Emmer gets oriented in D.C.
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WASHINGTON - Newly-elected members of the U.S. House spend a lot of time at the Starbucks on the corner of Pennsylvania Ave. and 3rd St. SE, just a few blocks down the street from the U.S. Capitol.
It's not necessarily the caffeine that's drawing them there -- mostly it's that they don't yet have any office space to work out of between a packed schedule of meetings, orientation sessions and leadership elections.
During his campaign, 6th District U.S. Rep.-elect Tom Emmer said he had been discouraged from "measuring the drapes" and thinking too hard about what he would do if he won last Tuesday's election (which he did by 18 points). He said the transition from candidate to new member was daunting.
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"You can think that upon a successful election night that you've got the pieces in place, and you're ready to go for this job," said Emmer. "You will be sadly mistaken."
There are staff members to recruit, office budgets to comprehend, parliamentary procedure to master, committee assignments to lobby for, a never-ending list that all has to be be mostly completed by Jan. 3 when Emmer is sworn in as a member of the 114th Congress.
One item not on that list: finding an apartment. For now, Emmer is likely to skip the joy of Washington's tight and expensive real estate market (where basement apartments can rent for $1,800 a month) and will instead sleep in his office. It's an option popular with many of his fellow Republican lawmakers. First District DFL U.S. Rep. Tim Walz also uses his office as a crash pad.
Emmer is lobbying for a seat on the House Financial Services Committee where his predecessor, Rep. Michele Bachmann, currently has a seat (as does DFL Rep. Keith Ellison).
One of Emmer's goals is to help reassert Congress's power over what he sees as an out-of-control executive branch. But Emmer, who unsuccessfully ran as the Republican candidate for governor in 2010, said he's learned a lot from that experience and plans to focus initially on learning how Congress works and recruiting allies.
"It's very important if you're going to effective at making these changes happen to build relationships upfront," said Emmer.