October 13, 2006
Capitol Real Estate Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 04:45 PM EST An article in today’s New York Times reports that the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, known popularly as the Ethics Committee, has begun hearing sworn testimony in its investigation of the Mark Foley case. The article noted in passing that pages, clad in their signature uniforms (gray pants or skirts, white shirts, striped ties, blue blazers, black shoes), continued throughout the day to zip past the committee’s offices in HT-2, and that the room next door to the Ethics Committee is a page locker room. It’s been 15 years since I was a page, but I now remember that the aforementioned locker room, which we jokingly dubbed the “page cloakroom”—a place to hang our coats and deposit our backpacks before reporting to work on the House floor—was indeed situated next door to the House Ethics Committee. Both rooms are in the basement level of the Capitol Building. While I don’t remember what the Ethics Committee’s offices look like (I must at one point have delivered a letter there), I can only assume they look like the rest of the basement: dark, dingy, and unceremonial. Other feature attractions in the Capitol basement are the document room, where the day’s legislative documents are deposited for pickup; the flag office, which is basically a large storage room that holds thousands of boxes of American flags that have each been flown for a few seconds over the Capitol Building; and a cafeteria that was, in my day, the worst cafeteria in the entire Capitol complex (I have good memories of it nonetheless; it was where we took all of our dinners). All these years later, it occurs to me: What does it say about congressional priorities that the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct occupies some of the worst real estate in the entire Capitol complex? Compared with the august chambers of the Ways and Means or Budget Committees, the Ethics Committee’s offices are a joke. Given the recent history of congressional scandals and misdoings, maybe it’s time to make the Ethics Committee more visually imposing. Just a thought.
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