Maggie Hyde/MNS
The porch outside the Speaker’s Lobby, where members of Congress go to smoke or talk on their cell phones. Adding to the lobby’s mystique, security guards do not allow any photography in the room itself, or even the entryway to it.
WASHINGTON — I feel as if I am a guest in a nice house, sitting on an old fashioned couch on which I would hate to spill coffee.
It is my first reporting trip to the Speaker’s Lobby, the corridor outside the chamber where the House of Representatives meets. It’s also a hall through which some of the great political winds of U.S. history, both the blustering and profound, have blown.
Sequestered from the public, it feels like the equivalent of the African savannah for members of Congress and the journalists who write about them. As a newbie, though, I sure can’t tell who is doing the eating.
What I imagine is this: There are the carnivores, clearly lounging around for a full meal, in the form of a salacious quote, and then there are the stray grass-eaters, who wander in, looking for a leaf from a particular type of tree, or maybe just a little specific background.
I am neither, really. I’m just hoping to chat briefly with an Iowa congressman whose brother had said the opening prayer that morning.
Cameras are, of course, not allowed. A picture couldn’t capture the light that slants in from the long windows that lead out onto the porch, from where the smell of cigar smoke is drifting, anyways. In 2007, Speaker Nancy Pelosi banned smoking in the room, but an open door still lets it in as if it, too, were invited to the party.
A still frame also couldn’t do justice to the sparkling of the chandeliers, the texture of the oil painted-portraits or the almost lulling rise and fall in conversation, broken by the occasional guffaw.
When I first entered the room, it had been empty, echoing like a formal dining room that no one ever actually eats in. The guards had smiled, noting my confusion, and pointed me toward the desk where I could leave a card for the representative I was seeking.
Trying not to look wide-eyed, I then deposited myself on the aforementioned couch, from which I could view the whole long room, and promptly pretended to be a lamp. And waited. And waited. And watched. Soon it was bustling, mostly with men in suits and ties.
I guess I was a little too successful in imitating a lamp, though, because I missed the congressman. We met up later outside the congressional dining room.
To say my trip was like stepping back in time would be trite, and probably wrong. To say it felt like a different world would be cliché. And to say it felt like a zoo would be disrespectful. I think I’ll stick with the savannah analogy.
Because everyone has to come to the watering hole, sometime, and I’m glad I already know the rules.