman, though. Hurt received a standing ovation when he pulled his number, which means Republican Mississippi Rep.-elect Alan Nunnelee got the real snub. He came in second-to-last quietly and without the same fanfare.
“It was certainly a humbling experience. I can’t think of a better place for humility on Capitol Hill but of course we look forward to serving our constituency,” said Hurt. “One person suggested instead of having a separate district office and D.C. office, we just combine the two in an office in Charlottesville because that would probably be closer to the Capitol.”
So what can arguably be called the worst congressional office on Capitol Hill, which Hurt still insists is “a very nice office”? That would Ohio Democratic Rep. John A. Boccieri’s soon-to-be former pad in Longworth. For his part, Boccieri had even worse luck than any of the last-pick congressmen-elect. In January, he’ll be out of a job.
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