WASHINGTON — Near the cafeteria of the Rayburn House Office Building, right next to the trash bins, is a drab room with rows of cubicles wistfully called the “Departing Member Center.”
After every election, sitting members of the House who are retiring or lost their race are relegated to this sad wing for their final weeks in office. At the same time, incoming members show up for a freshman orientation that culminates in gleefully picking out paint colors, drapes and furniture for the offices they will occupy for at least the next two years.
The transition period is a thorny time on Capitol Hill, occupied simultaneously by anticipation and resignation. Attention is showered on wide-eyed new members flooding the halls while those departing are rather ungraciously shunted aside in their final days.
A staffer for one California House member called it “the Congress experience at its worst.”
Even outgoing Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) — elected Nov. 6 to serve as California’s next U.S. senator — was told he had until last Wednesday to vacate his House office.
Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., center, welcomes incoming Democrat senators in his office Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024, in Washington, from right, Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich, Sen.-elect Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., Sen.-elect Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif, Schumer, Sen.-elect Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., Sen.-elect Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., Sen.-elect Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J.
(Mariam Zuhaib / Associated Press)
“I walked back to do a staff photo in my House office, and my name had already been taken off the wall,” he said. “So there was this blank space on the wall. I’m like, oh my God, they’ve taken my name!”
Like most, he was wholly unimpressed by the temporary digs offered in the departing member center. He has a separate basement office that he described as “totally luxurious” by comparison.
Fortunately for Schiff, he will take over outgoing Sen….