Editor’s note: This is the fourth part in a week-long series, “Secrets of the Hill: What you don’t know about Congress,” reported by Thomas Langhorne from Washington, D.C. It aims to give readers an inside look at Congress.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – They’re political rock stars back home, ascending to positions scores of state legislators and other ambitious local politicians would give their eyeteeth to hold.

But new members of the U.S. House of Representatives find out when they get here that no amount of political talent or skill can help them avoid the worst office space in Congress if that is their fate. It’s a matter of preparation and gamesmanship — that, plus sheer dumb luck. Seniority is the currency that matters most to veteran members.

The best way to deal, Mark Dreiling figured, is to do your homework.

Dreiling, chief of staff to incoming Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon after the 2016 election, ran point for his boss’s approach to the freshman office lottery. The biennial event is a lighthearted affair, with members and staff doing cartwheels and busting dance moves if they draw good numbers. But as befitting a former Air Force officer working for a retired Air Force brigadier general, Dreiling treated it like a military operation.

The best of the offices opened by election defeats and retirements had already been claimed by more senior members. Scanning the field of remaining spaces, Dreiling made his first strategic decision immediately.

He decided where he didn’t want to be. 

“We weren’t enthusiastic about being on the fifth floor of Cannon (House Office Building),” he said, invoking the oldest congressional office building in the Capitol.

It’s a common sentiment.

With elections held every two years, the lower chamber’s senior members gradually work their way up to its largest suites as other members depart. A few special suites for House leaders in the U.S. Capitol Building are downright ornate.

But drawing an office on Cannon’s fifth floor -- with its small, inward-facing spaces, lack of elevators and long walks to the House floor -- is the congressional equivalent of being sent to Siberia.

A room-by-room canvass of the fifth floor – a former attic storage space now known as “freshman row” – shows it lives up to the nickname. Here visitors can find offices for freshmen Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, Ro Khanna of California, Claudia Tenney of New York and Indiana’s Jim Banks, among others. There are no household names.

The 110-year-old Cannon building is in the middle of a decade-long, $752.7 million renewal project that will cure many of its shortcomings. Dreiling and Bacon didn’t want to be anywhere near the jackhammering that will accompany the renovation work.

‘The nerdy thing’

“I was a space operator in the Air Force, which means I like checklists,” Dreiling said with a grin.

Operating on a strong hunch that Bacon’s military background would land him on the House Armed Services Committee, which it did – Dreiling set out to create a list of the available offices in the order he and Bacon liked them.

“Then I actually did the nerdy thing with the stopwatch,” he said.

Dreiling recorded the time needed to cover the distance from each available office in the Cannon and Longworth House Office Building to the Capitol. He also noted his foot-speed by underground tunnel to the Armed Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building. Those would be the places Bacon would go most often.

The three House buildings are located in a row along Independence Avenue and south of the Capitol, with Rayburn farthest west and Cannon farthest east. Longworth sits in the middle.

The implications of that are enormous for a busy member of Congress.

“Imagine being in Cannon and having your committees over in Rayburn,” Dreiling said, a cloud passing over his face. “It adds time.”

A walk between the two buildings took roughly six minutes – arguably a significant chunk of time in a body where members rarely stay in one place for 30 minutes.

So it was that Dreiling’s top 10 most desired offices included a curious choice – Longworth 1516, an office widely derided as one of the worst on Capitol Hill.

Coming in at just 842 square feet, Longworth 1516 sits next to a stairwell and a bathroom on the farthest side of the building from the Capitol. Occupied in recent years by a revolving cast of freshman members, it was the office no one wanted in 2010. That year, with the largest House freshman class in more than six decades, it was chosen 85th ina field of 85 offices.

Roll Call, a D.C.-based newspaper and website that covers Congress, included Longworth 1516 in a list of 10 “undesirables” among House offices.

But Dreiling saw a lot to like about the space.

For one thing, it’s directly across the hall from the office of Bacon’s Nebraska colleague, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, in Longworth 1514. The two men, both Republicans, are part of the Cornhusker State’s tiny three-member House delegation. They and their staffs work closely together.

Unlike Cannon with its huge file cabinets and shelving units that eat into square-footage, Longworth has built-in storage space in the form of historic millwork cabinetry. Longworth also doesn’t disconnect the three components of any House member’s office suite – reception area, the member’s personal office and space for staff. In some Cannon offices, staffers are forced to go out to hallways to connect with coworkers.

Last but not least, Longworth 1516 was closer to Armed Services Committee offices in Rayburn than anything in the more distant Cannon.

On freshman lottery day, Dreiling and Bacon walked into a Rayburn committee hearing room with their rank-order list of 10 preferred offices and the hope that they’d done enough.

Drawing number 37, the men had a few nervous moments – but when one of your top 10 offices is considered bottom 10 by everyone else, success is assured. The first nine offices on the list were quickly snapped up, but the Nebraska Air Force men left feeling they’d gotten a plum in Longworth 1516.

Dreiling strives for perspective as visitors to his personal office crack wise about the view from his window. It’s a courtyard -- a courtyard with a view of the Longworth cafeteria’s roof, elevator shaft exteriors and rows of office windows.

“Some people might go, ‘Oh, look at that boring view,’” he said, gazing at it. “I look out there and go, ‘Wow, I have sunlight.’ When I was in the military, I never had sunlight, and I never had windows.”

Only a few thousand people work in Congress. It’s a fact of which Dreiling reminds himself daily.

“Serving up here in Washington is a privilege and a sacred trust,” he said. “It’s a very unique opportunity afforded to not a lot of people. I’m just lucky to be here at all.”

‘It’s entirely up to you’

The Senate, where members serve six-year terms, divvies up its 100 offices in a significantly slower process with far fewer moves but with a similar result: The most senior members get the best spaces.

If the idea is to score one of the best suites in the House, patience helps, too.

With elections held every two years, the lower chamber’s senior members gradually work their way up to its largest suites as other members die, resign or get ousted. That can create a ripple effect. One office switch begets another, as the most senior member who wants that representative’s former office gets it.

It’s one way representatives announce their status, said a former House member who didn’t want to be named.

“It’s probably like sitting on the bench on a basketball team where they put you on the bench, and you sit close to the coach or down at the end,” the former member said. “A lot of those people, the only reason they move is because it seems more prestigious.”

Every new House member has to have a workspace. But upgrading to a nicer office means Capitol work crews move stacks of furniture, boxes, computers, phones and electronics – and public money gets spent – on the say-so of a single member of Congress.

“You can vote against an appropriations bill, but if your other 434 (House) colleagues say yes, well, you’re out of luck. But it’s entirely up to you to decide whether to trade up an office if one is offered to you,” said Pete Sepp, president of the D.C.-based watchdog group the National Taxpayers Union.

Presiding over the massive shift of departing members out of their offices and new and veteran members into those offices is the Architect of the Capitol, a $733.7 million-dollar administrative agency that oversees the Capitol complex.

But it’s a challenge to get answers from the agency about the total cost of the weeks-long biennial House office reshuffling.

The Washington Post reported in 2010 that then-Architect Steven T. Ayers “wouldn’t say how much this whole process of moving and painting offices costs.” In 2016, the agency would not give Roll Call a list of available House offices.

The Architect’s Office responded to fresh inquiries about the House office reshuffling’s costs by saying those costs are scattered across more than one agency in the $4 trillion-plus federal budget. So the Architect’s Office doesn’t know what they are. Several email and phone messages to the agency went unanswered.

But it is possible to get some idea of the scale of the endeavor.

A review of congressional directories indicates about 240 of 435 House members plus delegates are in the same offices they occupied in 2015-16. That accounts for a handful of recently departed members who didn’t move between terms. The remaining offices are occupied by new members or members who “upgraded” to new offices.

Making a projection based on anecdotal evidence, annual reports and historical congressional testimony by the Architect’s office, the National Taxpayers Union has pegged the total costs of the office reshuffling at between $1 million and $1.5 million biennially.

It may not be a lot of money in the context of the federal budget, Sepp said – but it’s a lot of money.

“Of course, what does it always come down to in cases like these? It’s what the average citizen can relate to,” he said.

The Long Game

So, what’s in it for taxpayers?

Members of Congress say there are legitimate work-related reasons to leverage seniority to get a better Capitol Hill office. Shorter walks to committee hearing rooms and the Capitol save time that can really add up in a busy day with several votes at different times. So does an office closer to elevators, escalators, building entrances, tunnels and stairwells. Bigger lobbies mean larger groups of constituents can visit. More space for staff means – more space for staff.

For Indiana Sen. Todd Young, a House member from 2011 to 2017, it was partly about being closer to the Longworth cafeteria. The bustling facility, popular with members, staff, lobbyists and the public, is the lower chamber’s largest.

“We started off on the top floor in a corner of (Longworth),” Young said in his Senate office. “It was not great space — but the next Congress, the next two years, we scored a really good office which was one floor up from the cafeteria, which both constituents and members of my staff enjoyed.”

Young’s new office also was close to the north and south doors of Longworth, which he said afforded “good access to ground level.”

Brad Fitch, head of the non-partisan, D.C.-based Congressional Management Foundation, suggested many members are playing a long game — moving to progressively better offices in hopes that one day they might even land in one of the lower chamber’s relatively few grand, spacious suites. Those are occupied by the most senior members, regardless of party.

They show one and all that some House offices are just better than others.

Like the 1,800-square foot Rayburn building suite now occupied by the dean of House members, Alaska Republican Don Young. Having served nearly 46 years, Young has a large conference room for meetings — a rarity in the House, where members and staff often must take visitors to hallways or cafeterias. His personal and office walls are covered with hundreds of mementos, awards, bills he’s had signed into law, photos with presidents and hunting trophies. There is even a totem pole and a large grizzly bear hide hanging just inside the public entrance.

A member gets an office like Young’s via upgrades over many years. Its previous occupant was Wisconsin Democrat David Obey, who served for 42 years.

Indiana Democrat Pete Visclosky, a veteran of almost 34 years in the House, isn’t even in the majority party – but he occupies a 1,800-square-foot space in Rayburn with a view of the building’s “horseshoe” entrance off South Capitol Street. The suite was previously occupied by Michigan Democrat John D. Dingell, who served in Congress for 59 years.

The 2.4 million-square-foot Rayburn building is where a member with seniority wants to be, Fitch said.

Built in 1965, it’s the newest House office building — and the only one with a connecting underground train to the Capitol. Cannon and Longworth, which are at least closer, are connected to the Capitol by underground tunnels. There’s a reason spaces in Rayburn rarely are available in the House freshman office lottery.

“Rayburn has better space for members — bigger space — but smaller for staff,” said Fitch, whose organization works with members and their staffs to improve the way congressional offices operate.

“Most (members) move to Rayburn for the opportunity to move to better Rayburn space over a period of time. You might get a conference space for meeting with people.”

Could Don Young, Pete Visclosky and others like them do their jobs from the comparatively shabby environs of Cannon’s fifth floor, or from Don Bacon’s much-maligned office at Longworth 1516? Without all the expense of “upgrading” to better offices?

“It comes down to that classic pair of choices – do you think the expenditure will serve your constituents better?” said National Taxpayers Union president Sepp. “Or do you think that not spending the money will send a helpful message to the folks back home?”
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