Whirlwind awaits new representative
BY BOB SCHAFFER • Special to the Coloradoan • November 7, 2010
Editor's Note: The Coloradoan asked former U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer of Fort Collins to identify the biggest challenges Rep.-elect Cory Gardner will face in his first few weeks in Congress. This is his response.
Today, Cory (Gardner) is booking airline tickets for organizational meetings and orientation sessions in (Washington, D.C.)
Already, he's in the middle of various leadership and committee-chairman campaigns involving new colleagues he doesn't presently know.
He'll have about a week to learn their personalities and decide who will be the best leaders for the U.S. House. Unwittingly, his choices will define him as belonging to various sub-coalitions and aligned with certain leaders within the GOP conference for the rest of his time in Washington, D.C.
Members of the House who have volunteered to come to Colorado to campaign for . Gardner probably revealed their underlying interests starting Tuesday night when they made their midnight congratulatory phone call. These calls in sum go like this:
“Congratulations, congressman. Boy, that sounds good doesn’t it? Congressman Gardner? You ran a great race and you’ll be an outstanding member of Congress. Say, by the way, I’ve got the chairmanship of (fill in the blank) almost in the bag, but I wanted to make sure you’re on my team. You know, I really enjoyed campaigning with you out in Lovemont — was that the name of that little place? — and I’m glad my visit helped you win your race. When you get back to Washington, D.C., I’ll have my chief of staff get in touch with you to set up a meeting right away to map out a plan for how you and I are going to work together. OK? Oh, again, congratulations to you and your wife Jane (staffer interrupts)... I mean Jamie.”
Keep in mind, incumbent GOP members of Congress have been working on these inter-party campaigns for months, sometimes years. Gardner will be negotiating them next week.
There will be no rest after Tuesday night’s contest. . Gardner just finished a marathon and now has to gear up for a different kind of campaign. He’ll be contending with, among and against the nation’s best campaigners.
A smart freshman will rely heavily on advice of his Colorado colleagues. Reps. Mike Coffman, Doug Lamborn, Diana DeGette, Jared Polis and Ed Perlmutter will become valuable advisers and establish their leadership credentials within the congressional delegation by genuinely assisting the newest members of it (regardless of party).
Simultaneously, Gardner has to campaign for good committee assignments. This means forming an alliance with other freshmen members, mapping out a campaign plan for targeted committees and assessing what other members want for their own assignments.
There is a House Steering Committee. When I was there, there were 35 votes on this committee. It determines the committee assignments for all GOP members.
The speaker gets multiple votes — I think four. You need 18 votes to get your assignments. The final roster is voted on as a package, but all the preceding votes involve casino-style wheeling and dealing among members of the Steering Committee. These meetings are closed to the public.
Within the next few weeks, Gardner and his new colleagues will meet in half-day caucus meetings (both parties meet in different rooms of the Capitol building at the same time) where members will learn which committees they get. These assignments tend to lock you into the topical and issue specialties that will define you for the rest of your career.
While all this is going on, Gardner will be getting stuck with what’s left of the most undesirable offices by lot. He’ll be scrambling to find a competent staff of about 18. He’ll need to work with the Capitol staff to get desks, file cabinets, computers, printers, etc.
He’ll be figuring out how to absorb district offices, ongoing casework and projects from Rep. Betsy Markey.
His first appointments in Washington, D.C., also will include a freshman-orientation meeting. Here, an ethics-committee chairman will plop a 1-foot pile of books, reports and forms (all in tiny print) in front of him with a recommendation like this: “Read all these rules if you want to stay out of jail.”
The rules deal with every nit-picking detail of how to handle mail, how to buy paperclips, how to hire staff, how to order airline tickets, how to reimburse yourself for mileage, how to accept a speaking engagement, how to assist charities, etc., — legally.
The truth is, these rules are so overwhelming, it’s impossible to contemplate anyone being 100 percent compliant. I guarantee every member of Congress has mailed the wrong letter in the wrong kind of envelope under the wrong postage mark — without realizing it.
The ethics briefing makes every new member wonder, “what have I gotten myself into?”
By next week, Gardner also will be meeting with his colleagues in the context of the National Republican Cong-ressional Committee — the political branch of the GOP conference.
This meeting takes place off the Hill and is not considered “official business.” Here, he’ll be given a fundraising goal for his own re-election effort in 2012. He’ll be assigned a mentor member to keep him on track to re-election.
He’ll learn about his “dues” to the NRCC — probably in the neighborhood of $50,000 in his first term. It grows from there. This is his obligation to the NRCC. Fulfilling it will entail budgeting time to work the phones calling complete strangers and inviting them to big dinners and gatherings — for thousands of dollars per ticket — to raise money for the NRCC so it can win more races in 2012.
This process is identical to the Democrats’.
There will be a new-member retreat to Williamsburg (Va.) in a week or two featuring 12-hour days of briefings with some of the best experts on the planet.
Through all of this, the freshman class will begin getting organized. The idea of a freshman class might sound like high-school stuff, but a member’s class is a formalized and important cohort.
For example, the class gets one vote on the Steering Committee. One freshman will be on the speaker’s leadership team. One will get a seat on the Policy Committee. Since none of them have seniority, they’ll find that banding together, when prudent, makes new members relevant faster.
Gardner will get a week off for Christmas. He’ll spend most of that time answering calls from you and other reporters, reading the suitcase full of manuals, reports and papers he will haul home from Washington, D.C. That time will be interrupted by phone calls from a hundred or so campaign volunteers who now want their kids to go to military academies, the government to pay for their stuff, give them jobs, etc.
The new Congress meets in January and will start at full speed.
About that time, some Democrat will announce he’s going to run against Gardner, requiring him to begin organizing his 2012 campaign team sooner than he thought he’d need to.
You’ll provide glowing, ample and generous column inches, flattering photos and prime story placements to make sure the challenger is favorably introduced and promoted to Fort Collins voters. This will force Gardner to get cracking on funding his 2012 campaign by at least February.
In August he’ll have a month of vacation to rest a little, but he probably won’t take more than a weekend for R&R.
He ought to use some of that time to wade into foreign-relations issues. The cost of ignoring these issues is enormous and too many Members shy away because joining a congressional-delegation trip to Saudi Arabia, for example, sounds too much like fun when mischaracterized by an opponent.
In one year, the youngish Gardner’s hair will be gray. You’ll want a new stock photo because he’ll actually look different than he does now. Proof: See your photo library of Jim Johnson, Hank Brown, Wayne Allard, Bob Schaffer, Marilyn Musgrave and Betsy Markey.
Gardner will grow into the position quickly and will be a serious member of Congress.
Democrats will see this and work hard to defeat him as quickly as possible.
Gov. John Hickenlooper, despite his pretensions for being bipartisan, will devote enormous resources and energy to gerrymandering the 4th Congressional District (based upon the 2010 Census) by pulling half of Boulder County into the new district — possibly even drawing Yuma (Gardner’s home) out of it. Gardner will need to “lawyer up” to survive this part of the campaign, too.
Bob Schaffer served in the House of Representatives from 1997-2003 and is chairman of the State Board of Education.
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