This is a column by Terrence Wall.
Remember the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, me neither.🤪 That’s because the movie came out in 1939. So for those of us who missed it, I’ve recreated the idea here – in a new series, but titled Into the Wieds. That’s Tony Wied, pronounced “weed,” the new Congressional Representative from the 8th district of Wisconsin, otherwise known as Green Bay, home of the Packers. (And yes, I insist on using the correct title for him and others, rather than saying Congressman, which is incorrect. I also refuse to use titles of elected officials after they are no longer in office since the constitution prohibits the granting of titles of nobility.)
This story comes from a phone interview with Wied, who was in Washington D.C., our nation’s capital at the time.
For those of you not into politics as much, Wied ran in a three-way primary and frankly, was a complete unknown. He met someone who knew Trump and talked to Trump about Wied, and after a few months and interviews, Trump endorsed Wied, giving him instantaneous name recognition and pushing him over the top to win District 8. I think Trump liked Wieds entrepreneurial background.
Wied was elected November 5th, but here’s the deal. In one of the most unusual races ever in the history of Congressional races, Wied was elected twice on Nov. 5! He had to run one campaign to serve the remainder of Mike Gallagher’s term and then a second simultaneous race for the open 8th congressional seat. This also meant that he could collect twice the normal donations – one for each race, i.e. donors could max out twice if they wanted; few did.
Wied was previously an entrepreneur who started a convenience store business and owned a number of stores. He recently sold the whole business and decided that since the country is in such bad shape that he would run for Congress. This was his first (two!) run(s) for public office and he won both races. (In theory, one person could have won the race to serve out the rest of Gallagher’s term while another person then could have won the open seat for the 2025-26 term.)
After winning, (he invested over $645,000 of his own hard earned money in the races), Wied was sworn in on November 12 to serve out Gallagher’s remaining term in the 118th Congress. (Sidebar: Gallagher showed up at our community-wide Door County 4th of July party and seemed in good spirits.)So Wied has had the unusual challenge of not only going through orientation and trying establish an office, etc. and all that work – at the same time of instantaneously being a full Congressional Rep, who also had to be on the House floor to vote. I am guessing he’s the only member of Congress this year in that position.
But the 118th Congress ends at the end of 2024, and then the new 119th Congress begins on January 3rd, so Wied will have to be sworn in a second time in just a matter of a few weeks.
I asked him about all the day to day challenges he has gone through and to share with us commoners, what’s it like to be in Congress? He likened it to being a teen again, whose parents change jobs and move to a new city, and he gets dropped into a new high school as a sophomore – not knowing anyone, not knowing the city, not knowing anything other than what he’s read. But instead of his parents taking care of the details, he has to.
So immediately after being elected, Wied had to go to Washington – one week later! Where the admin team met him at the hotel, provided transportation, etc. Not only did he have to serve in Congress immediately, like yea, immediately, voting on the House floor, but he also had to find housing. He and his wife did find a 500 square foot studio for $2800 a month. Ouch! (That’s about double the rent per square foot for a studio in the Madison area.) A few Reps actually sleep on the couch in their congressional offices, which is what Paul Ryan did for years. Only someone without a backbone could do that. Get it? Sorry, I just had to throw that in there.)
On top of all that, right after arriving in Washington, orientation started for the 119th Congress. Lucky for him, his fellow Congressional Rep Bryan Steil chairs the House committee on administration and Wied said Steil has the orientation team well oiled and they did a fantastic job of helping him get up to speed. The admin team hold seminars on how to set up a team, budget, ethics, can and can’t do, financial reporting, safety and security, picking an office – using the lottery system – a lottery is used among new members, etc. He also started building relationships with both sides in that orientation process – all in a rapid fire program.
There are three office buildings Congressional Rep’s can choose from – Cannon, Rayburn, and Longworth. Gallagher’s office was in the Longworth building, and Wied had the ease of sliding right into it to serve the rest of his term, but only for one week! Ironically, while he was to occupy the office for only a week, almost all the Gallagher staff had left, and the office was empty except for the only two staffers who stayed on. But since Wied had to serve out the last week of Gallagher’s term, he automatically became the most senior member of the new members of the 119th Congress, which gave him a leg up on the lottery for the 2025 year, so he got first pick of offices of the new class. After looking at Tom Tiffany’s office, Wied selected 424 Cannon because it was recently remodeled, with a view over Navy yard. (Online tours of the Rep’s offices are also available I am told.)
Since he was in Gallagher’s old office for only one week, Wied said he didn’t even bother to unpack. He said it was like starting a new business, something he’s done before every time he opened up a new convenience store – something he has plenty of experience with. He treated the 8th district Congressional seat as a new business – hiring a chief of staff, a director of operations/scheduler, a legislative director, etc. Calling people, interviewing, and the like.
As you can see, there’s a lot of cost involved in being elected to Congress – personal cost. The rent for a second house or apartment, traveling back and forth, etc. For this reason, Reps receive a daily stipend when they are “in district” as they say. While it changes during the year, generally the amount is $100 a day, but it varies. Keep in mind that $100 a day in Washington D.C. won’t even buy you dinner, let alone breakfast, lunch, rent, fuel, airline tickets, and the like, so being a rep is not really a good financial decision. Fortunately for them, the Reps are paid $174,000 per year in a salary. (I looked it up.) (Of course, there’s always the additional profits earned by insider trading like Nancy Pelosi and others lawfully engage in since Congress has exempted itself from most laws that it has passed. 🤪 Sorry, had to throw that in there too!)
All this hiring, of course, requires a budget to pay for it all. A rep’s office is budgeted an “MRA” (whatever that stands for) of about $1.7 to $1.8 million per year to cover staffing costs and other office expenses. This includes covering an out of district (out of D.C.) office as well, i.e. the budget has to cover the cost of an office in the home district, in this case, in District 8 in DePere, Wisconsin.
(When I ran against Senator Russ Feingold, I also had the pleasure and irony of being his landlord for both his campaign office and his official Wisconsin senate office. He was hopping mad about that! The guy was so arrogant.)
Wied fortunately has children that are all grown, since he’ll be quite busy in the job. He has four grown boys, with three as undergrads right now and one in law school. One of his sons went to the University of Notre Dame, as did my daughter.
When Wied was walking the floor of the House, he found a side room, which turned out to be the cloak room, where Reps can make calls. There are still old style phone booths there — but Reps use their cell phones in those to make calls. There are also lounge chairs, etc. I can just picture Rep’s of the old days smoking cigars and drinking hard liquor in there. I doubt they do that today.
As for security, Reps receive a single special lapel pin that they have to wear – and heaven help them if they forget to move it from one suit coat to another as that pin helps identify them. However, once inside their own office or the capitol building, they can use an underground tunnel system to get from one building to another without ever going outside. Wied said the system is so extensive that it can be confusing and easy to get lost in. They also receive key fobs for access too.
There’s also a congressional gym far underground, for members only. There are group work outs available, which provides a good place to meet other Rep’s – from both sides, and build bridges. Wied likes to arrive by 6 am to work out with a bipartisan group. He laughs when he thinks about how he walked miles, lost underground, trying to just find the gym, going up and down various stairs, tunnels and the like – a heck of a workout by itself. But if you ever get lazy, there’s also an inside tram or train that runs between the office buildings and the capitol building, like a mini little metro.
Lots to do, places to go, people to see. The life of a Congressional Rep is extraordinarily busy.
Wisconsin Right Now is a news organization focused on covering the news from a conservative point of view, in particular on politics and policy issues through analysis and opinions, and is protected by the first amendment of the United States constitution. WRN does not make endorsements of candidates or direct readers to vote for or against any candidate or issue. On October 18 and November 23, 2023 Donald Trump tweeted out on Trump’s Truth Social account T. Wall’s October 6th column on Trump’s property valuations. T. Wall has appeared on Fox News, Jesse Waters Show on Fox, Newsmax, CBS, NBC, Spectrum News 1, USA Today, X.com, YouTube, and numerous Madison and Milwaukee news programs and local newspapers (Wisconsin State Journal, Capital Times, Middleton Review, Middleton Times Tribune, and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and a dozen other Wisconsin papers) and previously wrote a column for InBusiness magazine and the Middleton Times Tribune for five years each. T. Wall holds a degree from the UW in economics and an M.S. in real estate analysis and valuation and his full time career is as a real estate developer. Disclaimer: The opinions of the writer are not necessarily those of this publication or the left!
