I SLEEP IN MY OFFICE. THE REST OF CONGRESS SHOULD, TOO
By: Rep. Buddy Carter
It was a cold January day in 2015 the first time I spent the night in my new part-time home, 432 Cannon House Office Building. After awakening to the sound of cleaning carts, I made my way to the House member gym for my morning workout. As Billy Joel sang in my ears, I remember looking up and seeing then-House Ways and Means Chair Paul D. Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, to my left and Rep. Joe Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, to my right. Of course I was surprised.
There we were: three men from three states, with three different backgrounds, representing two political parties, sweating side by -side. No politics, no wheeling and dealing — just good, old-fashioned exercise.
In one respect, the House gym is like any other: Members pay a modest annual fee to use its weights and cardio machines. But in that moment, I saw it as something bigger: a place to build community outside the bounds of political partisanship.
This is particularly true for those of us who sleep in our offices. There’s no official count of how many of us call the Hill home when we’re in town, but I know at least a few dozen members who do. There’s a bond among those of us who wake up on a cot or couch, brush our teeth over the same sinks, venture to one of the cafeterias for a hot cup of coffee, and, at the end of the day, fall asleep to the faint scratches of the building’s worst tenants, the mice.
I submit that Congress would be more effective if every member slept in their office because there is inherent value in getting to know people across the aisle as people rather than as just the opposition.
Some folks might decry this practice as “rent-free living.” However, if it maximizes Congress’s productivity and camaraderie while respecting professional boundaries with staff, then it is a step worth taking.
Freshman representatives and senators are entering Washington at a particularly divisive time in American politics. Unfortunately, this city — and the Capitol itself — is designed to divide. Republicans have their side of the chamber, and Democrats have theirs. The Senate is on one side, the House is on the other. Republicans meet at the Capitol Hill Club, and Democrats convene at the National Democratic Club. In Congress we have a handful of bipartisan events, such as the Congressional Baseball Game, but we are sorely lacking in dedicated nonpartisan spaces.
Still, there’s one room where bipartisanship thrives. In the House gym, kettlebells and treadmills replace member pins and TV cameras. Athleticism and determination reign supreme. We have friendly competition not on the strength of our ideas, but on the strength of our bodies. The push-up position doesn’t care if you have an R or a D next to your name.
I know this for a fact because I often join Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) in a one-hour, 1,000 push-up challenge. It’s a mostly level playing field, though you might catch me joshing Gottheimer about his short arms giving him a marked advantage.
When we aren’t working out together, we’re working together. For example, Gottheimer and I are the only co-sponsors of Rep. Yadira Caraveo’s Passport Processing Efficiency Act, and Gottheimer and I have together co-sponsored 112 pieces of legislation in the 118th Congress alone.
You don’t need to be friends with your co-sponsors, but it sure helps.
In the gym, we have the same struggles, the same triumphs, and none of it has anything to do with politics. It’s a taste of the real world in D.C., where people are forced to work and live together regardless of their ideology, and where friendship transcends faction. It’s a unique, shared experience that brings members together, from House freshmen to senior senators (who occasionally stop by).
We need more bipartisanship in Washington, so we must foster nonpartisan cooperation, which is how real relationships and friendships based on trust form.
History agrees. Before members could easily travel in and out of D.C., it was common to live in the city and socialize over the weekends. During that time, we also had a much stronger culture of bipartisanship. The political climate was different back then, but we also simply had more opportunities to get to know one another as people.
I’ll be in the gym tomorrow. And I hope to see my freshman colleagues there.
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