This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2023.
On January 2, I flew to Washington, D.C., to document a momentous occasion — U.S. Rep. Becca Balint’s (D-Vt.) first week in the House of Representatives as the first woman elected to serve Vermont in Congress. I assumed that it would be an overwhelming experience, that I would get lost in many tunnels and be plagued by the fear that I was failing at my one task, which was to observe Balint doing important, congressional things. It did not occur to me that she might not officially become a congresswoman in that first week. The night before the House session was slated to open, I lay awake on a friend’s air mattress from 11 p.m. until my alarm went off at 6:30 a.m., agonizing over how much would occur on that historic day.
When I arrived at Balint’s office, already strung out on my second enormous coffee from the Longworth cafeteria, people were talking about the speaker of the House vote. Typically a formality, that vote is the first order of business undertaken at the start of a new session; until the House elects its leader, it is inert, functionally nonexistent. Word was that the Republican speaker nominee, U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), lacked enough support within his majority party. When people talked about the possibility of “more than one vote,” they sounded pained. I should admit here that, at the time, I didn’t quite grasp why. I should also admit here that I had never witnessed a roll call vote.
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I watched the first one from the press balcony above the House floor. I wrote in my notebook that I was “strangely moved” by the spectacle of 434 people standing up, one by one, and shouting their choice of leader. It’s hard for me now to recall the precise contours of that feeling, so quickly did it evaporate.
The first vote failed. Then the second vote failed. Then the third vote failed. Then the 14th vote failed. Even when it became abundantly clear that McCarthy would lose again and again and again, all the votes still had to be tallied; hundreds more people had to sound their yawp into the void. In the press room, the miasma of wilted salad thickened. From the balcony, I kept an eye on Balint to see if she would duck out of the chamber, granting me an opportunity to ask her how she felt about her new workplace. Nothing about that week went as I had anticipated, except the constant sense of failure. Nine months later, McCarthy’s speakership would go the way of the lettuce.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Biggest Bust”
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This article appears in Dec 27, 2023 – Jan 9, 2024.
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