The average Congressman starts out as a local politician, a city councilman or county commissioner, maybe a mayor or state senator or district attorney, with a touch of ambition and a desire to do something right. He learns the tricks of the trade at a lower, less expensive level, builds contacts and gets to know the right people. Then, when an opportunity opens up, he pulls the trigger and goes for broke. The guys, and it is mostly guys, who had showed up here with me were the winners. In theory, some of them would eventually run for a more important office, usually Senator or Governor, and maybe if the gods of politics smiled at them, leverage that up to President. For the life of me I couldn’t remember a Congressman who went directly from the House of Representatives to the Oval Office. The best I could come up with was Jerry Ford, who was picked by Tricky Dick to replace Ted Agnew when Agnew went to jail. Ford went from Congress to being Vice President. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Obama had all been Senators at some point. Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush 43 had been Governors. Bush 41 had been a Congressman, but had then become an Ambassador and Director of the CIA before being tapped as Reagan’s VP. After Obama, they all changed too fast to notice or care.
Technically, we didn’t have to be at the hotel until Sunday evening, when the festivities officially started. We drove down Saturday evening after Marilyn and the kids went to Mass at Our Lady of Grace. Then she hustled around to move them out, and we drove down for a late supper and just spent the evening blessedly alone. Sunday we slept semi-late and then went down for breakfast, skipping the normal early-breakfast-and-a-full-morning-of-news-shows routine we enjoyed. That was when I realized that things were going to be different. Between the time we got off the elevator and the time we got to the restaurant, we were approached by two different men in suits, dressed quite a bit nicer than we were, with invitations to lunch, one from the American Petroleum Institute and the other from the Heritage Foundation. I pocketed both invitations with a smile but declined to commit myself.
The lobbyists were out in full force, and I hadn’t even been sworn in yet, which wouldn’t happen until the new Congress convened in January. The API I knew as the major lobbying group for the oil companies. The Heritage Foundation I had heard of; they were a conservative ‘think tank’, but I didn’t know where their funding came from. After we were seated, Marilyn asked, “Who were those guys? Do you know them?”
I smiled and shook my head. “No, not yet, but I’m sure I am going to soon enough. They’re lobbyists.”
Her eyes opened wide at that. “Already!? You’re not even sworn in yet!”
“I think that is way down the list of things they care about. Just wait, we’ll probably be hit up by a defense lobbyist on the way out of here.”
“Is that legal?”
I shrugged and smiled. “Define legal!”
She gave me her exasperated look. “Carling!”
I had to laugh. “From what I’ve learned over the years, legal and illegal, or right and wrong, aren’t the major concerns of Congress. I think it’s more along the lines of getting caught and not getting caught.”
She smiled at that. “If they’re as cynical as you, you’ll fit right in!”
“Scary thought, isn’t it? On the plus side, as long as I’m willing to sell my soul to Satan, I won’t ever have to pay for a meal again in this town! As many times as I’ve been in this town, I don’t know how anybody can actually afford to live here!” I remembered back on the first go, being sent to a conference in Washington back when I was a humble chemist. My per diem for food wouldn’t cover three fast food meals a day, and I got royally chewed out about eating in ‘expensive’ restaurants — like the one at the hotel where the conference was held!
In many ways, this was what led so many otherwise fine Congressmen into trouble. Unless you are bunking on the floor of a tenement slum, apartment rents are astronomical. If you plan to bring the family and put the kids in local schools, it just gets worse. The D.C. school system is a national disgrace, so everybody puts their kids in private schools, which are also ridiculously expensive. The suburbs, like Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and Alexandria, are some of the most expensive in the nation. If you want to live in the suburbs, you end up living an hour or more away, just to keep the cost down.
Marilyn used to complain about how much we were paying the clowns in Washington, but she never actually ran the numbers. When you added in the necessity of keeping a home back in their district, their paychecks seemed ridiculously low. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that so many Congressmen can be bought.
According to my briefing information, we would be getting lectured on Congressional ethics, an oxymoron on the level of ‘jumbo shrimp!’ I told Marilyn that it wasn’t going to be so much a list of what we couldn’t do, but more a guideline to how to get away with something. For instance, if the Acme Widget Company wanted a single source monopoly contract to the Federal government for the sale of their widgets, they had two ways of guaranteeing it. The fast and simple method is to go to the chairman of the House Widget Committee and drop a paper bag full of cash on his desk. Quick, efficient, and illegal.
Instead, the Acme Widget Company can find a lobbying company, generally a law firm with the former chairman of the Widget Committee on it, a man who decided he preferred living in Washington rather than going home to Mooseshit, Montana. The law firm sets up a think tank, the American Widget Advisory Board, designed to teach Congressmen about the wonders of the American widget industry, and how Acme Widget stands for truth, justice, and the American way! The lobbying firm then starts making campaign contributions. For instance, maybe the five owners of the Acme Widget Company each give $2,000 to the Chairman’s reelection campaign. The Widget Advisory Board coughs up some more. Maybe the Widget Political Action Committee (dedicated to supporting the interests of American widgets, and not those inferior foreign widgets!) makes a contribution, and maybe they also run some campaign ads showing support for the Chairman.
Depending on just how much power the House Widget Committee has, and how much juice the Chairman has, and how big the potential contract is, there is even more that can be done. For instance, maybe the Chairman’s worthless son needs a job. The Widget Advisory Board can hire him to investigate widget usage in Bermuda, and send him on vacation. (Andy Stewart’s wife used to work for the bank lobby, remember) Maybe the Chairman’s chief of staff is looking to retire and make more than a government salary can offer. Make him a deal directly! Best of all, Congressmen are immune from most insider trading statutes. Let the Congressman know that a positive vote will cause the values of stock options in Acme Widget to double, and suggest, offhand and just in the interest of full disclosure, what that might be worth.
I explained most of this to Marilyn over breakfast, and she simply shook her head in disbelief. I wondered what committee assignments I’d end up with. From what I understood, all the real work was actually done by the various Congressional committees, and there were good committees to be on and bad committees to be on. I was guessing, but I suspected the good committees were the ones with the most lobbyists and money washing around. I’d find out later in the week.