By Juliet Eilperin 

By Juliet Eilperin 

Washington Post Staff Writer

 Monday, September 3, 2001; Page A01

By 7:46 one Friday morning, Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.) was airborne, dispatching paperwork and office correspondence until her noon touchdown in Albuquerque. She spent the weekend with the builders' association, touring a complex of energy-efficient homes, and held a fundraiser for next year's campaign.

Less than 72 hours after she had arrived, Wilson caught a plane back to Washington, landing at 4:43 Monday afternoon -- in time for evening votes in the House.

Like most families of House members, Wilson's husband and two young children remained home when she was elected three years ago and moved to Washington. She rents a room in a house two blocks from her Capitol office, to which she seldom returns before 11 each night. She rarely shops in the local grocery store. And, by her own count, she has turned on the stove in her apartment exactly twice since she got here.

"Our entire lives are in New Mexico," Wilson said. "I just come here as a work station."

That ritual will start again this week when Wilson and her colleagues return from the August congressional recess.

Wilson represents a gradual but unmistakable phenomenon among lawmakers that has taken hold in the nation's capital, that of the perpetual commuter.

No longer is it routine for House members to put down roots here, usually with their families, and only occasionally head back to their districts. A combination of factors has altered that script dramatically in recent years, changing the lives of the lawmakers and also the politics and policy they produce.

Although no one compiles statistics on where and how members spend their time, interviews with dozens of elected officials, staff and political observers suggest that the commuting lawmaker has become an almost universally recognized figure on Capitol Hill. And there is no better proof than in the way the House calendar has changed to accommodate this new reality.

This year, the House has been in session for 85 days, or 551 hours, according to Congressional Quarterly; during a comparable period six years ago, the House was in session for 109 days, or nearly 1,000 hours. A recent report from the Congressional Research Service noted that when a committee suggested expanding the number of days that votes can be taken from three days a week to four, more than 100 members signed a letter in protest.

Overwhelmingly, members are using that time to head home. Of the 42 members surveyed for this article, six keep their families and permanent addresses in Washington. Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) said that since he came to Congress in 1995, he has spent only one weekend in Washington, and that was for President Bush's inauguration.

Lawmakers cite cheaper air fares as one factor for giving rise to the political commuter, but the changing dynamics of campaigning is the real driver. With their constituents increasingly being bombarded by an explosion of information from media and special-interest groups, lawmakers say the only way they can control the message is to be in their districts more. Add to that the ever-growing cost of campaigning, and the dinners and functions that go with it, and a constant commute seems imperative.

Many people believe that is exactly as it should be -- that if members of Congress spent more time in Washington, they would be even more disconnected from the voters they represent. Campaigns of the last decade often have been characterized by an anti-Washington message, and Bush boasts regularly about his time away, and how important it is to be back home with real people and not get entangled in a Washington, D.C., way of thinking.

But House members and observers said this compulsion is putting new pressures on lawmakers, fraying their ties to the institution they serve and contributing to increasingly partisan divisions.

"You're coming in Tuesday night and leaving Thursday at 2," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), a 27-year veteran of the House. "That doesn't give you much time to talk and get to know each other."

'They All Have a Fear'

For lawmakers, home is where the political battles are really fought -- it's the place where the agenda has to be set and attacks have to be countered.

In the past, University of Rochester professor Richard Fenno said, it was easier for members to set the tone of hometown conversations about Washington.

"In small communities, word of mouth traveled pretty fast," said Fenno, who pioneered work on lawmakers in their home districts during the 1960s and '70s. "You could talk to the economic and political elites, and they could talk about you."

Now, constituents are just as likely to learn about what is going on in the capital from C-SPAN, or CNN, or Web sites, or other media.

Meanwhile, interest groups have become more sophisticated about mobilizing their members. The Christian Coalition and the AFL-CIO are two of many groups that regularly send out pamphlets and "scorecards" that rank legislators' votes on key issues. Those have become a potent means of shaping a lawmaker's image shortly before an election.

Even lawmakers in relatively safe districts are worried they could be suddenly targeted for a controversial vote that rankles a particular constituency.

"You see in these members a total fear of the unexpected," said a GOP lobbyist who asked not to be identified. "Now they all have a fear of a big swinging wrecking ball that's going to come in after one vote and knock them over."

Miller said this fear leaves lawmakers like him with a dilemma. "Many, many members of Congress have to live on the edge, worrying about raising money and sinking roots into their district to offset money," he said.

What they are not doing very often is spending time with one another, a reality that has taken hold more and more each year, members said.

It wasn't always this way.

Dan Kaniewski, a veteran lobbyist for the Laborers International Union, remembers the singalongs former House speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill (D-Mass.) and House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.) used to lead at the National Democratic Club. Other members, staffers and lobbyists would huddle around the club's piano, enjoying one another's company.

Kaniewski, like Miller, believes that the lack of such social opportunities has helped make Congress a less friendly place. "Comity evolves from time and respect, not the slash-and-burn tactics we've seen over the past few years," he said.

Now, the compressed congressional schedule has become so routine that when the Republican leaders recently canceled a Thursday night vote during debate on a campaign finance bill, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) could not resist the quip, "At least members will make their weekend flights."

Other factors have also helped reduce the amount of time members spend with one another. Lawmakers now operate more like free agents, devoting their time in Washington to meeting with constituents and lobbyists. With C-SPAN, they no longer need to sit on the House floor to monitor debates, and electronic voting has reduced the time members must spend in the House chamber.

Even living arrangements reflect their fragmented community.

One housing arrangement on Capitol Hill harks back to the way things were: Seven lawmakers -- four Republicans, three Democrats -- live in a Capitol Hill town house and make a habit of having dinner together once a week.

"We think it's the way things used to be done, and should be done," said Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), who was among the Class of 1994 Republicans that propelled the GOP into the majority. Wamp and his roommates often discuss legislation as they watch ESPN at night.

But with a $300 monthly housing allowance and little time to spend at home, most lawmakers have opted for temporary living quarters.

House Majority Leader J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) spends as much free time as he can at home with his wife on the banks of the Fox River in Illinois. When he stays in Washington, he shares a cramped Virginia apartment with his top aide.

Dozens of members live in Hill House, an apartment complex close to the Capitol. Some have abandoned renting altogether to sleep in their offices. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) keeps an inflatable mattress tucked behind a sofa and a pillow stowed inside a desk drawer.

On the Ground

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) is not a politician by training; she was persuaded to succeed her husband, Walter Capps, after he died of a heart attack in October 1997. But she has discovered that running two lives -- one in Washington and the other in her Santa Barbara area district -- is nothing like she had expected.

On a recent swing through the area, she and an aide hit the road at 7:30 a.m. for the 80-mile drive to Santa Maria High School, where she lectured students on civics as part of her "Give a Teacher a Break" program.

Out the door at 10:10, she arrived at the Maria del Sol Retirement Residence by 10:30. After delivering a pep talk on retirement security above the din of chirping budgies, she stopped at one of her favorite cafes for a sandwich and press interview before returning to the car.

Fifteen minutes later, Capps was in the headquarters of Sky Cat Corp., for a lesson on the virtues of giant dirigibles. As a Democrat in a district that is never safe from a stiff GOP challenge, she is careful to court local business leaders.

At 2:30 p.m., she climbed the stairs in the same office complex to meet with members of the California Space Authority Inc., which is led by the woman who defeated Walter Capps in 1994, only to lose to him two years later.

At 3:30, Capps journeyed a half-hour to the studios of KUHL radio so she could put in 30 minutes on a local show. By 5 o'clock, she was at the Marian Medical Center, where she spent an hour briefing nurses on her proposal to end the nation's nursing shortage.

Then she had an hour to stop in at her district office, congratulate a student on winning a spot at West Point and change into a black blazer and shimmery silk scarf. She had to be at the Elks Lodge by 7:15 for the 11th annual Santa Maria strawberry growers' association dinner. She stayed until nearly 11 to hand out awards.

"I'm kind of proud I have to work hard in this district," she said in the midst of her swing. "I can't just be comfortable about how I spend my time."

Family Affairs

When Democrat Diana DeGette was elected to represent Denver and its suburbs in 1996, she heeded the advice of veteran House members and moved to Washington along with her husband, Lino Lipinsky, and their two young daughters.

They rented a house in Bethesda, and her husband shut down his small law firm in Denver and took a job with the Washington office of McKenna & Cuneo, aDenver-based firm. They enrolled their older daughter in Bethesda Elementary and younger girl in a Montessori nursery school.

But what DeGette thought would be a new life turned out to be no life at all.

She worked late during the week, then left her family on weekends to cater to constituents. When she and her husband finally bought a house in Kensington in June 2000, it meant renting out their Denver home. DeGette stayed in hotels or with relatives during trips back to her district, and it made her feel like "a carpetbagger."

Despite all those sacrifices, she was seeing her family less than if they had stayed in Denver, and the hoped-for after-hours bonding with her colleagues never materialized: In three years, she could not schedule a single outing with her family and that of another lawmaker who lived nearby.

In late October, she returned home from another trip to her district and looked at her husband, who had spent the past two days taking care of the children, still surrounded by boxes in their Kensington home.

"I have an idea," she began.

Her husband interrupted: "Let's move home."

They did, in June. DeGette now rents an apartment in Washington and sees her family every chance she can. "Everyone is leaving," she said.