Rep. Johnny Olszewski (D-2nd) goes through papers late Friday morning in his still-sparse office, which was only turned over to him and his staff a few hours earlier, his newly issued congressional license plates and information packets on the coffee table in front of him. Photo by Steve Crane.
The day began with an interfaith prayer service and ended with a dramatic showdown on the House floor, with a whole lot of running from meeting to meeting, hand-shaking and smiling for the cameras in between — and at least one constituent call for help.
Welcome to Washington, freshmen.
The 119th Congress that was sworn in Friday included four freshmen in Maryland’s 10-menber delegation, three in the House and one in the Senate. The newcomers boosted the number of Maryland women in Congress from zero to three — there hasn’t been a woman in the delegation in eight years, and there haven’t been three in more than 30 — and included the state’s first Black senator.
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D) also made history as one of two Black women, along with Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), elected to the Senate last year, the first time two Black women have served together in the upper chamber.
“It has just been really amazing, so I am so grateful,” Alsobrooks said. “I have just been a ball of nerves…. I think my whole family cried. So it’s been somewhere between nerves and tears the last few days and it’s been just sheer joy.”
One of the joyful moments came in the early afternoon when Alsobrooks was sworn in, accompanied by Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and former Sens. Ben Cardin, whose seat she is filling, and Barbara Mikulski, the only female senator from Maryland before Alsobrooks.
Alsobrooks took the oath of office administered by Vice President Kamala Harris, a personal friend and political mentor who was only the second Black woman elected to the Senate when she was elected from California in 2016. Alsobrooks said she told Harris Friday that she had a picture she wanted to share, of the two of them at the Capitol exactly eight years earlier, celebrating Harris’ swearing-in as the junior senator from California.
“Eight years later, for her to swear me in was really very special,” Alsobrooks said. “I thanked her for all her friendship and support, and we just really enjoyed a moment.”
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Enjoying the moment was mostly the order of day Friday, with receptions around every corner in House and Senate office building and hallways outside some offices clogged with friends and supporters. A lot of children, occasionally squirming in their dress clothes, accompanied their House member parents on the floor.
The House and Senate convened at noon, but the actual swearing-in of House members was delayed for almost two hours while it battled over the election of a speaker, which required 218 votes. With 219 Republicans in the House to 215 Democrats, the GOP would have had enough votes to reelect Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana but, in a now-familiar scenario on Capitol Hill, he first had to beat back a threatened uprising by the conservative wing of the Republican caucus.
Despite President-elect Donald Trump publicly supporting Johnson as recently as Friday morning, members of the conservative Freedom Caucus continued their criticism of Johnson, who they say is too accommodating to Democrats. And Johnson appeared to lose the election when three Republicans voted for other candidates.
But the vote was held open for almost an hour while Johnson and his supporters worked on two of the three who strayed, including putting them on a conference call with Trump. Ultimately, the two switched their votes to Johnson, allowing him to claim victory on the first ballot.
Seven Freedom Caucus members, including Maryland Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st), initially declined to vote for a speaker at all before relenting and voting for Johnson when their names were called a third and fourth time by the clerk. But they did so grudgingly: In a letter released after the vote, 11 Freedom Caucus members, including Harris, said they said that despite “sincere reservations regarding the Speaker’s track record over the past 15 months,” they voted for Johnson out of “steadfast support” for Trump, whose election is set to be certified on Monday by Congress.
The final vote was 218 for Johnson and 215 for House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), with Democrats lining up unimously behind him.
“I think the speaker fight is a good proxy for the challenges of this Congress,” said new Rep. Johnny Olszewski (D-2nd), citing the closely divided House several hours before the vote.
But Olszewski, like most of the freshmen, pledged to look beyond partisanship and look for”the commonsense solutions that voters sent us here for.” Sitting in the sparsely decorated Longworth House Office Building office he got the keys to only hours earlier — furnished, but with bookshelves empty and walls bare — Olszewski said he was “just eager to get to work.”
That was echoed by freshman Rep. Sarah Elfreth (D-3rd), whose staff somehow managed to get her office partially decorated and moved in to by late morning. In an interview in her office, she said she has already started drafting her first bill, which would expand treatment options for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, and was excited by the fact that her office had already received its first call that day from a constituent seeking help with a problem.
“Every single district across the country sent us here to do a job,” Elfreth said of herself and her colleagues in the 119th Congress.
House members received a week of orientation to the workings of Congress and a week of policy preparation sessions at Harvard, but Elfreth pointed to her “six years in the Maryland Senate, that’s the best training for this job.” She also cited her time on the Chesapeake Bay Commission, working with Republican members from Virginia and Pennsylvania, as preparation for the collegiality she hopes to employ on Capitol Hill.
Freshman Rep. April McClain-Delaney (D-6th) might not need as much orientation as the other newcomers: Her husband, John Delaney, represented the 6th District for three terms, from 2013 to 2019. He was on hand Friday as she headed to the House for her swearing-in.
Like others, she pledged to work with her colleagues, looking to “find common ground where we can, stand our ground” when necessary. While Republicans are divided, she also noted that the Democratic caucus in the House is divided as well, and as a member of the more-moderate New Democrats she expects there to be some negotiating in the caucus on issues.
All the freshmen said their priority was to work on constituent service and local issues, and pledged not to “get sucked down every CNN rabbit hole” or be making appearances “on cable news every Sunday” — not that there was any indication Friday that any had been invited.
They sounded other similar themes, which echoed the campaign trail they had just left, vowing to protect federal jobs against Trump administration plans to cut the federal government, work for funding for roads and bridges — particularly the reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge — and fight to protect reproductive rights and the Affordable Care Act, among other promises.
But Friday was mostly about celebrating, and settling in. Members got the keys to their offices at 8:30 a.m. Friday, along with their congressional license plates and the lapel pins identifying them as members — while some were wearing them around the Hill Friday morning, McClain-Delaney said she was not going to put hers on until after the actual swearing-in.
Information technology staffers were making the rounds of offices setting up computers and helping staffers get logged in. Carts trundled through the hallways, shuttling furniture, boxes of supplies and even more boxes of food for the many receptions around the Hill.
House and Senate office buildings felt more like move-in day in college dorms, with friends and family dropping in, and staffers meeting their new neighbors. Lobbyists were everywhere, introducing themselves and collecting and leaving business cards.
House members were still waiting for committee assignments — Elfreth didn’t want to say what she had asked for, for fear of jinxing it — and should know by next week. But at least they have permanent offices: Alsobrooks and her staff are in temporary basement offices in the Dirksen Senate Office Building with a handful of other newly elected senators, waiting for a permanent office to be ready, hopefully sometime in the spring.
There was some time for work Friday. After procedural votes to elect leaders, formally declare the 119th Congress convened, and other housekeeping, lawmakers approved resolutions agreeing to meet Monday to certify the presidential election and to allow former President Jimmy Carter to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda from Tuesday to Thursday.
The real work begins Monday, when the House and Senate will meet in joint session at 1 p.m. to certify the Electoral College results that should declare the Republican nominees, Trump and former Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, the next president and vice president.
That count comes on the anniversary of the 2021 attack on the Capitol by an angry mob of Trump supporters trying to disrupt the count that decared Joe Biden president over Trump and Harris — who will be presiding over Monday’s count in her role as president of the the Senate — the vice president. The impact of that 2021 attack can be seen on Capitol Hill today with the entire campus ringed by blocks of tall metal fences in advance of the events.
But on Friday, rancor was not evident. Instead, lawmakers spoke about the honor and obligation of being elected, and just enjoyed the day. For Olszewski, who said he started his career as a government and history teacher, he was “looking forward to being part of history.”