Category: Marissa Yaremich
Johnson Supports Bush’s Welfare Initiative
WASHINGTON, Feb. 27–Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, R-Conn., and several other GOP female representatives banded together yesterday to praise the welfare reauthorization proposal President George W. Bush unveiled on Tuesday.
“I’m proud that the president has come to the table with some new ideas, some new thinking, and some generosity in his heart, and I intend to work with him and my colleagues to move welfare reform to the next rung of opportunity in people’s lives,” Johnson said during a press conference held at the U.S. Capitol.
Johnson helped draft the1996 welfare reform law, which required welfare recipients nationwide to find employment after receiving public assistance for two years. Also known as the “welfare-to-work” program, the law also set a five-year life-time limit for individuals to receive welfare benefits.
Bush’s plan would toughen the 1996 welfare reform act and require states to have 50 percent of their welfare cases working. Currently, the average state has about 30 percent of its welfare recipients working. Bush’s proposal would also require that states get to a figure of 70 percent of their welfare recipients working by 2007.
Bush also proposed an increase in required work activity from 30 to 40 hours per week.
Johnson said she also supported the president’s plan to count two days, or 16 hours, of job training, substance abuse treatment, or mental health education programs toward a recipient’s work-week quota.
Last year about 2.1 million families were on welfare, down from 5.1 million in 1994, when the number of welfare recipients was at its highest.
“There’s been a fifty percent decline in cash welfare families completely dependent on public dollars, and with that, a dramatic increase in the number of women working and supporting themselves or contributing to supporting their own support and developing themselves,” Johnson said.
Bush also offered changes that would toughen work requirements and advocate abstinence programs and marriage for single parents, pointing to statistics that show children reared in a two-parent environment are less likely to fall victim to drug addictions, poverty, violence and are less likely to drop out of school.
Bush is willing to dedicate $300 million of the $19 billion welfare budget to experimental programs to promote two-parent families including premarital counseling.
“We still have one third of births out of wedlock in this country,” according to Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio.
Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash. said, “It’s important for us to remember what it was like 5 years ago” when welfare initiatives were “reverse and perverse” and “hurtful to children without two parents.”
Critics of Bush’s proposed changes say there may not be enough money to do everything he is suggesting and the administration plan includes no increases for federal welfare grants and child care assistance.
“While we understand that no additional dollars are earmarked and that there are increased work requirements, the increased flexibility is sort of tailored to [Connecticut’s state welfare] program,” said Matthew Barrett, a spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Social Services.
Wendell Primus, the income security director at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank in Washington, said it may not be so easy during a recession for more welfare recipients to find work.
“You can’t snap your fingers and mothers are going to magically have jobs,” Primus said, who added that funding might be another issue that arises from Bush’s proposal.
“The thing to see is what the states say about their capacity to meet these requirements and whether they can do this without funding increases,” Primus said.
“We need to talk about moving up the career ladder,” Johnson said, “so that self-sufficiency for families is real and rewarding and secure. This bill is about the future, it’s about growing independence fostering economic growth among people who have low incomes.”
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Local Student Converses With Maloney
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26--He may resemble a typical high school senior who speaks his own slang and stylishly gels his spiked hair, but Jonathan Blansfield knew how to use his intellect to make an impression.
During his visit yesterday with Rep. James H. Maloney, D-Conn., Blansfield had this to say to the lawmaker about the hotly contested 5th District congressional race that matches Maloney against Rep. Nancy L. Johnson in November: "One of the things about the coming elections that I find interesting is that you have a 68-year-old on one side, who only has two or three terms left, and than there is you, with this term-limit contract."
The 17-year-old Waterbury resident quickly added, "One question [Johnson] is probably going to ask is - what, are you just going to run for a dead duck - for one term?"
"Do I look like a dead duck?" Maloney said after a hearty laugh, and then explained that he supports term limits because they allow constituents to hear new voices and opinions on a regular basis.
"That's what gets me mad." Blansfield said to Maloney. "When the Constitution was originally drafted, it wasn't politicians entering the political spectrum because of a career. [Leadership] was supposed to by cyclical."
Amongst the nods of stipulation and shared laughter, Blansfield engaged in a lively 30-minute discussion with the three-term Democrat as part of the Presidential Classroom Scholars Program, a Washington-based non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to giving high school juniors and seniors across the nation an insider's view of the federal government through seminars, discussion groups and visits to congressional leaders.
Blansfield, a self-proclaimed political independent and a student in the J.F. Kennedy High School's Students of Academic Renown (SOAR) accelerated program, was one of 52 Connecticut students selected by the program to participate in one of nine week-long sessions based on his academic excellence and leadership skills.
Maloney encouraged Blansfield to pursue a broadcast journalism career and chatted about whether the news media influenced the government or vice versa.
"I think it's a mix," Blansfield said after Maloney told him of a former classmate who made a career leap from journalism to politics as an illustration of how journalism and political public service are aligned with one another.
"It's like asking - do you influence your brother?" elaborated Maloney, who once wrote a recommendation letter to Boston University for Blansfield's older sibling.
"Yeah," Blansfield responded.
"And does your brother influence you?"
"Nah," Blansfield said with a mischievous side-glance before admitting, "to some extent."
Prior to the student and the lawmaker's light-hearted, but serious, conversation, Maloney suggested that Blansfield and the rest of this week's 170 Presidential Classroom scholars visit the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in addition to their scheduled tours of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Library of Congress.
Maloney also commended the diversity of the program and the students' individual analytical prowess.
"One of the things I like about this program is that you have kids from all over the country who come with very different points of view. That's exactly what goes on in Congress," Maloney noted.
Blansfield, who has met Maloney several times before, didn't seemed fazed by the representative's political prominence.
"I appreciate you meeting with me," he told the representative as he shook his hand. "It's awesome."
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Johnson Error Said to Be Honest Mistake
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14--Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, R-Conn., said Wednesday that she made a mistake when she "inadvertently" voted in favor of a Republican measure that would have scuttled the Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform legislation passed by the House early yesterday morning.
Johnson, a longtime supporter of the Shays-Meehan bill who has voted for it in the past, accidentally cast her vote in favor of an amendment that would have effectively killed the campaign reform for this year, according to David L. Boomer, Johnson's campaign manager.
"[Johnson] did not realize that the vote was an incorrect vote until she left and was back in her office," said Boomer in response to an accusation from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and Rep. James Maloney, R-Conn., that she was using the vote as a way to benefit her upcoming election campaign while simultaneously killing the Shays-Meehan bill.
"She abandoned the people and joined with those committed to killing campaign reform," said a spokesperson for the DCCC, pointing out that Johnson was the only member of the Connecticut congressional delegation to vote in favor of the Ney-Wynn substitute campaign reform bill.
The Ney-Wynn amendment, which the House voted on shortly before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, would have banned all unregulated "soft money" political contributions. It received only 53 votes including those of Johnson and 50 other Republicans.
However, after many hours of debate on Shays-Meehan and votes on more than a dozen amendments, Johnson joined 240 members of the House, including 41 Republicans in voting in favor of final passage of the Shays-Meehan reform legislation in the wee hours of Thursday morning.
The Shays-Meehan bill would ban most soft money contributions made by labor unions, wealthy individuals and corporations; it would increase the limited hard money contributions individuals can give from $1,000 to $2,000 per election and would prohibit special interest groups from running political ads that mentioned candidates in the 60 days prior to an election.
"She wanted to protect the fundraising sources on the one hand, and then come up with an excuse that somehow washed it all away with the voters of Connecticut," said Maloney in an interview yesterday. "That," he continued, "is fundamentally wrong."
Maloney and Johnson will be facing each other in an election this November in the redistricted 5th Congressional District.
Boomer said Johnson anticipated Maloney's reaction since "he has a history of running very negative campaigns."
Maloney, however, said his campaigning goes beyond smearing Johnson, and that it is too "premature" to tell whether this episode will be a major issue during the campaign race.
"What I consider to be more pressing issues are budget deficits, and doing the right thing for Social Security, Medicare, education, and fiscal responsibility," said Maloney
Rep. Robert R. Simmons, R-Conn., said Johnson "has multiple responsibilities as a leader," and "the last 24 hours have been extremely hectic. When you have sequential votes and when the hour gets late and when there are multiple votes with different names on them - mistakes can be made."
"I have found myself in that position on occasion and I am sure every member has at one point," said Simmons.
After casting her vote in favor of the Ney-Wynn substitute bill, Johnson went to the floor of the House and told the clerk she "inadvertently voted aye" on the measure and "would like the record to show that I meant to vote no."
According to a statement issued by Congressmen Christopher Shays, D-Conn., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass, the co-sponsors of the Shays-Meehan bill, they believed that it was an honest mistake on Johnson's part.
"Nancy Johnson has been one of our closest advisors and staunchest supporters in this effort to reform our campaign finance system. She has been there from the very beginning and never wavered in her support. Any suggestion to the contrary is just plain wrong," according to a statement issued by Shays and Meehan.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Jewish Leaders Speak Out on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13--They soldiered onto Capitol Hill armed only with their political ideologies and Jewish faith, hoping to achieve religious and economic goals through the support of their Connecticut delegation.
"We are here to let them know that the Jewish community cares about what's going on in legislation," said Dr. Tamara Goodman, a 27-year-old dentist who traveled earlier this week with 14 other members of the Jewish Community of Greater Hartford to participate in a biennial conference known as Washington 13.
The three-day event, hosted by the United Jewish Communities Young Leadership (UJC) at the Washington Hilton, gave Goodman and nearly 2,000 adult Jewish leaders the opportunity to sit with their states' congressional members to discuss critical social and political issues they believe to be of Jewish communal concern. The UJC is an umbrella organization representing 189 Jewish federations and 400 independent communities, which annually raises $2 billion for special projects and endowment funds.
Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the first Jewish candidate nominated for Vice President, called the Greater Hartford delegation the "future" in terms of meaningful political advocacy.
"I strongly support their views on combating terrorism, standing by Israel and gaining Russia's commitment to religious freedom," said Lieberman, who was also the conference's keynote speaker last Sunday. "In addition, I am pleased that my legislative initiatives to encourage charitable giving are consistent with the [Jewish Community Relations Council's] emphasis on federal support for community-based services.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., said the Greater Hartford federation's "commitment and leadership on a wide variety of issues" also impressed him.
The group solicited support from Lieberman, Dodd and Representatives John B. Larson, D-1st, and Nancy L. Johnson, R-6th, on several local and international initiatives, including restoration and expansion of community-based services for seniors, continued religious freedom in the Russian Federation and the isolation of terrorist groups in Israel as well as the preservation of American-Israeli relations.
According to West Hartford resident Scott Marglois, 28, Connecticut must focus on the care services available to its growing elderly population, especially through programs such as the Naturally Occurring Retiring Communities (NORCs), which allow the elderly to stay in their homes
Marglois and the state federation's leader, West Hartford Mayor Jonathan A. Harris, said NORCs offer seniors the option to remain in their housing complexes without uprooting them. The program, which provides home and personal care services, is a "cost-effective solution" for the elderly who are otherwise faced with expensive long-term care at nursing facilities, Harris said.
Connecticut's average nursing home can cost upwards of $81,400 annually, according to David Guttchen, director of Connecticut Partnerships for Long-Term Care, which is a state government-affiliated program working with the private health care insurance industry.
"We are involved in a war," said Johnson, who is also the chairwoman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health. "There have never been so many troops on the field in Connecticut seeing who is going to pay for [health care]."
Because of other states' similar concerns, Johnson said, Congress is looking more often at systematic reforms, such as certificate programs that could aid workers who are seeking higher-paying jobs, as well as ways to improve case management on an individual basis.
Marglois said he is especially backing NORCs because it is upsetting to see his grandparents forced to live apart after 50 years of marriage.
"My grandmother is at the Hebrew Home [& Hospital] in West Hartford, and my grandfather is living at Chatfield [a nursing home] near the West Farms Mall," Marglois said. "It's really sad at this point that they can't live together after·so long."
Mayor Harris and Cara R. Youssiem, also of West Hartford, called on Congress to support legislation that would increase the Social Service Block Grants program's spending to $2.8 billion from the current $1.7 billion.
The federal funds, Youssiem said, have been cut in the past seven years, which has hampered many Connecticut social services, including youth-at-risk programs, adult and child protective services and employment training for immigrants and refugees.
"The programs are essential," she emphasized, "not only to Jewish services, but to social services in general."
Other participants focused on needs outside of Connecticut but that were also of great concern to many of the 101,000 Jews in the state, constituting 3.1 percent of the state's total population.
According to Dave Mathog, 29, legislation must focus on the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which denies equal trade status to Russia and other countries that restrict their citizens' right to emigrate. Congress is considering dropping Russia from the amendment's provisions because of liberalization of its laws on Jewish emigration.
"We offer you as Jews and as Americans the understanding that Russia's changed," Mathog said. "We welcome the next step, but in doing this we ask Congress to understand the goals of the amendment and allow it not to be changed."
The UJC group noted that Israel still suffers from terrorist attacks on those who follow Judaism.
"[Israelis] feel much stronger when we have the American nation behind us," said Shy Shalom Alon, a student from Afula, Israel, who joined the Connecticut constituents to promote peace in the Middle East.
Alon and West Hartford resident Jeff Landal, 34, urged Johnson and the other congressional leaders to support President George W. Bush's $2.7 billion economic and military budget package against terrorism and to ask the president to include several militant factions of Palestinian extremists on the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtin, R-Fla, have circulated a letter within Congress that solicits the President's condemnation of three groups - Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, the Tanzim militias and Force 17 - that many Jewish-American and pro-Israeli communities say have committed the most brutal attacks on Israeli cities and towns.
To Israelis like Alon, the deliberate victimization of Jews often has a personal impact..
"In 1994, a suicide bomber blew up a car next to a bus. The bus driver was my uncle - he died in that bus," Alon told Johnson. "It is very tough in Israel right now. Every day is another incident. People are dying."
Johnson said she understands the devastation currently wracking the Middle East, but she also asked the Jewish young leaders to be patient with legislation and not to prejudge the countries surrounding Israel because America needs the region's united support in eliminating terrorist activities.
"Congress needs to show a real interest on backing the administration" on these kinds of decisions, she said.
Youssiem, who may be granted dual citizenship from the United States and Canada, her native country, said she will consider her congressional members' voting records if she is able to vote by the November elections.
"Americans do not realize how privileged they are: the opportunities, the freedoms, the right to vote. It's endless," Youssiem said. However, she will not take her ballot lightly if given the chance to vote. I'm not going to take [political issues] for granted," she said.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Simmons Discusses Tribal Recognition
WASHINGTON, Feb. 07-Connecticut congressional leaders yesterday said the current federal Indian recognition process is badly in need of streamlining and improvement and the federal government must also aid states in dealing with the financial and legal pressures Indian casinos place on state governments.
"The Bureau of Indian Affairs is desperately in need of help," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4th, during a hearing of the House Government Reform's Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs. "It lacks the staff and resources to conduct thorough reviews of applications for recognition," said Shays, a member of the committee.
Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd, noted that nearly 200 tribes, including 10 in Connecticut, are currently waiting for the Department of Interior, of which BIA is a part, to rule on their recognition petitions. The applications can range from a single-page letter to 30,000 pages or longer.
Simmons and Shays said there is a severe backlog of recognition decisions that has forced many tribes to go to court to expedite the process.
In order to be recognized by the United States government, a tribe must submit an application proving the tribe meets seven criteria of authenticity.
The criteria include requirements that the tribe prove it has been a continuous American Indian entity since 1900, that each member is a direct descendant of the historical tribe, that that those petitioning for the tribe's recognition are not members of another North American Indian tribe.
The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report last November for improvements to the BIA and its recognition process including producing tribes with a set of distinct guidelines of the criteria, expanding its staff to expedite its response time to applicants and maintaining a sense of overall consistency in its decisions.
Connecticut officials also said the federal government should do something about the burden that the casinos of recently recognized tribes places on states.
"Federal recognition policies are turning the 'Constitution State' into the 'casino state,' and we do not like it," Simmons. "We want more control over the process. We want to close the loopholes. We want a level playing field."
For example, Simmons said two existing Connecticut casinos - The Mohegan Sun and run by the Mohegan Tribe and the Resort Casino run by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe - have overburdened the state with dense traffic on rural roads and strained fire and emergency services.
"The bottom line is Connecticut is becoming the gambling center of the East and this has happened because of Indian gaming," Shays said.
Simmons and Johnson have both introduced their own legislation to deal with all of these problems.
Simmons' bill, co-sponsored by Johnson, Shays and Rep. James Maloney, D-5th, calls upon the government to require the BIA "to notify states whenever a tribe within their borders files for recognition." The bill also asks the BIA to provide a state with a written report as to how it came to its decision on a tribe.
Simmons is also proposing the federal government allot approximately $18 million in grants for local governments to assist "impacted towns" as well to pay for any costs incurred by the state during the decision process.
Johnson's bill, on the other hand, co-sponsored by Shays and Simmons, "allows the federal government to cover up to $500,000 in expenses incurred in land claims or tribal acknowledgement cases."
North Stonington Mayor Nick Mullane attended the committee hearing but did not testify.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Senate Committee Urges Better Long-Term Care For Women
WASHINGTON, Feb. 06-At a joint Senate hearing yesterday, 8 of the Senate's 15 female senators called on the government to adopt better long-term health care policies for the nation's growing population of aging women, including tax cuts for home health care providers, easier access to prescription drug coverage and expansion of current health care programs.
The bipartisan group of women senators appeared before a special meeting of the Senate Special Committee on Aging and the Aging Subcommittee of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to express concern for women who face economic and physical challenges because they are the primary caregivers for elderly or ailing family members or friends.
"Just because family care giving is unpaid does not mean it is costless," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. "These women suffer disproportionately from our [government's] failure to develop a coherent, long-term financing system."
Clinton was one of seven women senators who testified yesterday. The eighth senator in the group, Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., is a member of the Aging Subcommittee.
According to a 2001 report by the Older Women's League, 75 percent of American women dedicate 18 hours of informal, or unpaid, care to seniors per week, on average.
As a result of this kind of emotional stress and physical demands, many of the senators said, full-time working women are at greater risk of health problems, especially since many of them are already in their middle to late fifties and living on a shoestring budget.
Improved legislation, however, could lessen the stress incurred by caregivers.
"Thanks to the vigorous advocacy of leaders like Sen. Mikulski and others, Congress passed the [National Family Caregiver Support Program]," Clinton said. "We should expand on the success of this program and on working on a bill to extend the concept of [it], which has worked so well for the elderly and other populations."
In 2000, Congress instituted the program, which allocated $113 million to the states to provide services, including counseling and training support, so that families can maintain caregiving at home.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a member of the Aging Subcommittee, said he agreed that more legislation needs to be examined, although he is "pleased" that the Family and Medical Leave Act has already given millions of care givers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave from their jobs each year to care for chronically sick or elderly family members. Dodd authored the 1993 legislation.
In addition to that law, Clinton said, the government should implement a joint state-federal program that would make long-term care more affordable and Medicaid's available services more flexible and individualized for seniors.
Any Senate discussion of drafting or "retooling" health care legislation, Clinton warned, must be mindful of the nation's current budgetary situation.
"Every option that we think would be needed for available health care is going to be harder to provide if we · see we are spending the Social Security and Medicare surpluses to pay for our operational expenses today," she said of President George W. Bush's recent multi-billion dollar proposed budget for the war on terrorism.
"Realistically, we are not going to be able to come up with the [long-term health care] options that we should if we don't have the resources to provide that help," she stated.
Dodd said that the decrease in female mortality rates-an American woman's life expectancy is now 79 year-is especially important because baby boomers are quickly approaching their retirement years.
"By 2030, the number of those aged 65 and older will more than double to an astounding 70 million Americans," Dodd said. "Recognizing this, the role of women as both care givers and recipients of long-term care services as they age themselves is a matter of great concern and I appreciate the opportunity to examine this critical issue."
Dodd said that a recent study revealed that nearly or 382,000 Connecticut residents, or 15.2 percent of the population, are providing elder care in any given month.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Governmental Affairs Committee Holds Its First Enron Hearing
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24--Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., opened the first round of Senate hearings on the Enron Corp. financial collapse yesterday with an avowal that the Governmental Affairs Committee he chairs will propose reforms "to make sure that nothing like this happens again."
Enron, once the seventh largest corporation in the United States, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Dec. 2, leaving thousands of its employees and retirees with drastically reduced retirement funds as well as wiping out customers' and shareholders' company-related accounts.
"This is not just a tempest in a teapot," Lieberman said as the hearing began. "It is an unprecedented corporate storm that has already hurt thousands of people and now leaves dark clouds over America's economy and Americans' confidence in their future economic security. This scandal cries out for thorough congressional investigation to make sure that nothing like this happens again."
The committee intends to examine whether government agencies could have intervened before the ene
rgy company's accounting irregularities led to its collapse and whether these agencies need new powers to handle such situations in the future. Among yesterday's witnesses was Arthur Levitt Jr., the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who said a better system of checks and balances is needed to restore the public's trust. "Healthy and resilient financial markets depend on the accountability of every, single one of its key actors - managers, auditors, directors, analysts, lawyers, rating agencies, standard setters, and regulators," Levitt said.
The committee also heard from Yale University Law and Legal History professor John H. Langbein, who specializes in pension and employee benefit law. He said the government may want to consider giving a federal protection guarantee to individuals with 401(k) retirement plans, as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) requires for those who are covered by defined-benefit pension plans.
Lieberman opened the hearing by promising that the committee would act in a bipartisan manner in investigating Enron's alleged wrongdoings. "Because Enron has made substantial political contribution to members of Congress and the executive branch, some have questioned our capacity to conduct an independent, thorough investigation," he said.
The Governmental Affairs Committee hearings will look at the federal agencies that had jurisdiction over Enron and at the role of the White House "to determine what it knew and did," Lieberman said.
The conservative National Legal and Policy Center recently wrote a letter to Lieberman asking him to "avoid the appearance of a double standard" and recuse himself from the hearings because he had received $112,546 in campaign contributions since 1997 from Citigroup Inc's political action committee and employees. Citigroup is Enron's biggest creditor.
Lieberman has not said whether he plans to return these contributions as well as nearly $35,000 that Enron's former auditing firm, Arthur Andersen, had given to the New Democrat Network, a political action committee that the Senator co-founded in 1996.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Lieberman Back In Anthrax-Free Offices
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23-Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and his staff Tuesday finally began moving back into their seventh-floor office in the Hart Senate Office Building after being displaced by an anthrax contamination that has closed the building since Oct. 16.
For three months, Lieberman's nearly 35 employees have been chafing elbows with another 35 committee staffers in the temporary work space set up next door in the Dirksen Senate Office Building's Committee of Governmental Affairs office. However, The U.S. Capitol Police gave the Connecticut Democract the OK to tour his office space Tuesday afternoon before allowing his personal employees to start moving back boxes later that day.
"Risk is a part of life," Lieberman noted during a walk-through of his personal office, "but (the clean-up crews) have reduced that risk as much as possible. I come back with confidence, but I honestly did say a prayer as I came through the door."
On Oct. 15, 2001, an aide to Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D., whose office is also in the Hart building, discovered a letter tainted by the deadly anthrax bacteria spores, which prompted officials to close the nine-story, million-square-foot building while purification crews fumigated the area with carbon dioxide gas.
Hart's reopening was rescheduled a number of times.
Officials thought the building would reopen last Friday, but that plan was postponed when a bag containing gloves and a protective hazardous materials suit from the anthrax clean-up was discovered in a ceiling hole.
Despite Lieberman's confidence about the safety of the building, not all of his employees felt comfortable with the move, according to Dan Gerstein, the senator's communications director.
"People are happy and relieved, but there are a few staffers filled with apprehension," said Gerstein.
Although some Capitol Hill employees complained of a mildew-like smell coming from the building in past weeks, those who toured the building with Lieberman, including Gerstein, said any residual smells left from the disinfecting vapors had dispersed by Tuesday afternoon.
According to Llelwyn F. Grant, a Center for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson, the health agency - along with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - has since gave Hart a clean bill of health.
"Based on the science and technology available (the CDC) felt that the building was ready and safe for reoccupancy with minimal risk," Grant said.
Gerstein agreed with Grant's assessment and made mention that most of the carpeting had been replaced and most of the office looked physically in order.
Gerstein said no important files or papers appeared to be missing from the office. "Let's put it this way. If you went in there and didn't know what transpired over the past three months, you'd be hard pressed to know there was a bioterrorism scare and intense testing by hazardous material teams," the communications director said.
Both Lieberman and Gerstein commended the staff members of the Committee of Governmental Affairs for readjusting their office space to make room for Lieberman's personal staff.
"It's been a summer camp-bunk bed experience," said Gerstein. "People made the best of an awkward circumstance. It's been an inconvenience."
For example, the staff member who handles Lieberman's schedule was without her Rolodex, which made her job of contacting people for the senator extremely difficult at times.
All in all, Lieberman said, "It's good to be home."
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
