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The Capitol building is prepared for almost any contingency.
Terrorist attacks, power outages, the sudden death of a member — there are protocols to ensure the legislative branch can serve the country no matter what misfortune befalls it.
But something came up this week for which nobody was ready: Cups Coffee Shop’s coffeemaker broke down. Yes, it broke.
A sign posted on the door of the establishment — known as “the only place in the Senate to get a decent cup of coffee” — yesterday appeared to leave the Senate teetering on the brink of chaos.
“Due to machine failure, all brewed coffees (regular, decaf, flavored) and hot teas are unavailable. Please try a cappuccino, latte, americano or any other espresso drinks. Sorry for the inconvenience. Cups.”
Senate aides read the sign in abject horror. A witness to the early-morning rush reported that responses ranged from disbelief (“Seriously? They have no coffee?”) to despair (“What am I going to do now?”) to a conspiracy theory that the “machine failure” was a ploy to force customers to buy more expensive drinks.
In the end, all we can do is wait for Cups to fix the beloved machine. And figure out some way to get a backup coffeemaker slipped into the legislative branch bill.
Senate staffers fight for better child careThe difficulty of finding and affording good child care is an issue that is not lost on the Senate.
Many of the chamber’s chiefs of staff have joined forces during recent months, frustrated that the waiting list for the Senate Employees Childcare Center has stretched to nearly two years.
Tired of hearing from staffers who found they actually had moved down on the list, the top dogs from a broad, bipartisan swath of Senate offices did something they often see done in their jobs: They registered a complaint.
What began as grumbling over the chiefs’ monthly breakfast meetings led to more gatherings of aggravated staffers, who realized the problem could be traced partly to a policy that allowed siblings of non-Senate employees to be placed ahead of children of Senate employees on the waiting list.
The chief of staff to Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Bob Russell, told his colleagues that four of his employees had been trying to get into the child care center and that one fell 11 slots back on the list due to siblings of children in the facility taking priority.
The child care center is tiny — only nine slots open up for infants each year.
The staffers have achieved some success. The center’s director, Christine Schoppe Wauls, announced in a memo last month that children of non-Senate employees would no longer get priority over children of Senate employees.
Still, children will continue to lose ground on the list, because siblings of children in the child care center will continue to get placed at the top of the list — that’s a standard policy at nearly all daycare centers.
Russell and others said that they are still gathering ideas about how to make child care more available to Senate employees. All they have agreed upon so far is that something has to change.
“I cannot predict what the outcome is going to be,” Russell said.
If the suit fitsIt’s safe to say that Nancy Pelosi’s clothes have gotten more attention than those of any House Speaker before her.
So when we heard that she was going to appear at the Capitol PurSuit Clothing Drive — the event is sponsored by The Hill, Men’s Warehouse and the American League of Lobbyists — we had some important questions. For instance, would Pelosi’s suits, which would go to individuals trying to enter the professional workforce, come with a string of her trademark oversized pearls? Should we go ahead and start looking for the “suit warn by the first woman Speaker of the House” ad on eBay?
Sadly, our hopes were dashed when Pelosi arrived, in crisp linen, with two suits donated by staffers that clearly were not the elegant, brightly hued threads we’ve come to expect from the Californian.
“There’s more to come,” Pelosi explained.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who didn’t bring a donation to the event from his own closet, said he knows well the kind of good organizations like PurSuit can do. Rohrabacher told reporters that he happened to be wearing his “Goodwill suit” to the event.
He said he purchased almost his entire ensemble from the secondhand store in an effort save money.
“This is just a little bit extra to help my babies,” the father of three said.
Times are tough for the necessarily bicoastal congressman, but he said he takes pride in having gotten to Congress without deep pockets.
“Half the people you see walking around here are millionaires,” Rohrabacher said.
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