Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 10, 1994 TAG: 9411100083
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
``Anybody need these?'' chirped a cheerful Republican staffer, passing out tape measures Wednesday in the crowded, jumbled minority offices of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
These committee aides would soon be fitting furniture and drapes for the spacious majority suites long occupied by the loyalists of powerful chairman John Dingell, D-Mich.
``We're in shock,'' admitted Republican Staff Director Margaret Durbin.
But probably not as much as Dingell's staffers, who met behind locked doors in the offices they soon reluctantly will depart.
For weeks, Capitol Hill will be shaking from the aftershocks of the electoral earthquake that rumbled across America on Tuesday. Overnight, thousands of congressional staffers have seen their jobs disappear and thousands more have been handed the powers and perquisites they sought for decades.
``You can tell people's party affiliation by who's smiling and who is not,'' said Lewis Tannenbaum, a House cafeteria worker.
``We're getting our resumes ready. There's nothing you can do about this,'' said Jim Rowan, a lawyer for the House Judiciary Committee. Not only were Republicans taking over the committee, but his boss, Rep. Jack Brooks, D-Texas, lost his seat.
In the office of Rep. Don Johnson, a defeated Democrat from Georgia, legislative aide Leslie Pickett was answering the phone.
``We've only had five to 10 abusive calls,'' she said. ``One man said he'd tried to get us to vote his way several times and never succeeded. Then he said, `So, naaah, naaah, naaah.' Other people just call and gloat.''
``I guess I'll just regroup and move on,'' said Pickett, a native of Augusta, Ga. ``I haven't had time to think about it. I may go to law school.''
Republican staffers, meanwhile, were exchanging high fives and photocopying the New York Post's front page, which featured a picture of President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton labeled with the headline: ``Losers.''
Both Republicans and Democrats seemed stunned. Hardly anyone on Capitol Hill is old enough to claim experience in such a historic switch of power.
The parties exchanged power in the Senate during the 1980s, but Democrats have controlled the House for an uninterrupted stretch of nearly four decades.
The loss left many in a foul mood on Wednesday.
``You can't come in here,'' snapped a receptionist at the office of defeated House Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash. The ornate, historic suite in the Capitol soon will be occupied by Republican Newt Gingrich of Georgia.
The Democrats' attitude was understandable, however, given that many have lost their livelihoods. There are more than 20,000 people on Capitol Hill payrolls, most working at the pleasure of the party in power. Each defeated Democratic member of Congress leaves behind an unemployed staff. Meanwhile, on congressional committees, the majority party controls roughly twice as many jobs as the minority.
Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, reported a brisk business in ``Jobs Wanted'' classified advertising.
``I'll probably go back to Georgia,'' said the lone staffer in the office of Rep. Buddy Darden, a defeated Democrat from Atlanta's increasingly Republican suburbs. As for her colleagues, ``everybody is out and about,'' she said.
In Senate offices, where power was swapped more recently, the mood seemed more subdued.
Bipartisan cooperation was the subtheme at a ceremony at which Senate Armed Services Committee Staff Director Arnold Punaro was promoted to brigadier general in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves.
Punaro was lauded by his longtime boss, committee Chairman Sam Nunn, D-Ga., as well as by the likely incoming Republican chairman, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. The senators also had kind words for each other.
The ``fundamental rule of the Committee on Armed Services is country first, military first, politics second,'' said Sen. John Warner, R-Va.
by CNB