LGBT POV

(Editor’s note:  I first met Charles Stewart in the late 80s/early 1990s when his close friend Phill Wilson was running the National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum. Those were the days when the late poet Essex Hemphill and filmmaker Marlon Riggs were hot and controversial with Rigg’s artistic documentary “Tongues Untied: Black Men Loving Black Men.”  Charles went to work for Diane Watson, an elected official from the Los Angeles area who now represents her district in Congress. On Sunday, Nov. 8, the day after the healthcare bill passed the US House of Representatives, Charles wrote an email to his father about the experience of watching history being made. While many of us are still rankled over the inclusion of the anti-abortion provision and we await the Senate version of the bill, it is important to remember this night – and Charles, an openly gay congressional staffer, graciously gave me permission to share it with you. It is especially significant to note how Charles’ email to his father concludes.  Herewith the letter – Karen Ocamb)

Nov. 8, 2009

Dad,

I admit I had doubt. But last night I saw it with my own eyes from the gallery above the House of Representatives’ floor. Friday, staff were told to report early Saturday morning, be prepared to work into the wee hours, and to work all day Sunday as well.

Because of the expected deluge of “tea baggers” to protest against healthcare reform, security was tight, the phones rang non-stop (mostly pro-healthcare), but the boss wanted our office door kept open to the public (only Representatives Judy Chu and John Conyers also kept their office doors open on our floor of the Rayburn House Building, although I know many of them were being staffed behind closed doors).

Diane said the President was inspiring and confident in his meeting yesterday morning with the Democratic Caucus, which we’d been told the night before was cancelled so he could spend the day in Texas with the families of the shooting victims at Ft. Hood. But he swung by the Capitol before boarding Air Force One.

Diane had to go back and forth via tunnel to the Capitol all day long, whenever the vote buzzer went off in the office. The morning session to bring healthcare reform to the floor for a vote started off chilly and got downright mean, as a parade of our female Democratic Members stepped up to the mic in succession to speak in favor of the bill, driving the Republicans to scramble to get their far fewer women Members to do likewise.

Diane’s comment was interrupted, like all the other Dem women, by the Republicans yelling out points of order, rattling poor old Rep. John Dingell, who’s 83 and was acting Speaker for Pelosi as the senior Member of the House (in office since 1955, at the beginning of every House session Dingell introduces a bill calling for national health system, the same bill his father proposed while he was in the House). His hand must have started to ache because he finally flipped the gavel around and held it by the mallet as he kept pounding it to rule the Republicans out of order.

Debate and delaying maneuvers went on like that all day, first on the Rule allowing the bill to come to the floor, then on the anti-abortion amendment which passed (the pro-life Dems refused to compromise, threatening to vote against healthcare reform entirely unless the bill, which already banned federal funding for abortions, was broadened to appease America’s top-ranking Catholic bishops who insisted that the bill must also ban any healthcare program {made available to women who receive federal aid} from allowing them to pay for an abortion with their own money — which infuriated most of the women Members and almost killed the whole bill), then on the Republicans’ substitute amendment, and finally, at 11:30pm, on healthcare reform itself.

The remnant of Diane’s staff (she sent most home at noon) went from betting over how long the Republicans could play defense to dickering over which of us was going to get to crash on the couch in our lobby (the sofa in Diane’s office was reserved, of course, for her to sleep on if necessary). We’d lugged in breakfast (and Members get fed by their respective Caucuses in the Capitol), but by 7pm I volunteered to go stand out on Independence Avenue and New Jersey (the Capitol was majestic, lit up in the autumn night!) waiting for delivery of our Chinese take-out, since post-9/11 barriers don’t allow unofficial cars to get close to the buildings anymore.

Finally, after 10pm the last buzzer sounded. I rode across the street to the Capitol with Diane, this time by car since she hoped to be able to drive on home after this vote, thence to L.A. on the morrow. We dropped her off on the Capitol’s southern steps and started to park when she told me to hand her our copy of the bill, H.R. 3962, through the window.

I had to walk the five floors up to the House Gallery showing my staff I.D. repeatedly before seeing, in dismay, the long line of political junkies, Members’ relatives and other staffers trying to get in to witness the historic vote. Stripped down to shirt, pants and shoes (even blackberry, notepad and pen were taken), and being wanded down repeatedly, the Sergeants-at-arms finally let us in, warning us sternly not to applaud or shout under any circumstances. My boss was standing on the floor down below wearing chartreuse and carrying the bill in one hand and her purse in the other, as all the Members milled about, chattering.

Then the countdown began. Two members had been elected to the House Tuesday in Special Elections from New York and California (Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi) to replace Members who had been invited to join Obama’s Administration, so all 435 seats of the House of Representatives were occupied on the floor below.

50% + 1 of 435 = 218, a majority. There’s a scoreboard above the Speaker’s rostrum which shows the Members’ votes, each of them casting it by insertion of their individual magcards in aisle stations. There were some shout-outs as Republicans challenged the Chair and were ruled out of order. The clock began to tick down from 15 minutes, and the vote tally appeared, showing the name of each member as they voted, as well as the total of Ayes and Nays.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (a spry brotha from South Carolina) moved around the floor encircling various Members, themselves encircled by their chief aides, and toward the end Pelosi would every now and then collect a slip of paper from a Member, pirouette up to the well, and hand it to a clerk who handed it up to acting Speaker Dingell.

The Republicans, as usual, voted right away, so at first the Nays had it. Then the Dems got down to business, gradually caught up and pulled ahead. Not only were the media (in their own section directly above the Speaker’s dais) and everyone in the Gallery watching the tally on the wall, but the Members on the floor gazed up while talking, pacing, and squeezing by each other.

The suspense became unbearable as the Ayes reached 210 and seemed to freeze, while the Nays hovered at 196. Vote by vote, the Ayes and Nays raced against the clock, which ticked down to 5 minutes, at which point Members could only submit or change votes by hand.

Motion on the Republican side was static, most Members sitting in their chairs or standing at the back of the room directly below me. But motion on the Dem side reached a frenzy and the buzz gradually grew to a roar.

The Nays crept up above 210. The Ayes on the tally board stuck at 215 for what seemed like forever. Then 216, then 217, then it seemed like everyone in the Gallery jumped to their feet as applause broke out from down below, joined by us when even some of the Sergeants clapped.

Only then did I notice that not everyone was standing: the staffers I’d chatted with seated next to and behind me were not standing, but leaning back or slumped forward over the railing — suddenly it was clear who among our Greek chorus were Reps and who were Dems, pros and cons. The applause below focused and was amplified with hurrahs as half the room turned toward the woman in red [Pelosi] and stood, while the Republicans on the other side of the aisle began to file out.

Waiting to escort Diane to the car after retrieving my stuff, I stood at the base of the double-stairs below a painting five times my height in which I recognized the likenesses of Washington and Franklin. After sergeants herded reporters beyond my perch and into the Press Room, I caught the eye of the lady in red leading a pack in my direction; she smiled when I said “Congratulations, Madam Speaker” and was whisked away.

The boss soon followed, handed me that humongous bill (though not nearly as huge as the Republicans claim, when printed in ordinary 10 point font, single-spaced and on both sides of the sheet), and pulled me into the media room behind her. It was so hot and crowded I broke out in a dizzy sweat, but managed to get Diane seated and stayed upright to hear Pelosi’s statement, those of the Democratic Leadership (including Rep. Patrick Kennedy who said, “My father was a Senator, but tonight his spirit is here in the House!” I was sentimental enough to mist up), and the questions put to her by the press.

No sooner were they done and broke up then Diane sprang forward, I assumed to remind Leadership of something or someone they’d forgotten to acknowledge during the press conference. But 10 minutes later I followed her out the door and she handed me the bill again, this time with signatures on the cover sheet of every member of the Democratic Leadership who had pushed Obama’s healthcare reform into reality and history.

I didn’t care that I got lost yet again in the underground tunnel from the Capitol to Rayburn. Diane’s dictated statement was quickly uploaded to her website and e-blasted to the media, I lay the bill down on her desk, and we shut down the office.

It was 1:30 a.m. when a cabbie, whose taxi I’d jumped into yet who obviously didn’t relish driving this big black fella into Maryland, expelled me saying “You catch train. No stopped yet!” So it took an extra half hour, but I saved 25 bucks and fell asleep across my bed, pants on. Next, the Senate…

Freddie

Charles Stewart

Legislative Director

U.S. Rep. Diane Watson

2430 Rayburn House Bldg.

Washington, D.C. 20515