The House of Representatives Is Different Now. The Future Is in It.
WASHINGTON-On the day on which the House of Representatives changed hands, and on a day on which the halls of the Congress were alive with the various sounds of children of all ages, including the adult ones, the most remarkable thing I saw was a thick wooden table in a room named after the late Sam Rayburn, who was the last Speaker of the House to lose the job and get it back again.
On the table were an assortment of books. There were no less than seven versions of the Bible, from the Catholic Douay version, to the Eastern Orthodox, to an assortment of King James editions, to the African-American Heritage Bible. There were two copies of the Tanakh. There was a Qu'ran. There was a Hindu Veda and a Buddhist Sura. There were two copies of the United States Constitution. If you were a member of the House waiting to take your constitutionally mandated oath, this table had you covered. It was a sacred-secular smorgasbord.
(There were also several special orders. Rashida Tlaib, the newly elected congresswoman from the 13th Congressional District of Michigan, and the first Palestinian woman to be elected to the House, chose to swear herself in on a copy of the Qu'ran that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. There also was some historical resonance to having a copy of the Constitution on the table: President John Quincy Adams was sworn in on one.)
The books on the table were silent witnesses to an altogether remarkable day. Besides Tlaib, Illan Omar, a Somali immigrant from Minnesota, also was sworn in, resplendent in a white-and-gold hijab. A few rows in front of Omar in the House chamber was Deb Haaland of New Mexico, dressed in turquoise jewelry and traditional Pueblo Native costume. Along with Sharice Davids of Kansas, Haaland is one of the first two Native American women to be elected to the Congress. After the morning's business was concluded, the two women enfolded each other, weeping, in a long embrace, Haaland using David's scarf to wipe away her tears.
All of these new members of the House, it needn't be said, were members of the Democratic Party. So was virtually every person of color in the chamber. On the other side of the hall was a largely monochromatic new Republican minority that channelled its foul mood through the person of Congresswoman Liz Cheney, child of the Undead, who spit up a bitter, Trumpian nominating speech on behalf of Republican leader Kevin McCarthy's candidacy for the speakership. She even went to "build that wall," which got her a hoot and a holler from her fellow Republicans, but which was drowned out by the sound of happy children and grandchildren from the other side of the aisle. It was as though someone had grafted a Chuck E. Cheese onto a funeral parlor.
Nancy Pelosi, because she is smarter than everyone in the House, and much smarter than anyone in the White House, god knows, was re-elected easily to be the new Speaker, although the balloting was not devoid of hilarity. Pelosi and McCarthy were the only two announced candidates, but votes also were cast for Reps. Jim Jordan, Cheri Bustos, and Marcia Fudge, as well as for Senator Tammy Duckworth, defeated Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Conor Lamb, the rookie from Pennsylvania, voted for Rep. Joe Kennedy, who got a good laugh out of it, and Ron Kind, Democrat of Wisconsin, voted for Rep. John Lewis, who looked rather frosty about it. Two Democratic House members voted "Present." And Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey haplessly voted, "No," which was not on the menu. Tim Ryan of Ohio and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, both of whom made noises months ago about challenging Pelosi, both voted for her. And, when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez voted for Pelosi, there was some kind of organized whoo-hoo from the Republican side. She simply makes them completely crazy.
The most touching moment of the balloting came when Lucy McBath of Georgia dedicated her vote for Pelosi to her late son, Jordan, murdered for the offense of playing his music too loudly for the white guy in the next car. McBath threw herself into the fight for sensible gun laws, and that culminated in her election in November. This was quite a moment, as was the embrace between Davids and Haaland. It took 240 years for people like the two of them to represent their fellow citizens in a government that did so much bloody damage to their people.
Pelosi's speech was sturdy and workmanlike, but it acknowledged the changes in her party, and in the nature of its majority.
Our nation is at an historic moment. Two months ago, the American people spoke, and demanded a new dawn. They called upon the beauty of our Constitution: our system of checks and balances that protects our democracy, remembering that the legislative branch is Article I: the first branch of government, co-equal to the president and judiciary. They want a Congress that delivers results for the people, opening up opportunity and lifting up their lives. When our new members take the oath, our Congress will be refreshed, and our democracy will be strengthened by the optimism, idealism and patriotism of this transformative freshman class. Working together, we will redeem the promise of the American Dream for every family, advancing progress for every community.
The rest of the afternoon was taken up by small receptions and endless selfies from aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers, grandparents and grandsons. When it all had settled down, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley stopped to chat among the statues of famous Americans in a basement hallway. Pressley, of course, defeated a longtime incumbent named Michael Capuano in a Democratic primary in an upset almost as big as the one pulled off by AOC. Pressley pronounced herself ready to go to work.
"It feels like we're getting closer to leadership parity and to representative government," Pressley said. "You cannot have a representative democracy if everyone is not represented. It is incredibly heartening to see that we're getting close to that, but I want to make sure I say that a more representative democracy is not something we can pat ourselves on the back for. I know that, ultimately, the issues that are raised and that are championed will be more robust and fully informed. The solutions are more innovative and more enduring when you have a diversity of perspective. When you have that, we are all better for it, because different questions get asked. And when different questions get asked, new problems get solved.
"The Congressional Black Caucus swearing-in this morning was surreal. I would be honored just to be sharing a stage with the likes of Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee and Jim Clyburn, and John Lewis. But now to have taken an oath of office and serve in the same body with them-we're excited to get to some course correction, because the country needs it and the American people deserve it."
It is a different place now, this House of Representatives. There is something of the future in it, and god alone knows where it will lead, but the work, the real work, begins now.
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