The Zero Game

As I pull out the chair directly across from her at the conference table, the front door of the hearing room swings open and the last two staffers finally arrive. Georgia Rudd and Ezra Ben-Shmuel. Already prepped for battle, Ezra’s got a sparse poor-man’s-environmentalist beard (my-first-beard, Trish calls it), and a blue dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. Georgia ’s the exact opposite. Too much of a conformist to take chances, she’s quiet, wears a standard navy interview suit, and is happy enough following Trish’s lead.

Each armed with an oversized redwell accordion file, they quickly head to different sides of the table. Ezra on my side, Georgia next to Trish. All four horsemen are here. When it comes to Conference, I represent the House majority; Ezra does the House minority. Across the table, Trish and Georgia do the respective same for the Senate. And regardless of the fact that Ezra and I are in different political parties, even House Republicans and Democrats can set aside their differences for our common enemy: the Senate.

My pager vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out to check the message. It’s from Harris. You watching? he asks in digital black letters.

I glance over Trish’s shoulder, toward the TV in the back. Eighty-four yeas, forty-one nays.

Crap. I need the nays to stay under 110. If they’re at forty-one this early in the vote, we’ve got problems.

What do we do? I type back on the pager’s tiny keyboard, hiding my hands under the desk so the Senate folks can’t see what I’m doing. Before I can send it, my pager shakes with a new message.

Don’t panic just yet, Harris insists. He knows me too well.

“Can we please get this going?” Trish asks. It’s the sixth day in a row we’ve been trying to stomp each other into the ground, and Trish knows there’s still plenty to go. “Now, where’d we leave off?”

“ Cape Cod,” Ezra says. Like speed-readers in a race, all four of us flip through the hundred-page documents in front of us that show the spending difference between the House and Senate bills. Last month, when the House passed its version of the bill, we allocated seven hundred thousand dollars to rehabilitate the Cape Cod Seashore; a week later, the Senate passed its version, which didn’t allocate a dime. That’s the point of Conference: finding the differences and reaching a compromise – item by item by item. When the two bills are merged, they go back to the House and Senate for final passage. When both bodies pass the same bill, that’s when it goes to the White House to be signed into law.

“I’ll give you three hundred and fifty thousand,” Trish offers, hoping I’ll be satisfied by half.

“Done,” I tell her, grinning to myself. If she’d pushed, I would’ve settled for an even two hundred.

“The Chesapeake in Maryland,” Trish adds, moving to the next item. I look down at the spreadsheet. Senate gave it six million for stabilization; we gave it nothing.

Trish smiles. That’s why she was kissing tush on the last one. The six million in here was put there by her boss, Senator Ted Apelbaum, who also happens to be the Chairman of the subcommittee – the Senate equivalent of my boss, Cordell. In local slang, the Chairs are known as Cardinals. That’s where the argument ends. What Cardinals want, Cardinals get.

In quiet rooms around the Capitol, the scene is the same. Forget the image of fat-cat Congressmen horse-trading in cigar-smoke-filled backrooms. This is how the sausage is made, and this is how America ’s bank account is actually spent: by four staffers sitting around a well-lit conference table without a Congressman in sight. Your tax dollars at work. Like Harris always says: The real shadow government is staff.

My pager again vibrates in my lap. Harris’s message is simple: Panic.

I take another look at the TV. One hundred seventy-two yeas, sixty-four nays.

Sixty-four? I don’t believe it. They’re over halfway there.

How? I type back.

Maybe they have the votes, Harris replies almost instantly.

Can’t be, I send back.

For the next two minutes, Trish lectures about why seven million dollars is far too much to spend on Yellowstone National Park. I barely register a word. On C-SPAN, the nays go from sixty-four to eighty-one. It’s impossible.

“… don’t you agree, Matthew?” Trish asks.

I stay locked on C-SPAN.

“Matthew!” Trish calls out. “You with us or not?”

“Wha?” I say, finally turning toward her.

Tracing my gaze back to its last location, Trish looks over her shoulder and spots the TV. “That’s what you’re so caught up in?” she asks. “Some lame vote for baseball?”