Got a date? Pols pair off for SOTU
By: Meredith ShinerPolitico
January 22, 2011
Lawmakers on the Hill haven’t quite broken out the corsages — yet — but the high school level drama is on as senators and representatives scramble to find suitable across-the-aisle seating partners for Tuesday’s State of the Union address.
The very public rollout of odd-couple pairings this week, from lofty press releases to tweets to public displays of bipartisan affection on national TV — where Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) kicked off a Capitol craze on “Meet the Press” last Sunday by announcing their intentions to sit together — has turned conventional State of the Union wisdom on its head.
A night typically marked by highly symbolic partisan coordination, from seating charts to dramatic, orchestrated applause for the president, now has become about the buildup: Which Democrat will sit with which Republican on which side of the aisle? And now that the room is all mixed, will it become as awkward as a high school dance where no one knows exactly what to do when sitting next to a new partner?
Perhaps the hubbub is not quite what Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) had in mind when he sent an open letter to Congress asking his colleagues to break tradition this year because of the Jan. 8 shootings at a constituent event for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Approximately 60 lawmakers have signed onto Udall’s letter.
But this is Congress, and if lawmakers weren’t trying to get a few minutes of attention, even for the noblest of causes, it wouldn’t be right.
And no pair symbolizes the uniqueness of this arrangement better than Democrat Anthony Weiner and Republican Pete King, whose wife, in suggesting the two sit together, called them the “biggest loudmouths” in the House.
Last summer, Weiner got into a shouting match with King on the House floor over the 9/11 first-responders health care bill, yelling repeatedly, “The gentleman will sit! The gentleman will sit!” in what became one of the most iconic — or, at least, viral — moments of the 111th Congress.
Tuesday, the gentleman will be sitting. Right next to Weiner.
“To me, this is really stretching the outer limits of civility for Weiner and I to be sitting together,” King told POLITICO, crediting his wife for the idea. “He wants to sit on the GOP side with me, so I guess for one night he can pretend he’s in the majority.”
“It’s a nice thing. I’m going to be sitting on the Republican side, so not only will Peter King be my date, he may be my security detail also,” Weiner added. “Look, Peter and I have had our moments. We disagree on a lot of things, and from time to time we disagree very loudly, but if we’re going to get stuff done for New York, we’re going to have to work together.”
Lawmakers and aides from both chambers and parties are getting private laughs at the Beltway spectacle the State of the Union run-up has become. To them, the partnerships for one night are as painless as they were obvious to form. The buzz — like when CNN ran a segment Friday showing side-by-side pictures of lawmaker SOTU pairs with a heart graphic between them — is just what happens when people turn off the partisanship for a night.
Several senators, for example, have announced they will sit with the other member of their state’s delegation, including Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey (D) and newly elected Pat Toomey (R) and Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin and GOP freshman Mark Kirk.
“I don’t know that there was any directives or manual of how to court your date, the Udall letter sort of put the idea in people’s head,” said an aide to Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. “Durbin and Kirk have worked together on a few issues and then it just sort of came up, ‘Hey we should sit with each other.’ It’s sort of a logical thing.”
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) have a long history of working together at the head of the Small Business Committee and almost always express a mutual respect and admiration for each other. Tuesday night they will sit on the Republican side of the aisle in what Landrieu called “a small reflection of the friendship Olympia and I share.”
Others also have chosen to sit with their counterparts from the other party, most notably House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), who are at the polar ends of the political spectrum but co-chairs of the Congressional Cancer Caucus, released a statement Friday saying they would sit together and calling for an end to harsh political rhetoric.
The most-talked about pairing revelation Friday was made by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who announced via twitter she would be sitting with Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). Gillibrand and Thune are both rising stars within their own caucuses, leading many to tease gently online that perhaps the two would be the most popular at the ball.
“Sen. Thune and I are working on an earmarks bill that’s about transparency, and it puts earmarks on a searchable database. So I just called him and asked him if he’d like to go to the State of the Union. He said he would,” Gillibrand said.
When asked if it felt like a prom, Gillibrand said “yes!” and laughed. She said she had run through a few potential seatmates — John McCain of Arizona or Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — but they were sitting on the other side of the room.
Graham and McCain, likely very appealing partners for any Senate Democrat, have not announced their plans for Tuesday. McCain’s office said he hadn’t yet decided on his date and likely will not announce until Monday. Graham’s office was not clear on whether he will make such an announcement at all.
But when the House chamber is filled Tuesday, everyone — regardless of party — will be more concerned with what President Barack Obama has to say than who they are sitting next to when he says it. White House advisers have said Obama will focus on finding common ground with Republicans on areas like education and the economy, pointing to a bipartisan deal in December to extend the Bush-era tax cuts as an example of how the parties can work together.
The State of the Union seating arrangement is symbolic, and King said while it’s important to show that Democrats and Republicans can get along, sitting next to a fellow New Yorker like Weiner, who is unabashedly liberal, does not mean the two will magically agree on everything. Nor should they have to.
“I’m trying to show two things: We can really go at each other and not take it personally. Anthony and I are not going be sitting there holding hands and we’re not going to act like we love each other,” King said. “It’s not ‘Kumbaya’ - we may end up doing dueling press conferences afterward.”