Mo’s Bows — Senator’s Staff Ties One On

Talk about team spirit! Sen. William “Mo” Cowan, D-Mass., and his staff all shared in the senator’s sartorial tastes for a team photo Wednesday, with everyone donning Cowan’s signature style, the bow tie.

(Courtesy Sen. William “Mo” Cowan)

While the House has Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., flying the flag for bow ties, the Senate hasn’t had a regular bow-tie champion since the late Sens. Paul Simon, D-Ill., and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., retired.

Franken Releases Hotdish Cookbook

If you missed the Minnesota congressional delegation’s annual “Hotdish Cook Off” last month, now you can try some of the recipes at home.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., released a full-color cookbook of recipes from the 2013 hotdish contest Friday. Hotdish casseroles are a Minnesota tradition. HOH covered the contest, including reactions from some staffers to the abundance of calories.

The recipes include the contest winner, “Hermann the German Hotdish” from Democratic Rep. Tim Walz. Walz’s dish features brats, beer and tater tots.

Full story

Booze and a Boat Breed Bipartisanship

Nothing brings Democratic and Republican senators together like some time alone on a yacht, says Sen. Mark S. Kirk.

Speaking to reporters about his work on firearm background checks and other gun-related legislation, the Illinois Republican told a gaggle of reporters that credit for bipartisan efforts in the Senate are in part thanks to visits to the Black Tie, a vessel that is partially owned by Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va.

“You guys really ought to go out to National Harbor and see the Black Tie, which has been much of the reason for much of the bipartisan cooperation around here,” Kirk said.

Kirk said Sens. Kay Hagan, a North Carolina Democrat and Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, are frequent visitors. Asked about the menu at the gatherings, Kirk didn’t say much, though he indicated some booze might be consumed.

“Sometimes alcoholic beverages might be served and ties might … get loosened,” Kirk said.

Manchin and Kirk are best of friends in the Senate, in both their work and personal lives. Manchin flew to Chicago to visit Kirk in January 2012, not long after the junior Illinois senator suffered a stroke that kept him away from the chamber for a year.

As HOH has previously reported, Kirk has called the West Virginian “My Main Man Manch;” while Manchin’s called his pal an “Energizer Bunny.”

Will Reid and McConnell Road-Trip To Springfield?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants a piece of his Republican counterpart’s basketball action.

HOH already reported that Kentuckian Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader and the Senate’s No. 1 Louisville Cardinals fan, will be in Atlanta for tonight’s national championship game against the University of Michigan. But Reid had his own cause for basketball celebration with Monday’s confirmation that Jerry Tarkanian, the former coach of the University of Nevada Las Vegas Runnin’ Rebels, would be inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

“Nobody has brought more recognition to Nevada athletics and UNLV than Coach Tarkanian. Jerry is a legendary coach and he was a mentor to so many individuals over the years,” Reid said in a statement. “By bringing the best out of his players on and off the court, Jerry built a first-rate basketball program that Nevadans are fiercely proud of.”

When the coach’s son Danny Tarkanian ran for the House last year as a Republican, Reid took a swing at the younger Tarkanian’s financial woes but also highlighted his own role in helping the elder Tarkanian deal with repeated NCAA inquiries. Full story

Mitch McConnell Plans Final Four Trip

Cheer Up, Staffers! We’ve Got the Campus NCAA Channel Guide

Dear Hill creatures: Don’t feel guilty about wanting to watch March Madness on Thursday. Just be informed on how to, care of your friends at HOH.

Let’s be honest, your bosses will be watching basketball. Why should they have all the fun just because they were elected to do the people’s work and you were merely hired at a low price? Read further for the lowdown on which channels around campus you can find virtually every game. And don’t forget to fill out your Roll Call men’s and women’s NCAA brackets!

Full story

Overheard: McCain and Mikulski

Mike Lee, From Drones to Jell-O

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, offered his colleague Sen. Rand Paul a brief respite on the Senate floor after the Kentucky Republican spoke for more than three hours in a talking filibuster of President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the CIA.

When Lee finished his relief appearance, he returned to his office in the Hart Senate Office Building to meet and greet an assortment of constituents, Senate pages, students and other visitors who had stopped by for the office’s weekly Wednesday afternoon constituent Jell-O. The event is an open house of sorts, similar to the constituent coffees popular in Senate other offices.

A few pages made the trip from the floor, where they’ve been carefully watching Paul lead Lee and other colleagues in the unusual in-person talk-a-thon style of filibuster, which came about to highlight Paul’s objection to the topic of the Obama administration’s policy regarding targeted drone strike killings.

Visitors to Lee’s third floor office in Hart were treated to traditionally green Jell-O with just a touch of whipped topping, as well as photos and introductions with Lee.

Not coincidentally, Jell-O brand gelatin is the official state snack of Utah, and yes, HOH means the brand name. In Utah it seems, the state legislature will accept no substitutes.

The U.S.S. Ted Stevens

Proving once again that Congress is still about relationships, appropriators have at least found something on which they can agree: naming a warship after a late colleague.

The spending bill unveiled Monday by the House contains a provision expressing the sense of the Senate that the next large naval warship be named for former Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

Stevens, who died in an August 2010 plane crash in his beloved home state, served at various points over the decades as the chairman and ranking member on the subcommittee in charge of the Pentagon’s budget. Stevens had been in the Army Air Corps during World War II.

Senate appropriators tucked the provision into their defense spending bill last year, adopting an amendment during an August markup championed by Stevens’ longtime friend and “brother,” Chairman Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, along with the panel’s top Republican at the time, Thad Cochran of Mississippi. Inouye himself died in December. Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski also spoke in support of the U.S.S. Ted Stevens designation at the meeting.

“Ted Stevens didn’t play favorites with the — the various services. He loved them all. He embraced them all,” Murkowski said. “Whether you were an airman, a solider, a Coast Guard man, a sailor, Ted Stevens was there for our military.”

Beyond the Beltway, McCarthy Opines on ‘House of Cards’

Even the actual House majority whip has thoughts about his fictional counterpart in the Netflix TV series “House of Cards.”

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told an audience in Sacramento that watching the propgram, the office occupied by Whip Francis Underwood looked familiar.

“I start watching this show and after the first couple of shows, his office starts to look like my office. There’s this map, right, sitting there. I look over on the wall, he’s got that whip sitting there,” McCarthy said, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Underwood, a cold and calculating South Carolina Democrat portrayed by Kevin Spacey, does not resemble McCarthy, which is part of the reason the real Congressman may have agreed to meet with Spacey.

“[Spacey] keeps calling my office and wants to know if I’ll sit down with him. I’m saying no because I know it’s not going to turn out well for me, right?” McCarthy said in California. “Well then they tell me he’s going to play a Democrat. I said, ‘Sure, come on in!”

Throughout the first season of the Netflix show, Underwood gets himself embroiled in one scandal after another in order to achieve his political goals. Oddly enough, Torey Van Oot, the Bee reporter on the case in Sacramento, has written no shortage of Congressional ethics stories herself: she covered the trial of then Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., as an intern for Roll Call.

Would-Bee Smugglers Get Schumer Pun Run

“This successful sting operation is sure to be a buzzkill for would-be honey smugglers,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, who may have exceeded all allowable standards by squeezing four puns into a three-sentence statement about an illegal dumping case against two U.S. honey processors.

The New York Democrat was just getting revved up. “For too long, foreign smuggling of this product has created a sticky situation for domestic honey producers. We need a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to honey laundering.”

Using up so many sticky puns in one fell swoop could cause trouble for Schumer, who might need more of them if an effort he backs gains traction again this year: He wants to crack down on the distribution and sale of counterfeit maple syrup.

Full story

Refusing to Make a Mark

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell faced a question before the formal start of his Tuesday stake-out with reporters about a matter on the minds of many of his fellow Kentuckians.

A reporter asked McConnell for his thoughts on Maker’s Mark reducing the proof of its standard bourbon. McConnell offered a laugh but declined to answer, instead noting, “we’re having a tasting tonight” for the State of the Union, which he called “the longest day — every year.”

Maker’s Mark is diluting the alcohol content of its bourbon to meet increased demand.
Full story

Courtney, Kushner Spar Over ‘Lincoln’

Democratic Rep. Joe Courtney thanked  Tony Kushner for acknowledging the factual inaccuracy about the lawmaker’s home state of Connecticut in his “Lincoln” screenplay, even though the playwright and screenwriter blasted the congressman’s approach to the issue.

“I am pleased that Mr. Kushner conceded that his ‘Lincoln’ screenplay got it wrong on the Connecticut delegation’s votes for the 13th Amendment,” Courtney said in a statement. “My effort from the beginning has been to set the record straight on this vote, so people do not leave the theater believing Connecticut’s representatives in the 38th Congress were on the wrong side of history.”

Full story

Tom Coburn and His Giant Charts

Screenshot

Sen. Tom Coburn came to the Senate floor Wednesday to address a problem that he says is too big to be addressed within the confines of the Senate’s chart regulations.

The Oklahoma Republican brought a series of bright yellow charts to the floor with a series of tables outlining duplication and redundancy in federal government programs, based on reports from the Government Accountability Office.

“I ask permission for these oversized charts because the detail behind them cannot be seen unless you have it on a chart this size,” Coburn said. He later argued that “it’s absolutely asinine what we’re doing” in terms of wasting money.

Full story

Generous Bourbon Pours Highlight Bluegrass Ball

You cannot have a Kentucky ball without great bourbon — and perhaps, a moving invocation.

With all due respect to Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear and House members from Kentucky of both parties, the highlight of Saturday evening’s Kentucky Bluegrass Ball at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel was the selection of bourbons, with seven different stands set up by distillers with about 20 different varieties being offered during a reception before the beginning of the formal festivities.

While we at HOH might have personal favorites, Kentucky politicians knew better than to engage on that question. Full story