New Representation

Meet my new congress(wo)man (not sure what she goes by). I didn’t vote for her, but alas, here she is in DC representing me. I ran into her a few times when I was back in Arizona working for my congressman and out on the campaign trail campaigning against her. She seems like a nice gal with a good head on her shoulders so I’ll give her a shot, but only until election time...because remember, I’ve sold my soul to the Republican Party (evil Dick Cheney smile appears on my face.)

So here she is, Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ CD-1).

Here’s what she says on her official House page, “I am working to jumpstart our economy and get folks back to work, secure our borders, bring the fiscal discipline of small towns to Washington and pay our eternal debt of gratitude to our Veterans. None of those are Democratic or Republican issues, and we will only make progress on them if we are willing to work across the aisle.”

Oh those freshman members, always so idealistic when they first come to Washington promising to cross party lines. I hope for the sake of Arizona and the nation that she does.

It does seem like she’s looking out for our Veterans and she’s obviously grown up in rural Arizona based on the legislation that she’s introduced in the 111th. Kirkpatrick is currently on the Committees on Homeland Security, Small Business, and Veterans’ Affairs – all three great committees for Arizona.

Cool story. I met Congress(wo)man Kirkpatrick at an Arizona State Society event in late June. We got to talking and I told her I originally hail from Bullhead City. She asked, “Do you know Keith or Joe Heath?” The gears started turning in my head. I think it was Keith who was the director of the Boys and Girls Club, but those weren’t the Heath’s I knew – it was their mother that I had known. I told Kirkpatrick that Jan Heath was my 2nd grade teacher. Turns out Mrs. Heath is Ann’s aunt. Small world I tell you!

Being serious for just a moment - as someone who was the chairman of her campus' College Republican club, volunteered countless hours to the Bush campaign and various other Republican campaigns, and worked for a Republican member of congress, I think Ann Kirkpatrick seems like a pretty sensible person. I don't know where she stands on all the issues, but she seems pretty moderate and like she's truly looking out for the best interest of rural Arizona. If there has to be a Democrat representing me, I'm sure glad it's her and not some ACLU quack like Ellen Simon.

Now I'm walking away to wash my mouth out with soap so I can regain my Republican card.

And we're done

The House is officially adjourned until 9:00a.m. on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009. Lord willing, I'll be back on the Hill in a new member office ready to take on the 111th.

Was the 110th Congress successful? That remains to be seen and depends on who you ask.

I've got to tell you, though, it's been an exciting couple of months on the Hill.

Sigh...

...recess is over. Now it's back to work. We've got three weeks straight of legislative business. The Democrat Leadership is hoping to convene the 110th Congress on September 26th, which means I've got the entire fall/winter to play around before I have to get real serious about a new job in January. And boy do I have plans for the next couple of months.

Bust out your cots, we're gonna be here a while

We pulled a couple late nights at work a few weeks back. Some important legislation came to the floor including the Iraq War Supplemental and the Farm Bill. Plus, there was some issue with a House clerk submitting the wrong Farm Bill to the president or something, and the president signed the wrong version of the Farm Bill. Google it for all the details. They eventually figured out the mess and straightened everything out.

During the evening, I took a quick break and trekked across the street to Tortilla Coast for a roommate’s birthday. After two margs, I headed back to work. I think I left work at 9:30/10-ish. On my way out, there were a bunch of members coming back to their offices from the Capitol. I saw two of Arizona’s delegation, John Shadegg and Jeff Flake. I smiled extra big at them as I passed by trying to keep myself from shouting out, “I’m from Arizona!”

Then I walked home in the dark - the best way to see DC, all lit up.

Sightings

Arizona's own, Congressman John Shadegg crossed Pennsylvania outside the Cannon HOB just as I was crossing the street. I woulda said hi, but he looked pretty focused on his blackberry.

Pork anyone?

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time. ~ U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 9


That’s where we come in. People submit requests, we prioritize, fill out forms, and submit them to the Appropriations Committee. It's a super long process, requiring tons of paperwork and long hours that really don't amount to much. The reason being, Congress hasn't approved a budget in a while. This is where you might spit out your drink all over the computer screen and say "WTF?!!!" I couldn't tell you when the last budget was approved, but I can tell you that we're running on a continuing resolution. This means that all agencies and programs are being funded at the level the last appropriations bill was approved. Word on the street is that FY 2009 will probably be another CR. That's just the word, but things can change...

We didn't put in as many long days as I had expected. I think we paced ourselves pretty well and had all hands on deck to split the load. It's quite the interesting process, and I can honestly say that it can be a very frustrating process. As staff members, we are at the mercy of the member, the various approps subcommittees, and the various organizations submitting requests.

We did a last minute request on Tuesday, the day before they were due, for the Financial Services subcommittee. We sought out the project because we rarely get any submissions for Financial Services. In fact, aside from this one, there were no other FS requests. We waited around the office for awhile because of technical difficulties. It was more like operational difficulties, but we finally got the request and it was submitted on Tuesday evening, signifying our successful attempt of submitting approps on time, and with a day to spare.

So where do we go from here? Not sure what happens when the Approps committee gets their hot little hands on our requests, but they'll probably mull over the mountains of paper for several months. Just think, we were a little overwhelmed by the stack of requests our office received. The Approps Committee has to deal with that times 435. That's a lot of requests. A LOT!!! Depending on if we get a budget or another CR determines the outcome for a lot of these programs. But we won't know until fall 08. Chalk this up to a very long and very daunting process. Thankfully, where approps are concerned, my work here is done.

P.S. Anyone, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of the budgeting process. The above summation is a recollection from a West Wing episode. Sad, but true.

Hoo-Rah!!!

I’ve wanted to hang out with Sam (high school Sam) since I got to DC. She lives in Virginia Beach, which is 4 hours and $100 away, which isn’t bad, but timing is definitely everything. I was hoping to get out there my first week here before I started work, but it just didn’t work out. So when Sam called and said that her, Steve and my godson were headed to Quantico to visit the in-laws, I said count me in.

Quantico is pretty much the USMC stomping grounds out here and only 45 minutes from DC. A lot more doable than the 4 hours to VA Beach. So, two weekends ago I went. We didn’t have much planned, but I rarely get a chance to just chill out with Sam, so a low-key weekend was welcomed.

First of all, little David is soooooo freaking cute. Obviously I’m a little biased because he’s my godson, but he is really cute. He’ll be a year at the end of June and the little kid is already pulling himself up in a standing position and Sam said he actually started to try and crawl the other day. The little bugger is definitely going to be a handful, but he’s such a character. I love him!

Saturday, Sam, Steve, and I left little baby David with grandpa and went to the USMC museum. It was pretty sweet. I’m not a museum person because I need hands on/interaction type stuff to hold my interest. I can’t just walk around and stare at stuff. Weird, I know. But this museum kept me enthralled and was very well done. I approve.

This part is crazy. I went grocery shopping with Sam and Steve and it was ridiculous how much food they got, but to be fair, they stocked up for four people, a baby, and a dog. It was Cuh-RAZY! I think one of the carts (1 of 2) was dedicated to baby supplies alone. So note to all you thinking about having kids, make sure you can afford all those diapers and have room to put them all.

Sunday we went to my homestead and walked the mall. I hadn’t ever really been to the Washington Monument before, a travesty I know, and it’s been over a year since I’ve seen the other memorials up close so it was cool to do that. Sam and Steve came to my office on Monday and I took them on a tour of the Capitol. I felt so bad because they were my guinea pig tourists. I didn’t have my facts memorized so I had to shuffle through papers, and I couldn’t remember all the cool stuff that I had been told. But I did get to take them into the House gallery, and we watched as the lady called the House into session just to call recess until 2:00. Sigh….gotta love congress…

I hope Sam and Steve enjoyed themselves. I really was glad to be able to spend time with them. And I’m so appreciative to Steve’s folks for making me feel at home. I really wish I was better about sending out thank you notes. What’s that saying that starts “The best of intention are wrought with…” and then I forget the rest. So maybe the best of intentions are just wrought. Well, whatever. Sam and Steve are welcome to come back whenever and I’ll try and redeem my tour guide skills. I’ll be tested again on Tuesday when I give a tour to Michelle and her folks. Soooo not prepared…..but shhhh.

Side note on the whole USMC thing, I kept my eye open, but most of the guys seemed to be paired off or sporting a ring, but I was looking.

It's Recess!!!

Two weeks of recess starting today! Heck yes!! Friday and Monday off. Shorter hours and casual jean days. I love my job!

I tell people we're on recess for the next two weeks and they ask, "so, what, are you in grade-school? Do you get to go out and play?" Why, yes we do! Aside from appropriations, some of the more pressing issues on our agenda were locking down details for the office trip to Atlantic City and filling out the NCAA Final Four Bracket.

Two of our guys are leaving Wednesday for a week stint in Germany. Our scheduler is at home in Minnesota for a week for her birthday. I think someone else is leaving at some point, so there's like four of us holding down the fort. And I'm the only girl. Oh the things I hear in this office.... And I'm in the middle of a paper war zone back here. Good times for sure!

So I'm hoping with this recess I'll have time to get caught up on the blog, get caught up on some sleep, get a little organized with all this new health care business I've got going on, and you know, just chill.

This is such a great office to be apart of during recess and really any other time as well. We're all going to Atlantic City in April (minus the Congressman obviously). What office do you know that goes to Atlantic City to hang out together? Our office. And every day at 1pm, everything stops for Family Fued. It's our lunch ritual.

Recess and this office - I love it!!!

Shhh! It's a secret! ***Updated 9:35pm EST***

Email from the Republican Minority Whip's Floor Assistant:

**Please advise your boss that immediately following the adoption of the Budget Resolution, Republican Whip Blunt will call to move the House into a Secret Session.**

Following this motion, a thorough Floor clearing process is required once the session is agreed to. We expect this security sweep process to take a while. Therefore, we currently do not expect the Secret Session to begin until this evening. We will keep you posted throughout this process on timing and logistics.

The reason for calling a closed session is so that that all Members of the House can be present to discuss and have a candid debate on the importance of passing a long-term modernization of our nation’s foreign surveillance. This debate must take place behind closed doors because of the sensitive nature of the information discussed. This will require a vote.

Following the Secret Session, we expect to proceed with debate on the Rule for FISA. The Democrat Majority has indicated that, at this time, there is a strong possibility of us voting on FISA, tomorrow.

Last votes expected: Late Evening
NOTE: At this time, we are scheduled to be in session and voting tomorrow, Friday.

A little FYI: If this happens, it will be the first time since 1983 that the House of Reps was called into a Secret Session for talks regarding Nicaragua. The Senate was in a Secret Session in 2005 to discuss Iraq War Intelligence. And that, friends, is the awesomeness of Congress. Never a dull moment.

**********UPDATE********** (from the minority whip's floor assistant)

The House Floor is concluding a Security Sweep to accomodate the Secret Session. We currently expect the House to reconvene for the Secret Session at approximately 10:00pm.

**Leadership Encourages Strong Republican Member Attendance in the Secret Session**

NOTE: The majority Leader has announced that we will consider FISA tomorrow. Tomorrow, Strong Republican Attendance is Important.

So Secret Session has actually only been called three times in the House since 1830. Three times!

I'll keep you all posted on this FISA and Secret Session business. This is kind of exciting. Either that, or I'm really a poli sci nerd.

The halls of Congress are buzzing

Now that I’m the new Health Care LA, I’m starting to get busy. I’m receiving more emails, more phone calls, and sitting in on more meetings. And I’m learning tons of new stuff about health care, health care, health care, health care. And more health care.

On Tuesday, I had two completely different meetings. The first was with a group of five ladies from school districts in Arizona and food distributing companies. They were in to discuss the nutrition standards at the school systems. These ladies were all very engaging – there was one who presented the group’s legislative agenda, but everyone else chimed in with personal accounts of the situation that they are facing. These ladies were lively, funny, informative, and friendly. They way they explained things kept my interest and we had a very productive meeting. They were actually hysterical and joked that they were probably the only group who wants to be regulated by the government. I laughed because it’s so true. I never had so much fun in a meeting before.

The next meeting was a completely different dynamic, but it was a good one too. The group consisted of a postmaster general, his wife, and two postal workers who have met with the Congressman several times. These people are prepared, let me tell you what! They came in with a list of their legislative agenda – four bills – and had notes on what the Congressman was already a cosponsoring, what bills they wanted him to cosponsor, and stuff to keep an eye on. The meeting seriously took like two minutes, but I tried to drag it out. I feel so bad that people come all the way across the country for a two-minute meeting. So we just chatted for a bit. They were a little sad the Congressman wasn’t there. Apparently these people are big fans.

Thursday was a busy day as far as meetings went. I think everyone in the office at least had two each. I was originally scheduled for five, but was able t ocut out two of them (one cancelled and one overlapped so I missed). Two were not very memorable, but I’m sure they wanted us to cosponsor something. The meeting with the City of Flagstaff was quite fun. It was good to see my people again. I always get excited when Flagstaffians come in.

The Congressman wanted to meet with the City folk, but because votes were scheduled at the same time they were supposed to be in the office, our leg director and I escorted them to the Capitol for the meeting. This was kind of exciting. There was a lot of action taking place in the halls: people buzzing around everywhere between votes, congressmen meeting with various groups of people.

We ducked behind a pillar to get away from the noise and went over the city’s priority list for appropriations. I received some marching orders from the Congressman to contact other members’ offices to get help on some of the requests, and we told the city we’d do what we could to try and get funding for some of their projects.

My last meeting for the week was at 10 on Friday. This was also a group of great gals from Arizona, much as the nutrition group – very friendly, engaging, informative, and enthusiastic about their program.

On the schedule for this week: meetings, followed by more meetings, followed by a much needed recess!

FISA and A View from the Bottom

The halls of Congress were buzzing with activity last Thursday. Tom Lantos (D-CA) passed away a week before and his memorial service was scheduled for Thursday morning before legislative proceedings. Democrats agreed that votes would not be called until after the service so members could pay their respect to Congressman Lantos. He was the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress and seemed to make friends on both sides of the aisle. Condi Rice gave a much more moving eulogy than Nancy Pelosi, for the record. Bono from U2 was there. I never quite made the connection between the two, but someone in the office said that it was because Lantos was on the Foreign Affairs committee and had worked with Bono in regards to AIDS in Africa, or something along those lines. Interesting little tidbit: Lantos' wife, Annette Tilleman, is the cousin of Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor.

Democrats went against their word and called Congress into session before the conclusion of the service to vote on contempt charges against Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers. John Boehner, Republican Minority leader, lead his colleagues on a walk out. I think they did that because Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the House was not going to be voting on FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) which was set to expire by the week's end. The President was hoping that Congress would come to an agreement and vote on the Senate version, but that didn't happen. The Republicans vowed to remain in Congress until the Senate wiretapping bill was passed, and President Bush said he would postpone a planned trip to Africa if Democrats did not act. But they didn't act, and President Bush ended up going to Africa and Congress convened for a weeklong recess. So the FISA bill has expired and since I'm not an expert on this particular legislation, I couldn't tell you if that's detrimental to our national security our not. Gotta love Congress, though.

So if you're a little confused by all of that, don't worry. It took me a couple of days working here to learn that FISA was related to national security and not health care. Anyways, it was just really exciting to be in one of the House office buildings while all of this was going down. Everyone in our little office was glued to CSPAN and were streaming live news feeds. It was like we were a bunch of rabid football fans watching the NFL draft (maybe a bad analogy but that's all I could think of).

As I mentioned, Congress is on a weeklong recess so it's a bit slow in the office.

Our office went on a tour of the unfinished visitor's center that's been plaguing the Capitol with construction for several years now. Our tour guide said that it should be completed by November, but if they can't make that deadline, it won't be open to the public until February - after the inauguration and turnover of members. The visitor's center is pretty cool. It's massive with a bunch of inovative stuff, new meeting rooms, theaters, cafeteria, etc. So if you ever come to visit me, you'd have an opportunity to check it out.

The really cool thing about the visitor's center is the random view. It's built beneath the ground so as to not obstruct the view of the Capitol. Part of the ceiling of the visitor's center is glass, so you can look up through that and see the Capitol dome framed in the glass. It should look really cool once the construction is finished and the crew cleans all the dust and debris off the glass. If I get pictures from our tour, I'll try and post some.

This project has been in the works for years. It's amazing all the hoops they've had to go through and all the groups they had to accomodate in order to make this project happen. But I think it will add greater elements of safety and more for the tourists to do. And as the guy said, their job was to make it as accessible as possible to the people while obtaining the utmost level of security to the members and staff. It seems that they just might achieve that.

Working for the man

It was another 9-6:45 day at work today, which wasn't bad since we all thought we'd be holding up the fort until 8. The Congressman was in most of the day because Congress was voting on the Higher Education reauthorization. I had to listen to it to track amendments, and some of them are quite inventive. I'm definitely all for the amendment that tries to lower the cost of text books. We thought we'd be there so late because the Senate finalized the Stimulus package and sent it over, but the boss man sent us home. There really wasn't much more for us to be doing.

I have to say, I work for a pretty cool member of congress (MoC). He is Italian, and I've heard he can have quite the temper, but so does John McCain and he's pretty much got the Republican nom all locked up. Anywho, the MoC does treat his staff pretty cool, and in the almost two years that I've worked for him, I've known him to be a very loyal person. If we, as the staff, treat him with respect and loyalty and do our job, he returns the favor ten-fold.

I had left his Arizona office in November to work on a political campaign, and when my candidate decided not to run, I was left without a job. But the Congressman told our chief of staff to make sure I was taken care of, which ended up as this job here in Washingtong. He's such a gracious person and definitely gives credit where it's due. He always asks about the College Republicans who helped on his election in '06 and expresses that without their help, he probably would have lost the election.

I really am bummed he's not running for re-election. He has done great things for his district. I certainly wouldn't be here were it not for him.

Well, that was my unofficial thanks to my boss for giving me a chance.

***** Cool things that happened today *****
So apparently some athletic trainer guy had proof that Roger Clemens had been injected with steroids a few years back, so Clemens was on the Hill with his attorney to meet with committee members that are overseeing that whole steroids/baseball controversy. He was over in one of the halls of Rayburn. One of the guys was going to run over, but he had other stuff to work on.

CPAC is the Conservative Political Action Conference and it's taking place today through Saturday. It actually has quite the lineup that would make any conservative jump for joy. It would have been great to have a ticket and been able to gone. People who attended watched Romeny suspend his election, McCain basically accept the Republican nomination, Ron Paul say crazy Ron Paul things, and Dick Cheney just being the man*. Tomorrow's line-up includes President Bush in his first CPAC appearance, Tony Snow, and a bunch of other cool Cons. I'm a little bummed I'm not going.

Apparently President Bush will be throwing the opening season pitch for the Nationals and the Pope is coming out for a visit and he'll throw out a pitch too. Mel and I are going to both games for sure! What I want to know is does the Pope wear his Pope clothes (think the long white garment/dress thing and tall Pope hat) or does he wear normal people clothes? And if he wears his Pope apparel, how well can he pitch? Where will he stand? You know, I want him to man up and throw a legit pitch. Nothing from two feet away underhanded. I'm curious to find out. Come back during baseball and I will give you an answer to all these riveting Pope questions.


*I have a great story about Dick Cheney being the man if you ever want to know