Members of Congress: This Job Sucks

By Jonathan Allen, Politico

08 March 12

or members of Congress, the thrill is gone.

They don't make national policy anymore. They can't earmark money for communities back home. The public hates them.

And perks little and big, from private jet travel to a little free nosh now and then, have been locked down by ethics rules.

As they head for the exits this year, many leaving Congress say the prestigious job of being a congressman sucks now, and that's why lawmakers young and old are trading in their member pins for a new life in the private sector.

Take Rep. Dan Boren, an Oklahoma Democrat now in his fourth term. In the old days, the moderate Blue Dog would have been a sure bet to bide his time in Congress, win reelection by serving up earmarks to his constituents and, after a couple of decades, grab the prized gavel of the Armed Services Committee.

But Boren's on his way out, contemplating work in real estate or energy development back in the Sooner State - retired from Congress at 39.

"If you go through all the things you have to do to get elected and you feel at the end of the day, you're not pushing the ball forward, it's time to go do something else," he said in a telephone interview as he ate yet another in a long string of lunches at the T.G.I. Friday's in Terminal C of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

"I'm used to being a player," Boren said, fondly remembering his days in the state Legislature as he lamented the dim prospects of a moderate moving up the ranks at a time when ideological purity has supplanted seniority as the primary factor in gaining power. "You want to get things done for your constituents. If you can't ever become speaker or a committee chairman, why are you doing it?"

For longer-term veterans, the stature of the office has diminished and the burdens have grown.

Pay has been frozen for three years - not that the average American will shed a tear over the static $174,000 salary. Most lawmakers have to live in two cities, and when they don't - like Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar, who has lived in Virginia for the past 35 years - it becomes the central issue of their campaigns. Fundraising is a much bigger hassle these days, as it costs more and more to run an effective race against the new soft money pouring into congressional contests.

"Look, the people who come here, I've gotten to know my colleagues over the years. They come here not to be involved in gridlock, they come here to get things done. That's why they're in public service," said Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a retiring independent who caucuses with Democrats. "Why would you spend all the time raising money, run for office and go through the nastiness that's part of a general modern political campaign to come here and be involved in gridlock? They come here to get something done."

The frustration has been building for some time, and the days of past-their-prime legislators bidding fond farewells to the institution seem anachronistic.

When Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) announced his retirement from the well of the House chamber last week by saying he was a "proud institutionalist," his was a lone voice.

Others are knocking over the water coolers in the House and Senate cloakrooms on the way out.

"Some people were surprised by my conclusion, yet I have spoken on the floor of the Senate for years about the dysfunction and political polarization in the institution," Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, an iconic Maine moderate, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. "Simply put, the Senate is not living up to what the Founding Fathers envisioned."

Rep. Barney Frank, the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, said in November that he felt too constrained to legislate effectively because the public no longer tolerates deal making.

"To my disappointment, the leverage you have within the government has substantially diminished," said Frank, of Massachusetts.

"The anger in the country, the currents of opinion are such that the kind of inside work I have felt best at is not going to be as productive in the foreseeable future and not until we make some changes," he said in announcing that he would end his career after 32 years.

Between Dreier and Frank, the House is losing 64 years of legislative experience. Both rose in the ranks of the House during the C-SPAN generation, hashing out the differences between the parties in public but also finding ways to work with their political rivals when the cameras were off.

Now, in the era of blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare, the spotlight never goes dark.

In a recent private conversation with a POLITICO reporter, a lawmaker expressed surprise that anyone could simply Tweet his location, wherever he is in the world. The lawmaker began playing out potentially embarrassing scenarios in which he could be identified.

Former New York Rep. Tom Reynolds, who served as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee and is now a lobbyist at Nixon Peabody, said he warns new lawmakers that the constant media presence and new technology have obliterated any privacy.

"The fishbowl today means that you are captured on film or you're captured on digital of a cellphone or a BlackBerry that can be on YouTube in minutes," he said.

And many lawmakers have had to beef up security to protect themselves from their constituents.

Rep. Tom Price, a Georgia Republican now in his fourth term, said each member has a different level of "tolerance" for Washington's ways. Price, who was a party leader in the Peach State Legislature, hasn't yet reached his limit. But he acknowledges that it's tough to work in a paralyzed Congress.

"There's a cycle to everybody's career; for some it's short, and for others it's longer. There's a different tolerance level folks have for where we are right now in our national dialogue," he said. "It's very frustrating for all of us to not have folks who are willing to step up and at least address the challenges that we've got."

Manu Raju contributed to this report.