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AN UPDATE FROM SEAN:

Friends,

What a month. The election night victory for IL-6th. Followed shortly by news that Lauren had won in IL-14. Followed shortly by news that the House had flipped and we would be in the majority. Followed by lots of media, freshman orientation in DC, voting for leadership, starting to get to know my fellow members (and members-to-be), and a whirlwind week at Harvard learning how to do the job.

It’s been really special, and I’m so fantastically fortunate and thankful for the opportunity to serve. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Many have asked me for updates, or for superlative experiences. It’s impossible to be exhaustive but wanted to share a few observations “from the inside”.

In no particular order:

1. This is a really neat class. One member told me that every incoming class has a certain vibe. I asked him the vibe of the 116th and he said without hesitation “*&% politics - we’re here to get stuff done.” Couldn’t be truer. While much has been legitimately made about the ethnic/gender/religious/sexual orientation diversity of our class, the more impressive thing to me is how many have had significant experience outside of elected office and are bringing that experience to Washington. Our class includes multiple former senior CIA officers (Abby Spanberger and Elissa Slotkin). A National Teacher of the Year (Jahana Hayes). A pediatrician (Kim Schrier). Two clean energy executives (Mike Levin and yours truly). An Assistant Secretary of State (Tom Malinowski). And the former President of University of Miami and former head of the Department of Health & Human Services, Donna Shalala. Among many others. To quote one of my fellow incoming freshman members, “We may be freshmen, but we are not rookies”. This class feels like the citizen-legislators our founders envisioned and it is a beautiful thing.

2. There are some pretty neat Republican members too. I’m sure we won’t agree on everything, but met several folks who were kind and thoughtful on several important issues during our bipartisan breakouts.

3. The transition from a candidate to a member is hard for good ethical reasons and I hope you’ll be patient with us. We had 3,000 volunteers a month ago. As of January 3, we are forbidden from having volunteers work for the office since that could create ethical conflicts. That’s a good law but it makes the transition hard, paced by our ability to identify an office, build out an org chart, interview and hire people. We’re not as timely responding to incoming inquiries as we strive to be and are probably dropping more balls than we know right now. We’ll get through, but I hope you’ll be patient with us in the meantime.

4. The coverage of Nancy Pelosi’s leadership vote repeated a troubling pattern. Namely, that when thoughtful people have thoughtful, nuanced opinions, the media will typically cover it as a simple black/white issue. I proudly voted for Leader Pelosi but heard reasonable and rational arguments from those who opposed her that were focused on rules changes, the flaws in a seniority-driven system and succession planning. That was, for the most part, not the media story. Keep this in mind as you see future media coverage that frames the complicated issues and challenges of the day as simplistic black & white choices. Republican v Democrat, Bernie v Hillary, Corporations v Labor and so many other frames make for a story that is easier to understand but too often comes at the expense of knowledge.

5. There are some really smart people in Congress. Some of them you know and see on TV, but I was really impressed by the number of “work” (as opposed to “show”) horses who don’t seek the spotlight but know their stuff. It’s going to be a true privilege to work with them.

6. On that subject: intelligence and competence are distributed independent of ideology. In our sessions at Harvard we had the opportunity to question some of our Nation’s leaders on national security, ethics, environment and trade. There were insightful and often hard-hitting questions asked by the new members. On more than one occasion I found myself thinking, “Man, I can’t wait to be on a committee with you, questioning an expert or grilling someone we’ve deposed”. And those thoughts were not limited to any particular political persuasion.

Thank you again for giving me this opportunity. One month before the real work starts.

Warmly,
Sean