Senator Ted Kennedy’s Capitol Office To Close Today
The end of an era will happen when the lights are shut off today in Room 317 in the Russell Senate Office Building — the office Ted Kennedy occupied longer than any other in his 47-year Senate career.
In the coming days, Room 317 will belong to the man who took Kennedy’s seat: Democrat Paul Kirk, who is well-aware of the historic space he will soon be assuming.
“You can imagine, it’s sort of a confluence of feelings and emotions,” said Kirk, Kennedy’s former staffer and longtime friend and adviser. “While the office will close down, there’s a legacy that will never close down. When you think of the Russell building, that office on the third floor, the number of conferences, decisions, all the things that would go through over 47 years of a single United States senator — those rooms are filled with history.”
From that office, Kennedy planned his opposition to Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, saw enactment of his Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990, expanded the Head Start program for low-income children in 1992, won passage of the landmark Family and Medical Leave Act in 1994, saw the enactment of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program in 1997, advocated for fair housing legislation in 1998, won passage of a 1999 federal law establishing the Defense Department’s child care system, planned peace talks in Northern Ireland in 1998, helped enact the 2001 No Child Left Behind law and saw the 2008 passage of the Mental Health Parity Act, which requires health insurers to improve coverage for mental illnesses.
With the closing of the office comes closure.
“It’s very hard, and I think it’s a very emotional moment for the Senate and for all of us,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who served alongside Kennedy for 24 years and had “hundreds” of meetings in Russell 317. “It’s a very hard moment to accept, and it’s hard for his staff and for all of us. It kind of brings the curtain down in the final way, I guess.”
Added Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.): “It’s truly an end of an era — it is in some ways. It’s just really sad.”
Kennedy’s death on Aug. 25 set off a 60-day transition period during which his office remained open and his staff remained on the payroll. An overwhelming majority of Kennedy’s staffers on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee have stayed on board under Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who became chairman after Kennedy’s death. Aides in Kennedy’s personal office went onto Kirk’s payroll, and others stayed as Kennedy staffers to close down Russell 317, which the senator had held since 1987.
The 60-day period officially ends Sunday — but with the Senate out over the weekend, Friday marks the last business day that the office will be Kennedy’s.
“These last 60 days have been melancholy for sure, but in many ways, it’s also been inspiring,” said Anthony Coley, who served as Kennedy’s spokesman. “Sen. Kennedy juggled so many balls, and he never gave up. He always kept going and pushing and fighting. Seeing these old memos and notes reminded us all of that. What a man and what an honor it was for all who worked for him.”
Most of Kennedy’s memos, documents, pictures, records and other keepsakes are moving to Boston, where they will be housed at the library and museum honoring his late brother, President John F. Kennedy — to be loaned periodically to the nearby Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.
Still to be decided: which senator will inherit Kennedy’s hideaway. Senators use the spaces, tucked away in obscure corners of the Capitol, so they don’t have to return to their offices between votes. Kennedy’s posh hideaway is seen as the most coveted in the Senate, with its grand views of the National Mall, Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument.
And it was another place to bond and make deals.
As a small group of negotiators attempted to broker a deal in the heat of the 2007 immigration debate, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) recalled how Kennedy called a “timeout” because “everybody was at each other’s throats.” He asked Graham to return to his hideaway, where Kennedy explained to him why he equated the immigration bill with the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 — and showed him memorabilia of the Kennedy family.
“You could just tell how his eyes lit up when he talked about his brothers,” Graham said.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Senate Rules Committee that determines the office space, declined to say what will happen to Kennedy’s hideaway, and a Senate aide said it most likely won’t be determined until the next Congress, when it will “re-enter the seniority-determined lottery.”
Schumer recalled being an anxious freshman in 1999 and having Kennedy show him around Russell 317, pointing out photos of the Kennedy family and talking about the history of the Senate.
“You know, you’re all a little nervous, and then lovingly he takes about 20 minutes, a half-hour, and describes pictures that were on the wall,” Schumer said. “It’s great.”
“I had the tour,” Graham said. “You know you’ve arrived in the Senate when Ted gives you a tour of his office. It’s like going into the Smithsonian.”
Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who had dozens of health care meetings in Russell 317, recalled Kennedy’s “dogs wandering all over the place.”
“The happy warrior, tenacious. Very good memories remain,” Rockefeller said.
“From that office, Kennedy planned his opposition to Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987.”
“Opposition” to Robert Bork, that should be corrected to “Character Barbecueing and Assassination”.
In its obituary of Kennedy, The Economist remarked that Bork was correct about the inaccuracy of Kennedy’s speech, But it worked. A brief was prepared for Joe Biden, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the Biden Report. Bork later said in his best-selling book The Tempting of America that the report so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility.”