Sex, Drinking and Dementia: 25 Lawmakers Spill on What Congress Is Really Like
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Interesting Article and some good insights. Pretty long but a pretty quick reading.
To get an inside look at what it’s like to serve on Capitol Hill — after years of gridlock, government shutdowns and now another Donald Trump stampede through Washington — we sat down with 25 lawmakers who were ready to dish.
We talked about what they hate and love about Congress, why it’s broken and how to fix it (one suggestion: bring back the powdered wigs). They also told us what would really shock the public if they knew the truth about life as a lawmaker (it’s what’s for dinner).
We had delicate conversations about aging lawmakers’ increasingly public deterioration (one member said he has up to a dozen colleagues who aren’t up to the job) and whether people are actually showing up drunk on the floor (it’s not a “no”), as well as the survival mechanisms that get them through a grueling day. And we talked politics, including whether Democrats have learned any lessons at all from their 2024 defeat and whether Mike Johnson would still be hanging on as speaker at the end of the year (maybe!).
We spoke with Democrats and Republicans, men and women, members of the House and Senate. And to get as candid a view of the truth as possible, we allowed lawmakers to withhold their names from attribution on any comment they’d like, though only a couple people took us up on the offer. Most were eager to let loose on the record.
Here’s what they said, edited for length and clarity.
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“The single least impressive person I have ever met in this job or any job I’ve ever had is Kevin McCarthy. He is just a vapid shell of a human being who stands for nothing, who never took his oath seriously.” — Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)
Shots fired.
“We cannot afford to cede the issue of border security to the Republican Party. I feel like that is a lesson that has been widely internalized.” — Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)
Um, scoreboard. There are talking points for dunking on the Rs, but that's probably not one of them.
Oh wait, I misread that. I thought he meant we can't afford to give Republicans control of the border issue. But he meant that he can't give Republicans the political win of border control. Which is true. He might also want to attend to the trans stuff while he's at it.
“The worst thing about the Democratic Party is that I think there’s a number of them in the conference who honestly don’t like this country. I think some of them border on hating it, even down to our foundational documents, such as the Constitution.” — Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.)
Well, look who is voting for them. The deep vein of cultural self hatred on the left could not be more obvious. They advertise it all the time. Then rhetorically justify it as a love for their country so deep that they are heart broken at its failings. Blah blah, words are fun.
“I would start out with cigars and clean liquor. But no, seriously, I think you really either love your job or you don’t. I don’t think people that think they’re doing the country a favor, or that they’re sacrificing to serve, last very long.” — Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.)
No way. Government workers sacrifice because of their exceptional love of their country. Those pension checks they cash for the rest of their lives are barely any compensation for their grueling daily sacrifice of maybe sensing sometimes that not the whole country is totally appreciative of the sacrifices they are making. That sort of pressure is suffocating, and I cry as I write this, due to my compassion for them. Now I need time to process my emotions.
Anyway, that piece was a lot longer than I was expecting, and I couldn't get through it. I'm sorry if I missed any gems.
Education is extremely important.
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By the way, how did we miss the Granger story with all our talk about politicians straying past their sell-by date?
In December 2024 it was discovered she had been living in a nursing home in Ft Worth, TX for the previous 6 months.
“Don’t make me repeat myself”
- history
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“The single least impressive person I have ever met in this job or any job I’ve ever had is Kevin McCarthy. He is just a vapid shell of a human being who stands for nothing, who never took his oath seriously.” — Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)
Shots fired.
“We cannot afford to cede the issue of border security to the Republican Party. I feel like that is a lesson that has been widely internalized.” — Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)
Um, scoreboard. There are talking points for dunking on the Rs, but that's probably not one of them.
Oh wait, I misread that. I thought he meant we can't afford to give Republicans control of the border issue. But he meant that he can't give Republicans the political win of border control. Which is true. He might also want to attend to the trans stuff while he's at it.
“The worst thing about the Democratic Party is that I think there’s a number of them in the conference who honestly don’t like this country. I think some of them border on hating it, even down to our foundational documents, such as the Constitution.” — Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.)
Well, look who is voting for them. The deep vein of cultural self hatred on the left could not be more obvious. They advertise it all the time. Then rhetorically justify it as a love for their country so deep that they are heart broken at its failings. Blah blah, words are fun.
“I would start out with cigars and clean liquor. But no, seriously, I think you really either love your job or you don’t. I don’t think people that think they’re doing the country a favor, or that they’re sacrificing to serve, last very long.” — Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.)
No way. Government workers sacrifice because of their exceptional love of their country. Those pension checks they cash for the rest of their lives are barely any compensation for their grueling daily sacrifice of maybe sensing sometimes that not the whole country is totally appreciative of the sacrifices they are making. That sort of pressure is suffocating, and I cry as I write this, due to my compassion for them. Now I need time to process my emotions.
Anyway, that piece was a lot longer than I was expecting, and I couldn't get through it. I'm sorry if I missed any gems.
@Horace I liked these couple
“I think the redistricting process is what has Congress so broken. When you have red states that draw districts 70 percent red and blue states that draw them 70 percent blue, you create a legislative body that has no incentive to work together.”
— REP. VICENTE GONZALEZ (D-TEXAS)Asking about people who stay too long in congress
“There’s no question that somewhere between six and a dozen of my colleagues are at a point where they’re … I think they don’t have the faculties to do their job.” — REP. JIM HIMES (D-CONN.)
“I have a difficult time sometimes telling between the deterioration of members and a handful who are just not very smart.” — A HOUSE REPUBLICAN
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By the way, how did we miss the Granger story with all our talk about politicians straying past their sell-by date?
In December 2024 it was discovered she had been living in a nursing home in Ft Worth, TX for the previous 6 months.
@jon-nyc said in Sex, Drinking and Dementia: 25 Lawmakers Spill on What Congress Is Really Like:
By the way, how did we miss the Granger story with all our talk about politicians straying past their sell-by date?
In December 2024 it was discovered she had been living in a nursing home in Ft Worth, TX for the previous 6 months.
Funny you should mention that. You must have talked to this magazine. LOL. Here is the follow up.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/14/kay-granger-dementia-dc-media-00210317
I guess just another example of the media overlooking Democrat politicians mistakes. Oh wait, she was a Republic. LOL
Given that the U.S. Capitol is one of the few buildings in America where the reporting corps hasn’t been totally devastated, it was a confounding miss. Granger wasn’t a nobody. She’d been in office for over a quarter-century, and had been the top Republican on the Appropriations committee until last April. Her face was familiar both to her colleagues and the reporters who roam outside the House chamber. Curiosity might also have been triggered by the fact that she’d voluntarily stepped aside from a plum position that most members of Congress would have to have pried from their hands.
There were also at least some opportunities for journalists to find out what was happening. Granger may have been absent from votes, but she briefly returned to the Hill for a retirement salute to her last November, well into the period where her son acknowledged “dementia issues” and just a month before the Express story broke.
At the chummy event, speakers included House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, as well as Democrats Rosa DeLauro and Nita Lowey. Nobody mentioned anything awry when Granger, still an elected official, reappeared not for an important vote but for a laudatory send-off. During the tribute, Granger sat and looked on as her official portrait as a former Appropriations Committee chair was unveiled before a large audience of congressional colleagues and staffers.
