A Retiring Congressman’s Advice to New Members of the House
For many years, Representative Earl Blumenauer began each Congress by writing a personal letter to every new member of the House and hand-delivering it to their office. The letter contained all the advice he wished that he had been given in his first term.
Now Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, has retired after 28 years in office. This month marks the last time that newcomers will get his letter, which has evolved in the nearly two decades since he drafted the first version. He shared the final letter with me last month. It focused more than I expected on the human needs of the men and women elected to represent us. This is because, Blumenauer proposed in an interview, Congress would perform better if lawmakers ate healthy, got enough exercise, made more time for family, forged deeper connections with fellow members, and took care to hire good staffers.
What follows is an edited version of our interview.
Conor Friedersdorf: You joined the House for the first time in 1996, and 10 years later, you wrote an orientation letter to help new colleagues. What inspired it?
Earl Blumenauer: I was campaigning in North Carolina for a former professional football player named Heath Shuler––and while talking with his campaign manager, an experienced political operative, it became clear to me that even though he knew how to run a campaign, he had no idea how to help Heath set up a congressional office if he won. For the bulk of a long drive, I tried to give him a sense of what he was getting into. And when I got home, I developed two or three pages capturing that information.
Starting out right is important, given the challenges they are about to face, not just as a member but as a human being, because, to be honest, Congress can be soul crushing. The job is often hectic. It's totally unpredictable. And many aspects of it are getting worse.
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Friedersdorf: Americans can turn on C-SPAN and see committee hearings, floor debates, and votes on bills where everyone says “yay” or “nay.” What’s hectic and unpredictable?
Blumenauer: The dance of legislation is much more complicated than the Schoolhouse Rock version. It’s very hard to predict if or when many votes will be held. You’re dealing with the dynamics between the House and the Senate, the dynamic in your party––just trying to negotiate a through line with your own coalition––and, of course, there are conflicts between the parties, and the dynamic with the president. And even a single House member can upset the apple cart and blow things up if they are so inclined.
The schedule can be disrupted in a heartbeat and often is. You have an appointment where you anticipate solving a problem with somebody over a nice dinner, and that gets blown up because of legislative hassles. Suddenly, you’ve got an unexpected late night of work, no opportunity to get food, and an early-morning Zoom call with a group back home. Or maybe you’re delayed on the floor, you’ve got people waiting for you at a reception, and whatever you need to accomplish is cut short because you’re rushing to catch a flight to your district, where you have obligations both professional and personal.
You race around with a knot in your stomach, week after week. Will I make this meeting? This vote? This flight?
Friedersdorf: You advise getting to know lots of other members. How does that help?
Blumenauer: We have seen in the last couple of years sort of a guerrilla, performative approach to the legislative process, where people are more than willing to just blow things up because they are not interested in passing legislation. They’re not interested in outcomes that normal people would anticipate. They are there to get clicks, command eyeballs, and get online contributions. That introduces more uncertainty into the process. And you don’t want to waste time on something that turns out to be a sideshow or a personal vendetta. So you look to others for information. No one person knows what is happening in Congress at any given time, so relationships become very important for figuring out what will and won’t happen. Meeting new members and their staffers and spouses has helped me to understand what’s going on and who I can work with.
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Friedersdorf: I was surprised by how much of your advice would apply to someone in any high-stress job––you tell members of Congress to eat healthy, to exercise, to set aside time for family.
Blumenauer: I advise people to keep healthy food at their desks because mealtime is wildly unpredictable. I advise making a habit of taking the stairs and riding a bike to work because that builds exercise you wouldn’t otherwise get into your routine. And it’s easy to get caught up in the job and neglect family if you don’t set aside family time on your calendar and instruct your staff to respect it.
Friedersdorf: Following that advice would doubtless help members personally. Would it also be better for the country?
Blumenauer: I strongly feel that’s the case. You’ve got a bunch of people who are far from home, inadequately nourished, overly caffeinated, perhaps drinking alcohol, often sleep deprived, cranky, and constantly plunged into uncertainty about their schedule and travel.
Friedersdorf: In other words, you want well-rested, well-nourished, unharried legislators, because life stressors make reaching sound conclusions and compromises even harder than it would otherwise be?
Blumenauer: Exactly. Especially if they’re not in a safe seat, they’re fundraising too. They sometimes lose track of what city they're in, going from hotel room to hotel room, all of which look the same. It takes a physical toll. And emotionally, if people are involved with leadership or intense political activities, or are just tightly wound, this can add up to outbreaks of conflict. All these things seem manageable in isolation, especially at first, but they take a cumulative toll. Unless you help people understand the dynamic that they’re entering, they won’t appreciate what they need to do to preserve their family, friendships, and health. Those kinds of struggles make you worse at your job. It is vital to humanize this process.
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Friedersdorf: You give your letter to Republicans and Democrats. You want members of both parties to be at their best. Why?
Blumenauer: So much of what we do is not inherently partisan. I've always, from my very first political experience, looked for the things that bring people together. I started on a campaign to lower the voting age and developed relationships on both sides of the aisle for that constitutional amendment. I was struck by how powerful it is to allow people to work cooperatively.
Every piece of legislation I introduce starts out as being bipartisan. We’ve got a bipartisan bicycle caucus. Animal welfare is not a partisan issue and shouldn’t be. I’ve worked assiduously to cultivate, if I can use that term, a bipartisan coalition on cannabis policy.
Infrastructure didn’t used to be partisan. It was one of those things that brought people together to deliver for their districts. Some of my proudest accomplishments deal with international water, where we put together a bipartisan coalition that’s provided resources for poor people around the globe dealing with water and sanitation. It has resulted in tens of millions of lives being saved. It’s not without controversy; you’ve gotta pay for it. And sometimes it gets caught up in partisan controversy. But in the main, it doesn't.
Friedersdorf: The most powerful committees in Congress have tremendous power and influence. You advise new members to avoid underrating less prestigious committees. Why?
Blumenauer: I worked hard for a dozen years to get on the Ways and Means Committee, and wow, it’s been really exciting and impactful. But there are no bad committees. While working to get on Ways and Means, I was able to have an impact on the Foreign Affairs Committee, dealing with trade policy and technology. The Transportation Infrastructure Committee is profound in its impact on communities across the country. So if you want to be on the money committees where they tax and spend, that’s fine. But being on Foreign Affairs, or Veterans Affairs––because they’re not prestigious, they have more turnover. You can end up being a chair or a ranking member of a subcommittee in one or two sessions of Congress. You can develop expertise, move more legislation, get visibility, and achieve significant successes.
Friedersdorf: You urge new members to invest a lot of time and effort in how they staff their new offices. How does better-than-average staffing translate into better results for members?
Blumenauer: You can’t be an expert on every issue. And there is the added responsibility to represent the people at home who have problems. You must learn to empower staff to sort through issues and to help us reach out and represent constituents. We are, I think, woefully understaffed. So hiring men and women who are dedicated to being problem solvers, who are loyal to their member, loyal to the district and their oath, makes all the difference. I advise being slow and deliberate while staffing up, and moving on quickly if it’s not working. Nonperformers sap the enthusiasm of people on your team who do perform.
But as Congress has gotten more performative, some members have de-emphasized staff expertise. They hire for PR skills, while doing few constituent services and hiring no policy people at all.
Friedersdorf: On votes, you advise, “Don’t vote against your conscience” or your “best judgment.” You call that “one thing that you cannot explain to your family and close supporters.” What tempts members of Congress to cast votes that they can’t defend?
Blumenauer: It’s how we got the Iraq War. A number of us saw very clearly this was a mistake. But in the aftermath of 9/11, the Iraq War was popular, and there was a sense among a number of members that if they didn’t go along with popular opinion, despite their reservations, they’d pay a price. A lot of foreign-policy decisions have had tragic consequences because it’s so difficult for people to cast votes on the merits and their conscience. At times, I’ve heard from other members, I admired what you did. I wish I could have done that. But the job is to do that. I make the point that the perceived political cost doesn’t really matter on a lot of such votes, because people twist, distort, or lie about your voting record anyway. So straddling difficult issues ends up not helping anyway.
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Friedersdorf: If you were writing a letter to Americans about what they don’t know about Congress, what would you tell them?
Blumenauer: I’d start with what we do to help people understand the basics. There are three branches of government. More than half of the public doesn’t know that. So we’ve got our work cut out for us. Another problem: The vast majority of people are not even participating in primaries. They get information through social media and grotesque advertising campaigns. And they don’t take advantage of opportunities for actually meeting candidates.
I don’t have any snappy slogans or easy answers. But one way to improve things is for Congress and the 535 men and women who represent all of us to exercise their responsibilities more carefully. To be a little more sensitive to one another’s needs as human beings and to run the legislative process with that in mind. We need to model the behavior that we want to see from the political process. Identifying issues that are important but not divisive is extraordinarily rewarding. And it’s how we’re going to get through this difficult era: by focusing on things that weren’t in the crossfire of the last election.