Uncategorized

Pre-Game at the Senate Finance Committee

By Karen Tumulty | September 22, 2009 | +

A few minutes after the scheduled 9 a.m. start, and Max Baucus has launched into his opening statement, declaring, “This is a balanced package.” At each place on the press tables is a stack of papers several inches deep.

I got here about a half-hour early and was not surprised to see what looked to be a couple hundred people standing in line. What I was surprised to discover (having not actually covered one of these things in a while) was this:

People had been lining up for 24 hours. But they were not the lobbyists whose well-paid hindquarters will actually occupy the few dozen precious seats that are set aside for the public in this room. It turns out there are services these days where you can pay someone to stand in line for you. I counted at least three of them: Linestanding.com; Washington Express, and J.E. Holdings. One woman, who was about a hundred people back, told me she had gotten here last night. A man near the front had a bedroll and what looked like most of his earthly belongings with him. In a bad economy, you do what you have to.

Related Topics: Health Care, health reform, mark-up, Senate Finance Committee, Uncategorized

  • Latest on Swampland

    Pete Souza / The White House via Getty Images
    Closeup May 25, 2012

    Political Picures of the Week, May 18-25

    TIME’s photo editors bring you the best pictures of the past week from the Beltway and beyond.

    From our Partners

    Obama Administration Blocks Global Health Fund To Fight Disease In Developing NationsHuffPost Politics

    From left: AP; ABACAUSA
    2012 Election May 25, 2012

    The Phony War: Obama and Romney Are Debating Character, Not Policy

    More than five months from Election Day, the back-and-forth about Mitt Romney’s record at Bain already feels played out. Unfortunately, there’s good reason to expect the campaign continues in this vein indefinitely. Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney are terribly interested in dwelling on policy platforms. Romney’s plan to slash spending and keep taxes low on the wealthy isn’t especially popular, at least not at any level of detail beyond a blithe promise to shrink the deficit. Meanwhile, Obama’s signature first-term achievements, like health care, the stimulus and Wall Street reform, are all unpopular or tricky to sell. (The Dodd-Frank bill is the most popular of these, but hyping it means offending wealthy donors.) So what we’re getting instead is a superficial duel about character–and, worse, one that’s based on the largely false premise that the better man can better “manage” the economy back to health.

  • georgiac

    Okay, so here’s where we can make an initial stand on reforming our legislative system: no stand-ins for lobbyists (sorry, unemployed people who will do whatever it takes in a bad economy). If the lobbysists want to monitor the hearings, let them fight for their seats.

  • http://twitter.com/ktumulty Karen Tumulty

    in the old days (I’m clearly dating myself here), the law firms and lobby shops used to send their interns to stand in line for them.

  • juniusredivivus

    But Karen, surely you aren’t a day over 30, judging from your quite deliciously tempting picture. Let me tell you, I remember how it was under Jefferson…..

blog comments powered by Disqus