CHANGING THE GUARD IN CONGRESS Down and Out on Capitol Hill
Levine, Arthur
Down and out on Capitol Hill by Arthur Levine Congress is a grim place to be after an election is over. For the 51 legislators voted out of office in the 1974 primary and general...
...But you’re a young man, you’ll be back...
...Neither the Administration nor the legislators will disclose what jobs are being considered...
...It’s depressing...
...They don’t want to see the animals abused, but they want to see the elephants dance and the donkeys bray...
...Because he was a Congressman, in Washington, he was supposed to be privy to all kinds of inside information...
...Grover will miss Congress and the friends he made there...
...I keep telling myself Congress is a treadmill, but maybe there will be a psychological let-down when I’ve left . ” On his way to the gym for a game of squash with another defeated Republican, Roger Zion of Indiana, Grover is approached by a sympathetic Hill employee...
...I mean, I was able to kid around with him like that...
...The government pension amounts to 2.5 per cent of the average annual salary earned in the three highestpaying government years, multiplied by the number of years served...
...And made it look like I ’was rolling in mounted on another wall is an dough...
...As I told that gal taking pictur$s, I’d rather you use a picture of me smiling.’’ In the picture, he does look happier...
...He started renting his house out in 1960, and sold it in 1964...
...I’ve never attempted to capitalize on my position,” he says, with some regret...
...bruised egos, so they’re trying to demonstrate to the electorate that the voters made a mistake...
...recalls the tension in the House when For some men, these items are a he rose to settle the jurisdictional constant reassurance that they are, in fight between Public Works, and fact, congressmen engaged in meaning- Marine and Fisheries over off-shore ful work-men of importance, after oil-terminal legislation...
...The day after you win, everybody’s asking your opinion on 5 absolutely everything,” says Rep...
...Nbt Good Enough The 50-year-old lawyer and former FBI agent was completely stunned by his upset loss to a young liberal Republican...
...He stares briefly at me with a mixture of anger and depression...
...Down and out on Capitol Hill by Arthur Levine Congress is a grim place to be after an election is over...
...The voters assume that because they are politicians, their congressmen are living the high life in Washington, junketing around the world and earning a fat salary, supplemented by bribes...
...Then they must seek work elsewhere, and the adjustment is not an easy one...
...The congressmen themselves will find it hard to match the special quality of the ties in Washington...
...Grover, meanwhile, is banking on his ties with Donald Rumsfeld, the White House chief of staff...
...They didn’t appreciate me, so it’s their loss...
...I’ve got a beautiful home there, it’s great, but once you stimulate your mind here . . . well, selling homes in a rural area is not my bag anymore...
...I could have helped consumers and producers, and it’s a shame for an agricultural state to lose a voice on the agriculture committee...
...And when they return to the districts, they discover how little the voters understandor appreciate-the work they do...
...For a veteran like McMillan, the Capital’s attractions proved too strong...
...It is these benefits that add to the appearance of power, benefits available to all congressmen, regardless of seniority...
...Like some elder statesman considering a Cabinet post, he announces, with appropriate “Meet the Press” deliberation, “I will have to look at what’s available...
...His face is ashen-gray, with a hound-dog droop to his cheeks, the blue eyes even sadder when set against his determined grin...
...Later, in the gloom of the bar of the Republican Capitol Hill Club, I hear a Republican staffer say, “With guys like Grover, you can see the hurt in their eyes...
...He would also have administered 340 House positions, filling these patronage jobs at the request of his former colleagues...
...His main interest, of course, is food policy...
...As I leave, he takes out a glossy photo of himself and observes, “I’m in a terrible mood today...
...and dining rooms whenever they want...
...Afld on the day that he was selected by Nixon to be Vice-president, I walked to where he was standing in the well of House and grabbed him by the wrist, took his pulse, and asked him whether he was nervous...
...Less notable congressmen from the 1970 group have ended up as a farmer, state legislator, management consultant, minister, and convicted tax evader...
...Washington...
...There’s simply not much to go back to in the hinterlands...
...After 12 years in the nostalgic about other side benefits House, the 55-year-old Long Island that made them feel so important...
...The talk is fast, clever, informed...
...the people are warm, an instinctively social group...
...Former Dem- t ocratic Rep...
...In the spring they get to return to the House chamber and address the representatives...
...Byron G. Rogers, who joined a Washington public relations n: firm, says, “After 20 years in Washi rigt on...
...Still, they are forced to demean themselves every two years by running for office, reluctantly taking time out from their important work in Washington...
...So, many of them share the apprehension of David Towell, a one-term Nevada Republican, who has no desire to return to his real estate business back in Gardnerville...
...Washington holds other lures as well...
...The man stops, Grover shakes his hand, and the man says, “I’m sorry about what hap pened...
...Then the aging excongressman would get up as usual, heading toward an office that did not exist . Others stay in Washington as lawyers, lobbyists, or consultants...
...He glances at me to check theimpact of his star-studded listing, I ask him, “How well do you know the President...
...Later, he sold his heating company...
...Some, of course, leave...
...l’here will be more than enougn opportunity for return visits, since so many of them will stay on in the capital...
...It was a very lovely session,” Brooks Hays says of their latest meeting...
...The power he has accumulated Seeing himself at the mercy of over the years is best indicated by the anti-incumbent sentiments beyond his collection of mementos in his spacious control, he lessens his own humiliainner office...
...The small symbols of local pride, the Kiwanis Club speech, the testimonial dinner, merely become chores essential to reelection...
...Well, Art, I was one of the Young Turks who helped him become Minority Leader...
...The Clerk of the House, W. Patrick Jennings, was a six-term Virginia congressman when he was ,defeated for reelection...
...I haven’t abandoned the ship,” asserts Republican Rep...
...You want to shake them by the lapel and snap them out of it...
...colleagues on the Public Works Com- When Grover talks about his defeat mittee...
...They can try somebody else-they’ll suffer from it...
...Of course it is this very attitude that accounts in part for their defeat...
...Mumbling softly, he intones the evidence of his service since 1970: “I had a high attendance record, you know...
...Like many of his fellow losers, Clark is not looking forward to going home...
...It’s terrible when an election does this to people...
...Before he entered the State Assembly in 1957, he was making $35,000 a year as a lawyer...
...The people are, in effect, fools, swayed by shallow promises...
...He finds some his impressive seniority, he notes, “If I comfort in the Democratic upsets of had been appointed to the Judiciary other Suffolk County Republicans, Committee as a freshman, I’d now be meticulously detailing all the party ranking minority member like Edward losses-“The county hasn’t voted for a Hutchinson...
...Looking up at his clock, Rep...
...He 1959 public buildings act...
...But his motives were not solely mercenary: “I liked the way of life and wanted to stay involved...
...The media and the silver-haired Republican, who had the public think I know what’s going on, misfortune of being defeated by a but I don’t...
...None of voting record and of making unfair the photos is autographed...
...The congressman gives a wan smile and walks on...
...Nevertheless, the congressmen are hoping that Ford will equal the generosity of the Nixon Administration, which hired 12 losers following the 1970 “law-and-order” defeats...
...funds for the Kennedy Center, he The small tokens of power are even visited the Canal Zone in faraway hardest to give up...
...Some of them take the loss very hard, like Frank Clark of Pennsylvania...
...The honor shifts each year because of the mortality rate...
...There are very few openings,” says a White House personnel official...
...Leading a populist coalition of farmers and consumers is the chairman of the subcommittee-Frank Denholm, Prairie Crusader...
...I was able floor ready to do battle,” he says...
...Of those who returned home, professions varied: most practiced law, while one was elected to the Chicago city council, another became an undertaker, and a third handled public relations for a local department store...
...They have time to ponder what went wrong, and, in these moments, there sometimes emerges an anger at the electorate for denying them the hard-earned right to be in Congress...
...David Towell...
...The keynote speech is made by the oldest former congressman, occasionally a centenarian...
...He’s a club member of mine...
...But since he placed last in the challenge to “Fishbait” Miller, trailing behind two House clerks, Clark now finds himself, like his fellow losers, keeping his options open...
...I’ll miss the pressure of a long day, and being involved in controversy and issues...
...The voters have an investment in me of four years,” he notes...
...I’m going to miss Central America...
...It’s as if they’re saying, ‘Look what kind of job I got...
...Actually, the congressman unflattering cartoon from Newsday, made less than $3,000 a year from apparently the only time he was ever outside sources...
...It indicates that Grover will have an opportunity to meet with the President after he returns from overseas travel...
...And we were teammates in the gym...
...As he thumbs the pile of signatures, he remarks, “Yes, I’m hurt...
...Branded as losers, they have to finish out the remainder of their terms as best they can...
...it’s hard to get used to anything else...
...He is, to put it mildly, a sore loser...
...Members who served five years or more are eligible...
...I was caught in a fluke,” Denholm insists...
...Surrounded by their old wooden desks, with the American flag draped behind them, the defeated have a chance once again to make speeches before an admiring audience...
...a place to hang my hat,” he told Congressional Quarterly at the time...
...Democratic governor in 60 years...
...We must stop the rip-off...
...He and his wife lived a block away from the Capitol, and Friedel struggled to become deputy sergeant-at-arms, a job that was created for him by the committee he once chaired, the House Administration Committee...
...The idea was dropped following press criticism, but Friedel stayed on in Washington, anyway...
...The politicians themselves refer to it lightly as “Potomac Fever,” but there is more to it than that...
...In the meantime, he says, “I have my yard...
...But he says he is also giving serious thought to working in the Administration...
...Everyone went to the polls thinking that Frank’s going to win,” he says, laughing bitterly...
...I know Don quite well,” he says...
...Take James Grover, a quiet, ly quiet (he spoke only three times his first year), dared to oppose his caricatured...
...He was one of four incumbent Democrats who managed to buck the nationwide antiRepublican trend...
...25-year-old kid who lives at home The legislators will also become with his parents...
...The successful ones among your friends are sorry, and your enemies are secretly gloating...
...Their ties with the home district erode over the years, and barriers develop between the congressmen and their old friends...
...William Ayres, a Republican from Akron, Ohio, says that after a 20-year career ending in 1971, “I didn’t have ties back there...
...But his proudest having that special parking place at moment came during debate in the the airport and a free telephone in my House chamber...
...Jack Wydler and I flew down on the shuttle that day and walked in to vote just on time...
...I’ve been offered a judgeship, but I don’t know if I want to spend each day behind some musty desk in a judge’s chamber...
...The current class would be happy to do as well...
...A delayed social security check hardly engages the mind like an upcoming debate on the energy crisis...
...There is a subtle transfer of loyaltiesthe change from being a Californianin-Washington to being a member of the Washington world who must return every so often to California to retain his legal right to his Washington position...
...Several of these ex-incumbents hold important government posts...
...I haven’t done anything wrong...
...He says he never intended to remain in Washington permanently...
...If former congressmen never make it back, after abandoning all hope of a comeback attempt, they’re entitled to join a 400-member group called Former Members of Congress, Inc., founded by a former Democratic congressman from Arkansas, Brooks Hays...
...I didn’t have a desire to go back into the heating business after I lost,” he says...
...They claim to have focused all their energies on being congressmen, working as hard as they could putting in long hours on legislation and committee work, driving their staff to respond quickly and efficiently to constituent complaints...
...But unlike most of his defeated colleagues, Clark is a Democrat, and so he and his aides are rather depressed these days...
...The affection and respect of constituents does not mean as much as it did before...
...He earned a position (fourteenth) on the Agriculture Committee, authored rural sewer and electric legislation, fought for housing and flood grants, and now he is being sent home...
...Unlike some other congressmen, who are able to become well-paid Washington lawyers or lobbyists, Grover is hardly besieged with corporate offers...
...For the 51 legislators voted out of office in the 1974 primary and general elections, the return to the Hill is especially painful...
...On a wall behind his tion by portraying inflation and desk, there are photographs of a Watergate as virtual demons let loose short-haired Grover standing near among the precincts...
...Know-It-All For most congressmen, what they will miss about Congress is not so much the power as the minor flatteries of the office...
...Staying on the Dole A few congressmen, like Frank Clark, try to stay on with the House itself...
...And, in his own view, Arthur Levine is an editor of The Washington Monthly...
...He served as the special elevators reserved only for ranking minority member on both the them...
...That’s just an illustration of how well I know him...
...Most often, their homes are here...
...He is heading back to South Dakota not quite sure what he’s going to do...
...Perhaps they are attracted by the privilege all former members retain-not only can they visit the House floor, they also have access to the cloakrooms...
...Peering out from behind a door in his office, the bow-tied little congressman shouts, “Please go away...
...Standing outside his office, looking suitably tan and dignified, Jennings smiles and says he took the job for “personal reasons,” primarily the pension benefits...
...The children have difficult by the urge to stay in gone to school here, and leaving would be a cruel disruption of their lives...
...After his 1972 defeat, the once-powerful South Carolina Democrat, John McMillan, started work as a “political consultant...
...They lost a good man...
...Robert Huber of Michigan, “but there’s a psychological reaction when you realize you’re leaving, and the others will be back...
...When it comes to a personal life, well, I’ve had none...
...This success was due in part to the help the Nixon Administration provided after it had induced them to give up their seats to run for higher office...
...Other losers continue to act as if nothing’s changed, working on legislation, going to committee, voting on bills, keeping up the pose of a man with important work to do...
...Take a look at this gracious letter,” he says with some pride...
...People as a whole don’t understand what Congress is doing in the public interest,” says Democrat Frank Denholm of South Dakota...
...And committee...
...To underscore smiling ruefully...
...He may decide to run again...
...It’s difficult to say what I’ll be doing...
...He was glad to see us...
...He and his wife live in a small apartment in Washington, which, he says, “is nothing like our four-bedroom colonial home in Brookings...
...In early December Clark challenged William “Fishbait” Miller for the post of House Doorkeeper...
...my commitment is to my work...
...One congressional staff member recalls how he would see Friedel early each morning in the House cafeteria, eating breakfast by himself, reading the paper with an air of importance...
...The belief persists that congressmen know what’s really going on, but, : for some perverse reason, they’re not E, telling...
...In the next session, he says, he could have become chairman of the subcommittee on domestic marketing and consumer relations...
...In the aftermath of his defeat, he compares the voters in his district to spectators at a circus...
...The petty concerns of hometown folk surround the congressman on his weekend visits...
...Their life has been in government...
...He adds, “Personally, it’s been a most deplorable way of life...
...It gives the men a feeling of belonging...
...For instance, Frank Denholm’s dream bf solving the nation’s food problems has ended, so he is not in a good mood these days...
...I’m sorry I’m not going to be chairman...
...The masses need this,” he says...
...Come in any time you want,” his secretary had said, “he’ll be here all day...
...What club...
...It is a vision filled with newspaper headlines and hero worship...
...For some congressmen, the transition to private life isn’t made any easier by the peculiar limbo of a lame-duck Congress...
...He didn’t come back to the district until Congress recessed in mid-October...
...This does not go unnoticed by the voters, and they resent it...
...He anytime I wanted,” he adds...
...He pauses dramatically...
...Such men as Frank Ikard, once a Democratic Representative from Texas who is now president of the American Petroleum Institute, get a chance to cash in on their congressional contacts...
...Even with the tedium and hard work, congressional life is far more exciting than what can usually be found elsewhere...
...serves on the board of directors of a A portion of one wall is taken up by a savings-and-loan institution, and owns framed copy of an amendment to a a share of business property...
...Another congressman, Baltimore Democrat Sam Friedel, was defeated at age 72 after 18 years of service, in a close primary contest in 1970...
...The ‘88th Club.’ We were sworn in together in the 88th Congress...
...for everyone in the family the strong The Long Goodbye friendships formed in Washington are Searching for a job is made more hard to-give up...
...I haven’t run off with any money...
...to call up my friends in California “I’ve never lost a floor fight...
...Towell says, “I used to be here at eight in the morning, but now what’s the use...
...As Bob Mathias says, “I’m not bitter...
...I worked up to 20 hours a day...
...The congressmen salvage what they can from the wreckage...
...I remember that Rep...
...Another reason Ayres took the job was the added pension benefits-no small incentive for staying in Washington...
...It is not only the feeling of power the congressmen have grown accustomed to, it is the ability to get things done as well...
...Viewed from the cold distance of Washington, the constituents seem a bit clownish...
...I always go to the office,” says Bob Mathias...
...Grover, usualall...
...In the year of the great Democratic landslide, the voters in his western Pennsylvania district handed the 20-year veteran his walking papers...
...I wanted to make a contribution...
...congressman had climbed his way to They will recall those bargain-priced high-ranking positions on two commeals in the House dining rooms, the mittees, Merchant Marine and Fishpaddleball games in the Raybum gym, eries and Public Works...
...He had no campaign organization or headquarters...
...conflict- of-in tere s t charges . Grover He also displays a few pens and maintains a part-time law practice, commemorative coins sent by Nixon...
...I guess it wasn’t good enough.’’ And Denholm notes with disbelief how the electorate swallowed his opponent’s promises of congressional reform and defense cuts, two of Denholm’s areas of concern...
...The group holds reunions twice a year...
...Denholm didn’t take seriously his independent Republican challenger, who ended up winning support from McGovern backers by stressing congressional reform and cuts in defense spending...
...No One Understands Me In the aftermath of defeat, our representatives are not occupied solely by the problems of job-hunting...
...Now, as the Muzak plays in the background, he gets up from his chair and forces himself to smile...
...These positions ranged from the Department of Agriculture’s Packers and Stockyards Administrator to United Nations Ambassador...
...Wisconsin...
...Clark’s efforts were not unique...
...It’s like a wake,” says Rep...
...Not only did he lead the no one will call them “Mr...
...Being the favorite led to several tactical mistakes, he realizes now...
...Well, Frank didn’t win...
...vou know the ins and v I . outs here so much better than you do back there...
...On his desk are 10,000 signatures on a petition to President Ford calling for reforms in agriculture policy...
...As a result of his eloquence, and his future plans, he speaks slowly, the bill ended up with the Marine and glancing down at his hands and Fisheries Committee...
...As he draws the neat little boxes, he stares at the pad admiringly...
...He accuses his Jerry Ford, Nixon, Ike, John McCor- young opponent of distorting his mack and other luminaries...
...I’ve been rather suppressed...
...My own recent survey of the 20 Republican losers of 1970 shows that half of them ended up in Washington...
...Presumably, I’ll join one of the large law firms...
...I told you I’m not speaking to anyone...
...Gone from their lives are the Public Buildings and Grounds subaides and secretaries, the briefing committee and the Canal Zone subsessions, and the tight schedules...
...If elected, Clark would have had the honor of announcing the President’s appearances before Congress and of greeting dignitaries at congressional parties...
...I live in a great climate, with wide open spaces and a big sky, and I’m only five minutes from work...
...Other 1970 rejects have served as U. S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, chairman of the Tariff Commission, head of the Veterans Administration, and administrator of the Small Business Administration...
...I’ve been extremely active all my life, and I’m asking myself whether I’m at a plateau of life where I want to be a judge...
...More than money L1 is involved, however...
...Mail drops off, and colleagues may adopt an awkward congeniality...
...As he talks about losing and the achievements the voters ignored, his eyes glaze over and he holds his face in his hands, looking like a very tired man...
...Suddenly, he becomes animated, ta king out a yellow legal pad and sketching the market route from farmer to consumer, lecturing me on the evils of the middleman...
...These alumni include Clark MacGregor, Chester Mize, and George Bush...
...He adds, with studied nonchalance, “I know some other club members, fellows like Rogers Morton, Bob Taft, Bill Brock...
...It is a one-paragraph note on White House stationery, addressed “Dear Jim” from a White House aide, Max Friedersdorf...
...I just want to do something to keep me busy...
...It’s going to take some time to rebuild my practice...
...With increasing excitement, he talks of the extensive hearings that should be held throughout the country...
...He stayed in Washington, working for three years as a high-paid special assistant to a presidential commission on veterans’ jobs, an area he specialized in as a congressman...
...They can increase the amount in their pension fund by working for the government after leaving Congress, and at the same time earn enough to live well until they retire...
...The loss of dignity would have been compensated’ no doubt, by the $40,000 salary and the added pension benefits...
...what counts now is their votes...
...Surveys conducted by Congressional Quarterly a few months after the 1970 and 1972 elections showed that most former members remained in Washington...
...I thought they would be more interested in my record of performance, but the vote showed that campaigns are won on promises...
...There’s an excitement, a sense of importance, that comes from being a congressman, even a backbencher There are bills, meetings, crises, all kinds of pressing matters that must be attended to...
...I did the best I could,” he says, flashing his Pat Paulsen smile...
...Now, aren’t you sorry?’ ’’ The Ford Administration has set up a special unit in the White House personnel office to handle placement of displaced congressmen...
...Then, to show that he is not being frivolous, he unfurls a letter...
...Denholm is sitting at his desk, leafing through a Congressional Record when I arrive to talk to him...
...I don’t want to go back to what I was doing before...
...Congress- Republican floor fight for additional man” any more...
...He has been the House Clerk for eight years now...
...leading the way is The Congressman, at center stage in the Nation’s Capital, Washington, D.C...
...The ex-congressman will be quickly shorn of an aura of omniscience...
...I deserve to be defeated, because I didn’t do a good enough job of telling the people back home about my accomplishments...
...For a while most of them retain the hope of running again...
...Similarly, he notes that they expected him to take time off from his important workin Washington to conduct an active campaign...
...James Grover, six-term Republican from Long Island...
Vol. 6 • January 1975 • No. 11
