We welcome you to the fourth anniversary issue of the 50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill.
With more beautiful people nominees than ever before, making choices was a wrenching and angst-filled process. Thanks to all that participated and we are happy to introduce The Hill's Top 10 beautiful people on Capitol Hill.
Also be sure to check out 40 more beautiful people and The Hill's Most Beautiful Office .
*Photos by Benjamin J. Myers
 1. Tall, dark and handsome
Name: Rep. Brad Ellsworth (Ind.)
Age: 48
Hometown: Jasper, Ind.
Political party: Democrat.
Dating status: Married to wife, Beth.
Women of all ages and political persuasions swoon when Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.) comes near. During a recent elevator ride in the Rayburn House Office Building, several noticeably gawked at the unassuming Ellsworth, who seemingly has little idea he is being admired.
Truth be told, Ellsworth is camera-shy. During his 10-minute photo shoot he grew embarrassed when his staffers walked past. Someone joked, “You want some Hot Tamales?”
The freshman lawmaker said he doesn’t resemble his father, whose photo rests beside his desk. His father has reddish-brown hair and glasses. “I’ve never been compared to anyone before,” Ellsworth said about his looks.
And what about those pearly whites? He had bad bottom teeth but never had the money to get braces as a kid. At 35, when his daughter was getting braces, he asked the orthodontist if he could have them too. He had braces for a year.
Badges from his years as a police officer hang on his office wall. In 1995 he was elected sheriff in Evansville, Ind., where he served for eight years.
Shopping isn’t his passion. “I’m a horrible shopper,” he said. “When my wife gets me into a dressing room with one shirt, she starts throwing stuff over the door because she knows she might not get me in there again.”
- By Betsy Rothstein and Emily Belz
 2. Tennessee beauty queen
Name: Crystal Hayslett
Age: 24
Hometown: Martin, Tenn.
Political party: Republican
Dating status: boyfriend
Crystal Hayslett, an aide to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), dates former Memphis Grizzlies forward Lawrence Roberts. She can tuck into a back flip from a standing start. Oh, and she’s beautiful.
Crystal’s also tough and poised, which helps working in the Senate. A former cheerleader and gymnast, she once ruptured her Achilles tendon demonstrating a flip. She had the presence of mind to immediately hold the ruptured tendon in place, minimizing the scar the surgeon would leave two months before the Miss Tennessee pageant.
Crystal has won scholarship money at pageants by singing Whitney Houston’s “Until You Come Back.” But don’t ask her to sing. She’s more nervous about performing in front of a small group of friends than before a large audience of strangers.
She hangs out with celebrities, but dating a professional athlete has unique challenges, such as knowing that “10,000 girls prettier than you are throwing themselves at your boyfriend.” Distance is also challenging. Roberts just signed up with a professional team in Greece.
Crystal says staying grounded is the best way to defeat insecurity. Her religious faith is a source of strength: “I’m very into God.”
- By Alexander Bolton
 3. The jewel of the Hill
Name: Kathleen O’Neill
Age: 23
Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Political Party: Democratic
Dating status: boyfriend
Kathleen O’Neill, an aide to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), says she’s not looking to be an attention grabber, but that’s not easy when you look like Mischa Barton or Jewel. Although Kathleen has worked in the Senate only a few months, she has enough poise to make you think otherwise. Maybe that’s because, for her, Washington is old hat.
She grew up in D.C. and her father, Joe O’Neill, is former chief of staff to the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas).
“I know every single person in this town,” she says with slight exageration, before catching herself to explain why Georgetown is boring. “I know most of the people; I grew up here.”
Kathleen said she wouldn’t mind a change of scenery, perhaps law school in another city. But she wants to return to master politics and policy as her father did.
His advice for succeeding on the Hill? Sweat the small stuff.
"No job is too small," she said, recounting his advice. "Every job is equally important."
- By Alexander Bolton
 4. It girl strikes a pose
Name: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.)
Age: 67
Hometown: Baltimore, Md.
Political Party: Democrat
Dating Status: Married to Paul Pelosi
It is rather uncomfortable calling the 67-year-old House Speaker HouseNancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), mother of five and grandmother of six, “hot.”
So we let others decide.
There is a Facebook.com group called “I can’t say why, but I kinda think Nancy Pelosi is cute.” There’s another group there, too, but its name is too crass to print.
Moreover, Pelosi has become a fashion icon in colorful Armani skirt-suits.
Robin Givhan, the Washington Post fashion critic, earlier this year wrote, “She looks polished and tasteful … dignified and serious [and] she also happens to look quite good.” A copy of a Chinese Sea Pearl ring that Pelosi has been wearing sells on eBay. Opening bid: 88 cents.
No question that wealth, posh homes and a loving family have helped smooth the rough edges of life.
Nevertheless, it is puzzling just how the first female Speaker of the House stays so fit. She is always working and traveling, rarely exercises and reportedly noshes on Ghirardelli mint chocolates.
Maybe Pelosi was right when she told The New York Times, “Ice cream for breakfast is a good thing.”
- By Jonathan E. Kaplan
 5. The shy and quiet fisherman
Name: Rep. Connie Mack (Fla.)
Age: 39 (until Aug. 12, when he turns the big four-oh).
Hometown: Fort Myers, Fla.
Political Party: Republican.
Dating status: In a relationship with Rep. Mary Bono (R-Calif.).
Don’t let Rep. Connie Mack’s tough-guy looks deceive you. He was bullied at school.
“I was the one who was picked on,” he said. “I still think I’m kind of a quiet, shy guy.”
He stays home in Crystal City, Va., for the most part, sometimes going out for coffee. That coif comes from Bubbles on Independence Avenue, where he always gets his hair cut. He doesn’t seem too picky about it, though.
“I’m telling you, I’m a boring guy,” he insisted.
The “boring” congressman has an open boat in Florida for deep-sea fishing, reeling in mahi-mahi and sailfish. On board, he listens to Jimmy Buffett. The small island of Cabbage Key serves as his secret getaway, where he can enjoy a hamburger and a cold beer.
Mack is very proud of his family. Both his parents are cancer survivors. His great-grandfather, for whom he is named, is in the baseball Hall of Fame as the owner and manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, where he served a record-breaking 50 years. His father — yet another Connie Mack — was also a Republican senator from Florida.
When asked if his friends say he resembles anyone famous, Mack replied that random people often comment, “You look just like my cousin!” or “You look like my friend!”
- By Emily Belz
 6. Ooh LaLa
Name: Diana Oo
Hometown: Rangoon, Burma
Age: 28
Party Affiliation: Democrat
Status: In a relationship
Diana Oo is the product of two (apparently very attractive) doctors. Other family traits weren’t passed on.
“I completely suck at science and math,” Oo said. “It’s really going against the grain for an Asian.”
Born in Rangoon, Burma, Oo was 1 when she and her parents left for Sri Lanka with $13 in their pockets to pursue a United Nations job. Oo and her family immigrated to the United States when she was 15.
In truth, Oo probably “completely sucked” at very little. Soon after arriving here, she was a “very shy” 16-year-old student at the University of Tennessee.
Oo eventually settled on becoming an attorney, a choice her parents didn’t immediately accept. “I might as well have said I was moving to Los Angeles to become an actress,” she said. They’ve since come around.
Oo said she leapt at an offer to work as Democratic counsel on the House Judiciary Committee, where she focuses on technology issues.
“I realized that I could combine my love of policy with my love of intellectual property,” she said.
- By Jim Snyder
 7. The Blessed Aide
Name: Mustafa Ali
Age: 30-ish
Political Party: Democrat
Hometown: Fairmont, W.Va.
Dating status: Single
Once you meet Mustafa, it’s hard not to describe him as otherworldly. He stands 6-foot-3, and has a fine-featured face with warm, charcoal eyes. But it’s not just his looks that set him apart. This legislative aide to Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) has an infectious calm and an insatiable appetite to do good. A former national speaker on social injustice, he regularly volunteers to help the needy. It’s something that runs through his blood from his grandmother and mother, both Pentecostal ministers.
Mustafa was born in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and is of Ethiopian and Middle Eastern descent. He modeled as an undergrad in New York to pay his way for college, doing everything from runway shows to photo shoots.
He likes being around artistic people and he writes poetry and music himself. And if he were to take anyone on a perfect date — say, in Jamaica watching the sunset — he would have a serenade or two ready. But he says he’s rarely approached and he’s too laid back to do the approaching himself. He believes that two people who are supposed to be together will come together.
Often when he’s asked how he is, he says: “I’m blessed.” But really, everyone around him is blessed.
- By Roxana Tiron
 8. Bold and Beautiful
Name: Bonnie Allen
Age: 20-something.
Hometown: Beaufort, S.C.
Political party: Democrat
Dating status: Content to be single (although you never know what’s going to happen).
Bonnie Allen came to the Hill in February to work as a staff assistant for the House Ways and Means Committee.
Allen is a captivating figure in a small package. Stylish in her attire and upbeat and cool in her personality, this “beach girl” is quick with a laugh or funny comment. She grew up horseback riding, she says, and moved to Lanham, Md., when she was 10.
During high school, she wasn’t easily challenged in her schoolwork, so she home-schooled herself the last two years and graduated early.
In her spare time, Allen plays piano and roller skates. It’s no big surprise — she grew up watching her great-aunts play piano in the church. “Everyone has a piano in their home,” she says, laughing.
She is serious when it comes to her work and studies. At 18 she studied economics at George Washington University for two years. She then left school and commuted to Manhattan three days a week to work in fashion at Jill Stewart on 7th Avenue. Back in Maryland, she got her real estate license.
Growing up, Allen was known for her ability to talk. In school, she says, “it was always, ‘Your daughter talks a lot.’” Allen agrees with the assessment, saying, “I have the gift of gab.”
- By Betsy Rothstein
 9. Lady in Red
Name: Rebeccah Ramey
Age: 24
Hometown: Fredericktown, Ohio
Political party: Republican.
Dating Status: “Not single.”
If she were wearing only a gray suit and pearls, Rebeccah Ramey would blend into a sea of professional young men and women who flock to Capitol Hill after college.
But donning bright red shoes and carrying a bright red tote bag, Ramey stands out in a way that is both flashy and conservative. Fashion writers in Elle would say Ramey looks professional and feminine; GQ would say she looks, well, hot.
Ramey drove to Washington two years ago in an aging Oldsmobile (which now has 115,000 miles on it and is running just fine, thank you) with no job and no place to stay.
After an internship at the Heritage Foundation and a job on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) hired her to work on defense issues. One gets the impression she could talk for hours about the benefits of missile defense. In fact, one quickly realizes there’s an inner nerd.
If she were not in politics, Ramey said, she would be studying political philosophy. So gentlemen, study your Plato and Aristotle.
- By Jonathan E. Kaplan
 10. Brains and Beauty
Name: Jamie Skipper
Age: 30
Political party: Republican
Hometown: Chicago
Dating status: Married to Matt Skipper, former aide to Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.)
Jamie Skipper was in church when she noticed a handsome man across the pews singing along to the hymns. And boy, did she pray. “Lord, I want a guy like that someday,” she said to herself and to God.
Skipper is finishing up a fellowship with the National Academy of Sciences that often brings her to Capitol Hill. She is now preparing for a new job as legislative assistant to Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.).
This woman is smart as a whip. After graduating from Marquette University, where she studied nursing, she studied in Scotland for three years to earn her Ph.D. in cardiac physiology. Before getting the fellowship with the National Academy of Sciences, she managed heart-failure research at the National Institutes of Health.
Skipper is a native of Chicago but both parents are from India — something that had worried her when it came to the issue of marriage. The handsome man in church soon became her boyfriend, but he was American and Caucasian, far from what she thought her parents would ever accept.
So again, she prayed: “Lord, if this is OK, give me a sign.”
The sign came from the fact that her parents immediately took to her husband-to-be, Matt Skipper, and loved him from the start. And she knew.
“It came from a lot of praying,” she says.
- By Betsy Rothstein
>> CLICK HERE TO SEE THE REST |
