We interviewed Democrats and Republicans — on the record and anonymously — about life on Capitol Hill, what broke Congress and a whole lot more
By POLITICO Magazine
This article was compiled from interviews conducted by Ben Jacobs, Jasper Goodman, Jordain Carney, Jennifer Scholtes, Hailey Fuchs, Emma Dumain, Lisa Kashinsky, Connor O’Brien, Holly Otterbein, Adam Wren, Daniella Diaz and Nicholas Wu. Juan Benn Jr. contributed to this report.
We talked about what they hate and love about Congress, why it’s broken and how to fix it (one suggestion: bring back the powdered wigs). They also told us what would really shock the public if they knew the truth about life as a lawmaker (it’s what’s for dinner).
We had delicate conversations about aging lawmakers’ increasingly public deterioration (one member said he has up to a dozen colleagues who aren’t up to the job) and whether people are actually showing up drunk on the floor (it’s not a “no”), as well as the survival mechanisms that get them through a grueling day. And we talked politics, including whether Democrats have learned any lessons at all from their 2024 defeat and whether Mike Johnson would still be hanging on as speaker at the end of the year (maybe!).
We spoke with Democrats and Republicans, men and women, members of the House and Senate. And to get as candid a view of the truth as possible, we allowed lawmakers to withhold their names from attribution on any comment they’d like, though only a couple people took us up on the offer. Most were eager to let loose on the record.
Here’s what they said, edited for length and clarity.
Daily Life
To be a member of Congress is to be in an exclusive club. But it’s not always all it’s cracked up to be. We asked lawmakers what aspect of congressional life would really shock people if they knew the truth.
“It is an endless grind that is far less romantic than people might think.” — Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)
“Everybody thinks that we fly around on Air Force One and dine at the French embassy every night. But the reality is, I’m eating burritos and McDonald’s more often than I’m dining in any embassies. It’s also a lonely life. It’s really hard to establish friendships, just because the pace is so breakneck.” — Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.)
“The members’ salary [$174,000] has not been adjusted for inflation in 15 years. Some would argue that if you have a body that only the very wealthy and the very poor can be part of, you’re locking out the great American middle class.”
— Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)
“If people knew the truth about the compensation of a congressman, they would be shocked. I have people who land in the airport here and call me and ask, can I send my car for them. I mean, my first term up here I didn’t even own a car.” — Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.)
“I got elected in 2018, and one of the first things I had to do was to go sit in a classified briefing. I’m sitting there and I’m furiously taking notes. And I look at Elissa Slotkin and raise my eyebrows to her, and she raises her eyebrows back at me. In my head, I’m thinking, ‘Man, I’m swimming with the big fish now. I’m vibing with the CIA officers.’ And we walk out and she goes, ‘The fuck are you doing taking notes in a classified briefing?’ You effectively get a security clearance without a background check.” — Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)
“It’s common to book out members’ time in 15-minute increments. I can just be getting into a conversation with people that are sitting down with me, and then there’s the knock at my office door: ‘Congressman, we need to be wrapping up.’ It’s alien to me.” — Rep. Jefferson Shreve (R-Ind.)
“How good of friends some of us are, whose political ideologies are totally separate from each other. Some of my best friends up here are members of the progressive caucus. We go out, have dinner and a beer, and we can even tell jokes with each other, as long as nobody’s listening.” — Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.)
“A multitude of people in this body are committed to finding common ground, or when they share a goal on an issue, getting in the room and figuring out a pathway forward.” — Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.)
“I was surprised at how thirsty my colleagues are.” — Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.)
Serving in Congress can be a grueling job, with long hours, plenty of stress and frustratingly little to show for it. Many lawmakers have developed survival mechanisms or have adopted some sort of (modest!) vice or guilty pleasure to get them through the day.
“When things are going bad or when things get ugly, I’ll try to find me a thrift store. I’ll hit a thrift store in a heartbeat, walk around in the midst of all the things in those places. It’s soothing and quite comfortable.” — Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.)
“Watching old episodes of Columbo. Growing up, I used to watch reruns with my dad. Peter Falk’s character is maybe the greatest in TV history.” — Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.)
“Practicing radical self-care and recognizing that every person here is not an adult. Saying no is very important. Laughing. If you don’t laugh and you take it all too seriously, you’ll be in a fetal position on the floor in the corner.” — Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.)
“I’m grabbing my Cheez-Its and my cashews as my go-to late-night diet. I consider them to be very close friends in my pursuit of fulfilling my congressional duties.”
— Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)
“The National Archives. I find it the most amazing thing of my midlife crisis. I think I’ve been there five times already, and I’ve only been here for 10 months.” — Rep. Mike Rulli (R-Ohio)
“Going to the gym is a big part of my day, but I also found that Whole Foods has some really good snickerdoodle cookies.” — Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
“I love to shop. I love shoes. It’s a good thing, good for the soul. My mother was a garment worker in the old sweatshops in New Haven. She made all of my clothes — coats, even hats, berets, etc. She was a real stickler for style, for color, for dress. It rubbed off.” — Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)
“I would start out with cigars and clean liquor. But no, seriously, I think you really either love your job or you don’t. I don’t think people that think they’re doing the country a favor, or that they’re sacrificing to serve, last very long.” — Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.)
Capitol Hill, like high school or your office, has plenty of different personalities, and people don’t always mesh. We asked members of Congress: Who is your least favorite fellow lawmaker? Most took a pass on that one, but a few at least acknowledged they had someone in mind.
“Right now, my least favorite lawmaker would be Mitch McConnell.” — Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
“Well, my least favorite is not here anymore. I’ll leave it at that.”
— Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.)
“The single least impressive person I have ever met in this job or any job I’ve ever had is Kevin McCarthy. He is just a vapid shell of a human being who stands for nothing, who never took his oath seriously.” — Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)
Politics
Democrats are completely shut out of power in Washington, and it’s unclear how long they’ll be in the wilderness as debate still rages over why they lost to Trump and what they should do next. So we asked Democrats: Has the party learned any lessons from their 2024 defeat?
“It wasn’t eggs. People got eggs for brains, if they think it was eggs. It was social issues.” — Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)
“We cannot afford to cede the issue of border security to the Republican Party. I feel like that is a lesson that has been widely internalized.” — Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)
“Every democracy in the world voted to throw the bums out in ’24, because every democracy in the world was faced with global inflation. The Democrats did better than the Tories, we did better than the LDP in Japan, we did better than the Dutch, we did better than Macron’s party in France. But everybody voted against the incumbents.” — Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)
“We really got our asses kicked in. If we don’t get our shit together, then we are going to be in a permanent minority.”
— Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)
“I’ve always thought of the Democrats as the party of the little guy, the party of working Americans, and I think we are very much seen now as the party of the well-educated coastal elite.” — Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)
“They should have been less dismissive of Bernie. They should not have run a status quo campaign. We should always run as change agents.” — Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)
“We would be well served to present a more coherent, better integrated view of the world and vision for the future, rather than constantly trying to read the tea leaves and say what we think people want to hear.” — Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.)
Republicans have churned through speakers in recent years — John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy — and now it’s Mike Johnson’s turn. With a threadbare majority and plenty of restive hard-liners, how long he’ll hold the gavel is anyone’s guess. So we asked GOP lawmakers: Will he still be speaker at the end of the year?
“Probably.” — Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.)
“I think it has everything to do with whether or not he falls out of favor with the president. The only reason Mike Johnson’s a speaker right now is because the president saved him multiple times.” — Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
Donald Trump’s grip on the GOP is tighter than ever, and he’s gotten little pushback from congressional Republicans. He’s quickly sought to remake the federal government, even trying to grab Congress’ power of the purse. Is there anything Trump could do that would push GOP lawmakers to impeach him?
“As of now, no.” — Rep. Mike Rulli (R-Ohio)
“He’s never done anything so far that I thought was an impeachable offense.” — Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.)
“If he completely went off the rails, yeah. I don’t want to put anybody on a pedestal and give somebody a pass for completely unlawful, unconstitutional behavior. But I have not seen that from the president. He would have to completely break with everything that he’s doing.” — Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
“That’s impossible to answer.” — Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)
The polarization that exists throughout the country shows up on Capitol Hill, and while bipartisan friendships do exist, there’s also a sharp divide. We asked lawmakers what the worst thing was about the other party and got some answers dripping with disdain.
“The Republican Party, it’s their lack of a spine and willingness to politically stand up to Trump. A lot of the members who I know don’t like Trump, don’t trust him, and know that he’s out for himself and making money. A lot of knowing, but politically, if they speak it or vote in opposition, they’ll be canceled.” — Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)
“Their policies are destructive. It’s going to take a while to undo the mess they made.” — Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.)
“They’re completely disconnected from reality.”
— Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
“The worst thing about the Republicans is the House Freedom Caucus. The House Freedom Caucus consists of ideological arsonists who are willing to burn everything down — the federal government, the full faith and credit of the United States, the economy — in pursuit of their ideological agenda.” — Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)
“I don’t know why they choose to pick on people in the LGBTQ community. You don’t have to embrace that identity, but I don’t know why they would choose to derive some political points by degrading a fellow human being just because of how they identify or who they love.” — Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)
We also asked lawmakers what’s the worst thing about their own party — and some people let it rip.
“Too much of a stagnancy and deference to people who’ve been in office for a long time. There’s just this slowness in making way for a new generation of leadership.” — Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)
“There is no smoke-filled room. We all come here, we march to our own drum. It’s always a cat-herding exercise.” — Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)
“We don’t stick together all the time, and we should be more of a united front. We’re individual thinkers, and that’s a good thing. But at the end of the day, we’re not as united as we should be.” — Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.)
“This proclivity towards conflict and war abroad. It seems like our party is shifting away from that, but there’s still elements of that in the party.” — Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.)
“Absolute half-measures, doing just enough to where you can go home and gaslight your voters that you’re doing the right thing.” — Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
The Institution
Despite all the grumbling about dysfunction on Capitol Hill, many lawmakers still have their idealism intact. Here’s what they said they love most about Congress.
“The upside potential of what we can do here is so huge. I think we’re in one of those inflection points right now.” — Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.)
“Both my parents were in local government, very deeply involved in their community, and from an Italian American, blue-collar family. They struggled financially all of their lives, but their goal was to help make government work for people, which is the way I do this job. I love it. Love the issues, the things you can get involved in. Where would I rather be? Nowhere. It’s here.”
— Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)
“I’m an introvert, so I don’t love the pressure to constantly perform publicly. But I love helping people.” — Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.)
“Being able to help people — constituent services type of work. People that you’ve never personally met before, but who have contacted your office and say, ‘Hey, thanks for the help with the VA.’”— Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.)
Of course, plenty of things still grate on members of Congress. Asked what they hated most, a few common answers cropped up.
“The political theater. I feel like there’s so much time wasted on pointless political theatre in Washington, D.C.” — Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)
“The single most frustrating thing to me is the dramatic turnover in membership. No one remembers how to really legislate anymore. That’s frustrating to me. I’m old school.” — Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)
“What I hate most is it’s a slow process to get things accomplished. It’s a slow process to get into leadership and really have a voice, especially on the Democratic side, where there are no term limits for speaker, chairman, etc.” — Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)
“It takes so damn long. Everything is really slow.” — Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)
It’s hard to find bipartisan agreement on much these days, but nearly all members we interviewed could agree that Congress is broken. Then we asked them what broke it.
“It is a sick puppy. And a bunch of this goes back to the way that the campaign finance laws have worked.” — Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)
“More than anything, unlimited money. This is the only business where you can spend unlimited money to destroy someone’s reputation. And then social media. That became a narcotic.” — Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)
“It would either be when C-SPAN came in or social media, but it seems to me that members of Congress became entertainers as much as they did legislators, whether it’s celebrity TV personalities or social media provocateurs.” — Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.)
“It’s not clear the founders anticipated that partisan factionalism would swamp members of Congress’ imperative to defend our branch as a co-equal branch.” — Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.)
“I think the redistricting process is what has Congress so broken. When you have red states that draw districts 70 percent red and blue states that draw them 70 percent blue, you create a legislative body that has no incentive to work together.”
— Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas)
“I know that I’m supposed to say that it’s terribly broken. We have bursts of huge functionality. A lot of times when people say it’s broken, what they really mean is that Congress is doing things they don’t agree with. And sometimes when people say Congress is broken, they’re bemoaning the fact that Congress as a representative institution is not willing to do something that people are not yet ready for. Inaction — read the Constitution — is sort of a feature, not a bug.” — Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.)
Real political reform will not be easy, to say the least — but what if it were? We asked lawmakers what they would do to fix Congress if they could snap their fingers.
“Decentralizing power and allowing the committee process to work. We’ve seen a power shift over the last 20 years or so, from individual members to it really being concentrated at the top. Instead of having 100 good, equal senators, you kind of had two super senators and 98 baby senators.” — Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.)
“I would say that there should be better direction signs in the tunnels of the Capitol. It should be easier for people to figure out where they are and where they’re going.” — Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)
“I think it’s appropriate to talk about expanding the size of the House.” — Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)
“I’ve worked for years on the Fair Representation Act, which is multi-member districts and ranked-choice voting, which, in theory, would eliminate some of the extremes.” — Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)
“I wanted to create a new rule called the ‘BUDS’ resolution — Building Unity through Dual Sponsors. We could have two lead sponsors as long as both members are from different political parties. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is because it can help promote bipartisanship, which is desperately needed in today’s polarized politics.” — Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.)
“I’m an appropriator, so I’d like to see regular order. I think that that would do a lot to fix this place, if we could actually get all 12 of those [spending] bills on the floor, pass them out of the House, send them over to the Senate.” — Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.)
“I’d bring back the powdered wigs.” — Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.)
Sex, Drinking and Dementia
Capitol Hill has been the site of scandalous behavior for decades. But in recent years, we’ve seen suggestions of cocaine-fueled orgies, an Ethics Committee investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s alleged sex with a 17-year-old girl (something he denies), allegations of extramarital affairs and eyebrow-raising lawmaker romances. So, is there anything to the notion that life on the Hill actually is like “House of Cards?”
“I would say D.C. is more like Veep [than House of Cards]. We’ve had a couple of Veep moments in my office.” — Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.)
“I’m one of the few gay members. I do not inquire about the sex lives of my colleagues in general, especially my heterosexual colleagues. I can assure you though, as a gay man, I’m certainly not cheating on my wife.”
— Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)
“Absolutely. We’re human beings, right? We’re all sinners, so to even put on the facade that we’re not regular people that are tempted and do stupid things is laughable. It’s ridiculous. So, don’t act like your shit doesn’t stink.” — Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
“I have no idea. I’ve been doing this for 16 years, I don’t think anybody has ever come up to me and said, ‘Hey, I’m cheating on my wife.’” — Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.)
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) recently suggested, in an awkward attempt to defend Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, that senators are showing up drunk to cast votes on the floor. Members of Congress have been known to enjoy a drink or two, but this accusation was far more explosive. Are lawmakers voting with a clear enough head?
“Well, I’ve seen one Republican who, unfortunately for you, has to go unnamed, show up drunk a number of times. There were one or two Dems I thought might be high on something but not drunk.” — Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)
“Maybe I’m not in that club because I don’t drink.” — Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.)
“This is a cross-section of society. I suspect — I don’t know — I serve with functioning alcoholics, just as I serve with people who take too many prescription drugs. As long as they’re functional, which means able to do their job in a way that satisfies their folks back home, it’s not really my position to grumble, bitch or moan.”
— a House Republican
“If you are prone to substance abuse, everything about this job probably makes it worse.” — Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)
“I have never seen anybody drunk on the floor. I don’t think anybody drinks around the floor. I knew a couple of guys that might have had a drink, but the guys I knew that had a drink, they never showed it. They could hold their liquor well.” — Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)
“If people want to come onto the floor drunk and vote for Medicare for All, I’d rather they do that than be sober and be wondering how much pharma and insurance money they’ll be collecting at their next fundraiser.” — Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)
We’ve seen aging lawmakers deteriorate quite publicly in recent years, but there’s no easy way to force someone out. Witness the saga over the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, or former Rep. Kay Granger, who was discovered to be living in an assisted living facility and experiencing dementia-related issues. We asked people what should be done about that — and how many fellow lawmakers are having cognitive issues while in Congress.
“I have a difficult time sometimes telling between the deterioration of members and a handful who are just not very smart.” — a House Republican
“I do think that leadership probably has a responsibility, on both sides, when somebody’s getting past their due date, to really encourage them to step aside, like Kay Granger last summer. I knew it was hard for them because the votes were so close, so they had a reason not to do it. But if they had a comfortable minority or majority, it would have been very good to say, ‘Please retire.’” — Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)
“In Feinstein’s case, it was just not being able to do the job. If you’re missing votes, if you’re not participating in meetings — if someone is really in decline where they’re not being able to do the job, they need to step aside.” — Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)
“I’ve watched some of these members and I think, ‘Why? Why do you want to be here?’ I just turned 64. If I die in the Senate, it’ll be because a bus hit me on Constitution Avenue.”
— Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.)
“My relationship with my family is such that we all believe that it is our responsibility to protect each other. I can’t think of any way that they could be more effective at protecting me than to sit me down and say, ‘Dad, it’s time for you to come home,’ if I’m sitting in meetings and not recognizing people.” — Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.)
“I think imposing an age limit to serve in Congress is not a terrible idea.” — Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.)
“I’m not sure why some people would choose to hang on until the end, but I think ultimately that’s what the voters decide.” — Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)
So, we asked people, how do you know when it’s time to retire?
“I’ve already got that date in mind. My goal was to come and do four to six years here, which is two or three terms, and get the hell out of here.” — Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
“If you become a shell of your former self, then it’s time for you to go.” — Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)
“There are people whose life is inextricably connected with being in Congress and so some of the people, it’s like, ‘I don’t know what to do if I’m not in Congress.’ I thank God that I don’t have that problem.” — Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.)
“I bring every new staffer in and show them that picture [of me and 100-year-old Strom Thurmond]. I say, ‘That man had a wonderful legislative career. But by the end, he was tired. He was wore out. When I get to that point, if I don’t know it, you have a responsibility to tell me to go home. Not keep me propped up, not keep me stuffed in the chair.‘” — Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)
No comments:
Post a Comment