Elizabeth Warren’s Senate office for now: ‘the trailer’

[UnrepentantLiberal]

Spartan and utilitarian, the temporary office of Senator Elizabeth Warren is in a courtyard near the Capitol. (Pete Marovich for The Boston Globe)

By Noah Bierman
The Boston Globe
March 14, 2013

WASHINGTON — After shaking hands and snapping photos with visiting constituents, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren offers them a sheepish apology.

“You’re welcome to come by my office,” she tells them. “It’s just not much to see.”

This is not a politician’s false modesty. Warren’s prize for winning one of the toughest and highest profile Senate battles in the country: An office in a prefabricated building known around the Senate as “the trailer.’’

Efforts have been made to spruce up the paper-thin walls with Norman Rockwell reproductions and photographs of a Gloucester lighthouse and the Zakim Bridge. But there is no way to disguise the modest nature of the space, in a small cluster of temporary structures erected in the courtyard of a grand office building — the US Senate’s version of a mobile-home park.

Warren cracks good-natured jokes about it and insists she has far greater frustrations to confront, including complex filibuster rules that can be used by the minority to kill legislation. But her extended stay in modular housing, expected to last until June, is a freshman’s first and most tangible lesson in the plodding and idiosyncratic ways of the Senate.

More: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2013/03/14/elizabeth-warren-labors-prefab-office-she-waits-for-her-own-senate-suite/EA8icIFXqOAD0xfKw5vyFO/story.html

[NMDemDist2]

1. wow

[Mass]

2. As every freshman or freshwoman before her.

I hate the Boston Globe for reporting about stupid things like that. No surprise they are having problems.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

3. Why?

I thought it was interesting.

[Mass]

5. I do not think so, but the Globe loves these fluff pieces.

They spent tons of paper on Native American Gate and are now spending their time on Maryland Gate (for Markey).

I like my senator (and my future senator). I will be proud of my senatorial team, but the Globe is a lousy paper. It is a shame the Phoenix is the one closing and the Globe continues. I care about issues, not fluff.

BTW, they pretty much wrote the same paper when Brown came in 2011 (in 2010, he got Kennedy's office, but he had to vacate it at the end of the session.

[Tx4obama]

4. Mo Cowan (new senator) is in John Kerry's office - the article says.

The article is interesting if you read the whole thing

[Mass]

6. Yes, because offices are affected at the beginning of a session.

Kerry got his office, and Cowan gets it then whoever is elected as they do not move people in the middle of a session. In 2014, this person will get a new and smaller office.

[Tx4obama]

7. Yes, I know. I read the whole article. I am sorry that you don't like the Globe, but the article...

to me was interesting - and to use Warren's word: "... fun ..."

[Justice]

10. actually he is not. I was just there and it was not Kerry's office.

[fairfaxvadem]

8. Seen them, they aren't that bad...

Forgot who I had to lobby a few years back. None of us had been to the "trailers" and had images of high school.

Not so. They (at least back then) did a good job of spiffing up the situation and we were actually fairly impressed with what we saw.

But, it does not have the same cache of having a proper office in one of the 3 Senate offices buildings, even a basement address as some freshman senators get, that is accurate, if you care about those things. Some do. She probably could give a crap, but hey, her office IS a trailer, not 305 Hart, or whatever.

Office space is a big deal on the Hill. Stupid? Yes. Part of the seniority game? Yes.

There is a really old sociological book called "Tribes on the Hill" - recommended for anyone who wants to understand what goes on up there...

[pscot]

9. She and Tammy Baldwin are the only ones

stuck out in the Russell bldg courtyard.

[Justice]

11. It is not a bad space - I was just there. Great pictures