Jeb Bradley: The First 100 Days
WASHINGTON—As Rep. Jeb Bradley returns to his office after a long day on the House floor, a man is climbing on his furniture.
One of Bradley’s aides is supporting this well-tailored individual with a single hand on his back, as the visitor tries to balance on a burgundy leather couch, above which there hangs an enormous relief map of New Hampshire.
“I can’t pinpoint quite where the dividing line is,” the man says to the staff member, who is struggling to help him see where New Hampshire’s first district begins and ends so the visitor can determine whether he is one of Bradley’s constituents.
“Can I help you?” Bradley asks, suddenly a presence in the doorway.
“My name’s Jeb Bradley. How can I help you today?” he says, extending a hand to the man, who comes down from the couch.
Bradley smiles and gives his attention to the visitor, who seems first surprised and then warmed by the exchange.
Whatever tension the awkward meeting could have produced vanishes. But that’s really no surprise.
A tension-filled atmosphere has no place in Jeb Bradley’s office, and a tense reception is the last thing you could ever expect from the freshman Congressman himself, who, although he will mark his first 100 days in Congress on April 17, is already gaining a reputation as an approachable, straight-shooting representative.
Bradley has been on the House floor and running around to appointments all day, and in the little downtime he has available he and his staff have been glued to the television. It is a historic day: the news media keep replaying shots of U.S. marines and Iraqis tearing down the large statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad. Everyone in the room shares a silent frisson over the image, history in the making.
“You picked a good day to come in,” he says to a visiting reporter as the statue falls on screen for the umpteenth time that day. “This is a historic day, and watching the people of Iraq reclaim their country is really very invigorating. I had chills going up my spine watching this process.”
Asked to sum up his first 100 days in office, he gestures again toward the television screen.
“For me, I guess, the first 100 really culminate today,” he says. “The liberation of Baghdad has occurred, there’s still going to be military action, yes, but we’re going to be able to start rebuilding, and the Iraqi people will take back control of their government. I’m pretty happy about where we are.”
Bradley’s first 100 days as a member of Congress have been no routine affair and have literally involved life and death issues. In just three months, the United States has waged war in Iraq and there have been dramatic partisan clashes on a number of major issues.
Bradley asserts that adjusting to his new job in such a climate has not been easy, but says he’s grateful for the opportunity to serve New Hampshire. Bradley talks of his commitment to keeping up what he calls “his end of the bargain with the people of New Hampshire.”
He says that he has received a lot of help from New Hampshire’s other Congressmen, Rep. Charlie Bass and Sens. Judd Gregg and John Sununu. “They’ve all been there,” he says. “They know what this is like.” He also draws upon his years of experience in
the New Hampshire Legislature to ease the transition.
“There are a lot of procedural differences between the New Hampshire legislature and Congress, and I have to learn a lot of procedural nuances,” he says. “Going from being a chairman of a legislative committee to the new kid on the block is a major adjustment.”
It’s not having too many expectations about the job, he says, that have kept him from getting overwhelmed.
“I’ve told a lot of people this. I focused so much on issues and the campaign and the process of getting elected that even though I think I’ve hit the ground running and ready to go, I didn’t have too many expectations about what it was going to be like,” he says. “I came here ready to absorb as much as I could, and I came really with an open mind.”
Bradley is a firm believer in the adage “Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it,” and by keeping that in mind, he has tried not to get bogged down in the process of being a new Congressman and to stay focused on the issues important to him and enjoy the job.
“There’s really no key, there’s no secret, no single answer that helps you automatically be effective in the House or the Senate,” Sununu, who has been a senator only since January but had three terms in the House before this year, said in an interview
Sununu stressed learning rules and procedure early, so that “once you understand the process you can decide how you want to be effective for your state. “Every member of Congress has to go through the process of figuring out how they want to influence and shape policy and decide what kind of a legislator they want to be.”
When Sununu was a freshman in the House in 1997, he said, a combination of learning the procedure and forging relationships not only with congressional colleagues but also with Capitol Hill staff helped him.
Bradley says he has spent much time “doing his homework” and not getting up in the House just to make big speeches. “There’ll come a day for that,” he says.
Nevertheless, he says, his “thrilling” first months have been punctuated by such highlights as being part of the 215-212 vote on President Bush’s tax cut proposal and presiding at one of the House’s after-hours sessions weeks ago.
“I think in a lot of ways it’s the House that’s setting the agenda in Congress,” he says, “and the Senate that’s reacting to it,” citing the recent House passage of Bush’s budget. “I don’t see it as anything where the House plays second fiddle at all.”
Bradley says his top legislative priorities over the next year are securing homeland security, getting the economy back on track and providing affordable health care. He is determined, he says, to keep a clear focus and not be thwarted by the process and by partisan bickering.
“Jeb came to Congress with a lot more experience, at least that I can remember, than either of his two predecessors,” Bass said in an interview. “He really understands how to be effective, not to expect certain things and how to work with people. Some Congressmen get paranoid or pretentious about asking advice, but not Jeb; he’s happy to ask it and happy to receive it.”
Bradley says he tries to let “the facts determine the situation, and I guess that’s always been the way I’ve tried to judge each issue: based on facts, not emotions.”
It’s a strategy he also applies in dealing with any worries about the pressure of getting re-elected every two years.
“I wouldn’t call it pressure,” Bradley says. “It’s part of the job, and while it’s tougher for members, it’s good for the country, and that’s first and foremost why we’re here. Again, be careful what you wish for….”
Published in Foster’s Daily Democrat, in New Hampshire.
