The power grabs that play out in the corridors of Wall Street and at Hollywood studios are showing up in US Congress as the ouster of US House of Representative Speaker Kevin McCarthy prompts a reshuffle of some prime office space in the US Capitol.
No speaker has before been voted out of office, and questions abound about what is next. However, one thing was immediately clear, at least to US House of Representatives Interim Speaker Patrick McHenry: McCarthy has rights to a first-floor speaker emeritus hideaway occupied by his predecessor, Nancy Pelosi.
The usually affable Republican, inflamed by the ouster of his long-time political ally, swiftly evicted Pelosi from the unmarked room. Steny Hoyer, Pelosi’s longtime No. 2, also got the boot from his own unofficial digs in the Capitol.
Photo: AP
The quick moves by McHenry, who essentially is serving a caretaker role until the House elects a new speaker, underscore that these rooms — which predate the actual House office buildings across the street — remain coveted property.
They are the spaces inside the US Capitol for political plotting, naps, card games and rumored other, more personal business, found behind non-descript, unmarked doors as hideaways for powerful lawmakers.
Sometimes these rooms are given nicknames that have changed over the years. “The Doghouse,” “Cabinet Room,” “Sanctum sanctorum,” or “the Board of Education Room,” where author Bess Furman, once wrote: “Political horse trading, and liquid refreshment flowed.”
There is no indication that Pelosi or Hoyer were using these spaces as dens of anything but valid legislative business. Yet Pelosi did use her authority as speaker to toss former US vice president Mike Pence from his own hideaway — just around the corner from her own — in 2019.
Some see McHenry’s decision as pay back. Others see it as merely business as usual.
“The office that Pelosi currently occupies is the office of the preceding speaker,” McCarthy ally Garret Graves said.
McCarthy, Graves said, is now the “preceding speaker” and can lay claim to the office.
Graves said Pelosi only has herself to blame.
After all, if Pelosi and other Democrats had supported McCarthy, she would still be the most recent former speaker.
Pelosi, who did not vote on Tuesday, said she is in California mourning the death of Senator Dianne Feinstein and is unable to collect her things.
The hideaway Pelosi is vacating is just one floor below the chamber and has south-facing windows. While maybe not as nice as a corner suite, those perks amount to luxury in the 230-year-old Capitol.
“Office space doesn’t matter to me, but it seems to be important to them,” Pelosi said of Republicans. “Now that the new Republican leadership has settled this important matter, let’s hope they get to work on what’s truly important for the American people.”
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS