Title:	One Day in the Life Of a Displaced Congressman.
Authors:	Martinez, Gebe
Source:	CQ Weekly; 10/27/2001, Vol. 59 Issue 41, p2516, 2p, 1c

ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF A DISPLACED CONGRESSMAN

For Peter Hoekstra, the temporary accommodations were not too bad after he was thrown out of his office in the Longworth House Office Building while it was checked for anthrax.

His first morning back in the capital during the lockout, Oct. 24, was sunny and unusually warm. And bordering the lawn just east of the Capitol steps was a low garden wall in the shade of an 81-year-old American beech tree. Hoekstra took a seat atop the wall and, with a handful of aides, tried to make the best of things.

But the next indignity came a few minutes later. While the fifth-term Michigan Republican was in the House chamber voting, his staff was displaced again -- this time by a groundskeeper with a roaring leaf blower. They had to move a few feet down the lawn.

"They swept our office again while you were gone," an aide joked when Hoekstra returned.

Many House members and most senators were shut out of their office suites during most of the week of Oct. 22. Their routine efforts to legislate, hold hearings, eat lunch and, in Hoekstra's case, even find a place to sleep -- he normally does so in his office -- became a logistical nightmare sprinkled with moments of comic relief.

"Welcome to the congressional office of the Second District of Michigan!" Hoekstra called to a couple of tourists walking by. After a brief chat, he offered to give their names to their congressman, Republican Mark Green of Wisconsin, whom they would have visited if only they could have found him. "We're all in the customer service business right now, because none of us are doing it very well," offered the congressman-turned-tour guide.

"I think the leadership is benefiting from the fact that it's a beautiful day," Hoekstra said. "If it was raining or cold, and members were cramped inside, that would have made this day a lot tougher."

Cast adrift from his logistical support system, Hoekstra was unable to fully connect with his computer network, telephones, briefing books or his nine-member staff. "It's just so frustrating," he said. "You can't get done what you need to get done."

Then the 47-year-old former furniture company executive reflected on the thousands of victims of the recent terrorist attacks, and of those now called to serve in troubled times.

"This is nothing," he said.

Housekeeping

In a typical week, Hoekstra would have arrived from home on Tuesday afternoon, in time for 6 p.m. votes on non-controversial bills. On Wednesday, he and his staff would have gone over the week's schedule. But his return to Washington on Oct. 23 was to a Congress mired in disorganization. The congressional offices, closed since Oct. 17, remained off limits.

Hoekstra and other House members each were loaned two small offices in the General Accounting Office (GAO) building -- a dozen blocks away, but accessible by shuttle bus -- along with a laptop computer to check e-mail only, and one telephone. Pens, note pads, fax machines and copiers were barely available for the maximum three staffers per office.

For Hoekstra, the temporary location never really worked. His staff decided almost immediately that the district office in Holland, on the shore of Lake Michigan, would be the command center. All internal and external calls were directed there. That office also would serve as the "lost and found" for misplaced aides and the congressman.

Hoekstra never went to the GAO offices. He needed to stay within earshot of the Capitol to hear the bells for roll call votes, because his House vote-alert pager had been left on a battery charger in his office the week before.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, House members each were given a hand-held e-mail device called a Blackberry. But on Oct. 24, a day filled with votes on the anti-terrorism bill (HR 3162) and an economic stimulus package (HR 3090), the new system wore thin. Hoekstra pulled the gadget from his belt at one point and read the message: "This says we will have two votes beginning at 10:20. It's now 10:40, and no votes."

With a few minutes to kill, he again reached to his belt, flipped open his cell phone, and confirmed lodging for the night in northern Virginia for himself and Bob Schaffer of Colorado, another GOP House member left homeless while Longworth remained closed. Hoekstra's sleeping bag and pillow were inside a file cabinet in his first-floor suite.

Reshuffling

Except for the action on the House floor, Hoekstra's appointment schedule was relatively light. Before Sept. 11, he said, "it used to be that almost any time of the year, you would have five or six different constituent groups visit you during the day. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam." Now, there were none.

He had planned to spend most of the afternoon of Oct. 24 in hearings. He was due to take his seat for a hearing of the House Intelligence Terrorism Subcommittee. And the Select Education Subcommittee, which Hoekstra chairs, was set to meet jointly with the 21st Century Competitiveness panel headed by Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif. The education panels wanted to study how to improve tracking of student visas. Many of the suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks were found to have entered the United States with student visas.

Less than four hours before the hearing, staffer Lisa Bos arrived under the tree to brief Hoekstra, but without the background material or most of the advance testimony of witnesses that would be needed to prepare for possible questions.

She asked Hoekstra if he felt prepared. "I am not as comfortable as I would like to be," he said. "But I am as comfortable as I think you can be today."

There were other problems with details. The hearing would be in the Voice of America auditorium three long blocks away, beyond the foot of Capitol Hill. The location and constant interruption by House floor votes made the hearing impractical. Besides, although there was significant news media interest, C-SPAN would not be there to cover it.

"If there's a lot of interest this week, there will be as much interest next week," Hoekstra told his staff, after he and McKeon met on the House floor and decided on a postponement.

Tending Home Fires

Now, with more time on his hands, Hoekstra made a mental list of the "to do" items left on his desk.

The Michigan Teamsters Union had sent a 40-page document that needed his attention. He was trying to get the Department of Agriculture to buy 405,000 cases of Michigan-grown asparagus for the school lunch program. Turkey farmers in his district were tangling with the Environmental Protection Agency.

"The question that you ask yourself is, 'What's on that desk that needs to be dealt with that you can't remember?' "Hoekstra said.

He also worried that he and others who work in the Longworth building -- the only one of the three House buildings that remained closed at the end of the week -- would be put at a disadvantage in negotiating legislation.

With work nearing an end on the defense authorization bill (HR 2586) conference report, for example, Hoekstra would be hard-pressed to expand language in the bill, by Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, that would end the Federal Prison Industries Inc. monopoly for supplying some military supplies. Hoekstra's change would allow more competition from home-state office furniture makers. But Hoekstra would have to negotiate against House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, who returned to his office, staff and supporting documentation in the Rayburn House Office Building on Oct. 25.

Advantage: Smith.

"That's where you create two different classes of Congress," Hoekstra said.

Amid the frustrations, Hoekstra weighed the advantage of working in Michigan with constituents versus waiting for hearings and votes under the shade of a tree. "Psychologically, it's good to be here," he concluded. "The American people see us working. They see us working on an economic stimulus bill."

At that point, he stopped and looked over at his press secretary, Jamal Ware. "We need to get a press release out on the stimulus bill... We can do that, right?"

"Yes," Ware responded confidently.