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It's the first day on the job for new U.S. Reps. Katherine Harris, Ginny Brown-Waite and Kendrick Meek.
By MARY JACOBY, SARA FRITZ and PAUL DE LA GARZA
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 8, 2003
WASHINGTON -- The Republican-led 108th Congress opened Tuesday with parties and ceremonies, children skipping through marbled hallways and puzzled new lawmakers wending their way through a maze of Capitol corridors.
Debates may loom over war, terrorism and budget deficits, but the past two days have been a time for orientation rather than oratory, as nine new senators and 51 fledgling representatives arrived to learn the ways of power and how, for example, to cast a vote.
In the House, five of the newcomers are from Florida. One Democrat, four Republicans. Two women, three men. Household names in Florida, new names in Washington.
Well, not entirely new.
Katherine Harris stood in a crowded Capitol hallway Tuesday, waiting with dozens of newly sworn-in lawmakers and their family members to have their pictures taken with House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
The former Florida secretary of state who came to prominence in the chaotic 2000 elections, Harris tried to keep a low profile in dark suit and pearls, eschewing the red that women lawmakers often wear on the opening day of a new Congress to stand out on television.
But it was difficult to blend in, given her recognizable face, the 12 family members she had in tow and the clutch of reporters badgering her for quotes.
Uneasy with the attention, she happily saw a diversion: a fellow freshman, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, with whom she had become friendly.
"We met at orientation!" Harris squealed, hugging the Tennessee Republican close and launching into an animated story about their brief acquaintance.
The tale was cut short by a plainclothes Capitol security officer, made quite animated himself by Harris's retinue, which was blocking the hall.
"Folks! If you were here on 9/11 like I was, you knew you could have lost people by trampling!" the officer lectured. Looking stunned, Harris stopped midsentence.
The officer explained that her entourage was standing right at one of the most vulnerable spots in all Washington for a terrorist attack: before glass doors that look out over the east front of the Capitol.
"Lovely," Harris said.
Scolding over, she continued: "So, anyway, Marsha and I are standing together . . ."
Harris held a worn leather Bible in her hand. It was not a family heirloom, she later explained, just her regular Bible. She flipped it open to show the many passages she had underlined with a pen.
A radio reporter thrust a microphone in her face. Harris accepted the intrusion with grace. "I don't enjoy the spotlight," she said solemnly. Her issues, she said, were about security.
The scrum around Harris burgeoned again, and the officer demanded they clear the hall. "Folks! I just saw people almost die on 9/11!"
And so the Harris group scrunched close to hear the congresswoman's opinion on the new House rules she was learning. "Like, no jeans on the House floor. Can you imagine?" she said.
Ginny Brown-Waite is an experienced lawmaker. But the Brooksville Republican gained her experience in the 40-member Florida Senate. It did not prepare her for the difficulties of being one of 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
As Brown-Waite greeted her supporters at a reception in her office and picked her way through the crowded hallways of the Capitol, she repeatedly checked a handheld, wireless device issued to House members to summon them to votes on the floor.
"You know there's a vote now," Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow, said to Brown-Waite as they passed each other in the hallway outside Hastert's office.
"I don't have my card with me," Brown-Waite replied, meaning the plastic card that members use to operate the electronic voting machine. A panicked look flashed across her face.
Putnam, a second-term congressman who at 28 is the House's youngest member, explained to the 59-year-old freshman member how she could obtain a temporary voting card.
The House was voting on a rules change proposed by the Republican leadership that would permit members and staffs to accept gifts of perishable food from lobbyists. Previously, they could not accept any single gift in excess of $49.99, even if it was only a few boxes of pizza during a late-night session.
Brown-Waite seemed relieved when she emerged from the chamber a few minutes later after casting her vote. But when she saw Rep. Ilena Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, in Statuary Hall, Brown-Waite inquired once again how she could keep from missing a vote.
"Don't worry," Ros-Lehtinen replied, "they won't let you miss it."
Later, waiting for an elevator to take her to her new office on the fifth floor of the Longworth Building, Brown-Waite got another message on her wireless device. She turned on her heels and walked back out the door.'
The message was from Brian Walsh, Brown-Waite's chief of staff: In her haste she had voted by mistake for the Democratic substitute to the GOP proposal.
The rules change passed on a party-line vote, 221-203. The Democratic substitute was defeated 225-200. And, in the end, Brown-Waite was recorded as voting with the majority.
You couldn't miss 73-year-old Claretha B. Cook on Monday evening, arriving on a train from Florida to celebrate Rep. Kendrick Meek's new job in Congress.
She was big, loud, and, at least on Monday night at Union Station, sporting a pair of glittery gold tennis shoes that stood out like, well, a pair of glittery gold tennis shoes.
With reporters wanting to know why she was here on a cold, cold Washington night, made worse by snow on the ground and nasty winds, the South Florida native thundered: "I'm a celebrity!"
A companion egged her on: "You tell them Cook! You tell them Claretha!"
And she did.
"We follow that lady anywhere," Cook said, pointing to Meek's mother and predecessor, retired Rep. Carrie P. Meek, 76, who stood in the bundled-up crowd. "That's our jewel."
After 10 years in Congress, Meek, a Miami Democrat, stepped aside, clearing the way for her 36-year-old son to win her seat in November.
At Union Station, Kendrick Meek made it a point of greeting each and every member of the Mount Tabor Baptist Church who, like Cook, had made the 26-hour train ride from Miami.
There were a couple of dozen folks altogether, many of them older. Several had made the trip 10 years ago when the congresswoman took office.
It was like a family reunion: lots of hugs and laughter. Meek's children -- 5-year-old Kendrick Jr., who goes by the initials K.B., and 7-year-old Lauren -- scampered about.
Members of the congregation walked out of the train with pillows under their arms. The congressman's wife, Leslie, took pictures with a digital camera, as did newspaper photographers.
"Come on," one woman implored the congressman, "give me some love."
Another declared: "Only you could bring me up here in the cold weather. Only you."
And still more laughter.
After making a quick thank-you speech, Meek got kudos from his mother.
"All right, congressman!" she shouted, as the crowd roared. Her advice to her son had been: "Be humble and work hard."
And he did seem to be working hard. At times he resembled not a member of Congress so much as a worried father -- unsmiling, brow crunched. He and his staff walked in circles, trying to round up the crowd for the bus ride to the hotel.
Asked what the next move was, Meek's spokeswoman, Tasha Cole, said, smiling, "It's a little up in the air."