House newcomers get first taste of Washington

WASHINGTON — The bright-eyed class of incoming members of Congress descended on Washington on Tuesday for schooling on the nuts and bolts underpinning a job like none other. But even as they chose curtain colors and sorted party invitations, the freshmen who vowed to change Washington were getting an old-school education on political pressure from the veteran lawmakers who want to lead them.

“I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on,” said Rep.-elect Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., a former member of the state legislature. “We’re the small fish in a very big pond right now.”

Welcomed to Washington by tight security and a round of power receptions, the new members of Congress are a younger, more diverse group. The freshman class includes a record number of women who drove the most powerful Democratic sweep of the House since the Watergate election of 1974. Democrats picked up at least 32 seats, with several races still undecided.

In a notable generational handover Tuesday, a grinning Rep. Sander Levin, Rep.-elect Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., carries his son Boone and luggage Tuesday as he arrives in Washington for orientation for new members of Congress.

87, dropped off his newly elected son, Andy, 58, at a hotel near the Capitol where the freshmen are staying and attending orientation. As the retiring Michigan lawmaker drove away, the younger Levin — who will serve in his father’s seat — headed inside pulling a rollaway suitcase behind him.

There were other signs of change. The most famous

of the freshmen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, posted a photo of the cover of the New Yorker magazine, which depicts incoming lawmakers of color pushing into a colorless room full of men with the caption: “Knock knock.”

But Ocasio-Cortez, at 29 the youngest woman ever elected to the House, wasn’t just active on social media. She stopped by a

climate-change protest in the office of the senior-most Democratic House veteran, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who permitted the demonstration by 200 or so activists. Pelosi has pledged to reinstate a special committee on climate change.

Pelosi also expects Democrats to elect her speaker, second in line to the presidency, for the second time. Ocasio-Cortez has not said whether she’ll vote for the California Democrat. Other newcomers, such as Rep.-elect Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, have said they will oppose Pelosi.

But still other freshmen lawmakers have fallen in line. They’re under pressure from a parade of powerful, moneyed interest groups such as NARAL and the AFL-CIO that support Pelosi and could be helpful — or not — in reelection bids that effectively have already begun.

“I think there’s tremendous value in experience and knowing how to move legislation and knowing every trick possible,” Rep.-elect Veronica Escobar, for whom Pelosi campaigned, said. She’s supporting Pelosi, she said, but there should be “a leadership pipeline” to carry younger faces into the House’s highest ranks.

Checked-in, the freshmen of both parties toured Capitol Hill in the afternoon as the sitting Congress battled over President Donald Trump’s border wall, which could spark a partial federal government shutdown in weeks. Newly emboldened Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing to protect special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.