Democrat and Chronicle - Future Congressmen Get Early Taste of New Life
Congressman-elect Dan Maffei wishes everyone would just call him Dan.
After serving as an aide to powerful New York members of Congress for nine years, the new Democratic lawmaker can't get used to the idea that his former colleagues are stopping him in the Capitol hallways and addressing him as "congressman" and "sir."
"I'm not sure I'm ever going to be comfortable with 'sir,'" said Maffei, a DeWitt, Onondaga County, resident who worked for the late New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Rep. Charles Rangel, D-Harlem, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. "I'm still the same person I was before."
The one big difference: When clueless people ask the boyish-looking 40-year-old whom he works for, he now answers, "the people of the 25th Congressional District of New York."
Maffei and his two fellow congressmen-elect from the Rochester area Democrat Eric Massa of Corning and Republican Christopher Lee of Clarence, Erie County got their first taste of just how much their lives have changed this week as they attended a seven-day freshman orientation session.
Massa, who will represent the 29th Congressional District, said there was an air of intensity as new members were brought into the debate about what to do to help the failing U.S. auto industry and revive the stalled economy.
"I think the biggest surprise I've had so far is that the Democratic freshman class has really been tasked with hitting the ground running," he said.
He said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., have reached out to freshman members to ask their opinions about the economic crisis.
"I think we are all united in not wanting to let the Big Three automakers go bankrupt, which would mean plants would close, people would lose their jobs and the economy would get even worse," Massa said. "But let me be clear. I don't believe in bailouts, so I argued with great passion against them in the meeting with the speaker of the House and the majority leader."
Massa said he would support federally guaranteed loans to the auto industry with strict conditions attached, including requirements that they accelerate the production of ultra-high mileage cars and pay living wages to all autoworkers.
Lee, a business executive who will represent the 26th Congressional District, is lobbying Republican leaders to put him on the House Financial Services Committee so he can be in the middle of decisions about how to re-regulate the financial sector to prevent future meltdowns that stick taxpayers with the bill.
"My belief is that we want to keep (automobile) manufacturing in this country while at the same time requiring the companies to make changes to ensure their solvency," Lee said.
The three newly elected House members will be sworn in Jan. 6.
Lee said he will move his family to Washington, D.C., to spend more time with them. He said they will rent a house near the Capitol while keeping their home in Clarence to commute to on weekends and congressional breaks.
"I've got a 3-year-old son, and I want to see him grow up," Lee said.
Massa said he will keep his primary residence in Corning and rent a small apartment in Washington.
"My home is the 29th Congressional District," he said. "I do not, cannot, and will not ever call Washington my home."
Maffei, a newlywed, said he and his wife will commute back and forth together. He said they would keep their house in DeWitt and rent an apartment in Virginia.
One thing he said he won't do is emulate Sen. Chuck Schumer's living arrangements. Schumer lives with fellow Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and two House members in a rented apartment.
"I'm not going to do what Senator Schumer does and live in a frat house," Maffei said.