Friends,

Two quick things.

Last week, I told you that I had been appointed to the Armed Services Committee.

We just had our first meeting. It was a very short meeting. Polite and cheerful.

But the more important meeting happened the day before when we picked our subcommittees.

Here’s how it went:

We do this by party, so the members of my party who are on the committee met together in a conference room.

There was a big board with the different subcommittees listed at the top. On a table next to the board was a pile of nameplates - two for each of us in the room. Why two nameplates? Because we each get two subcommittees.

Then they read our names in order of seniority, we each picked one, then they did it again and we each picked our second.

My subcommittees will be Tactical Air and Land Forces and Intelligence and Special Operations. In short, that means those are the two parts of the defense budget I’ll have a hand in preparing.

I also told you last week that I had received my second assignment.

And it is…

The Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

This is fantastic. The number of areas this committee touches is staggering.

I’m also happy to report that three North Carolinians will serve on this committee. I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet that’s a record for our state. We’ve already started talking about how we can coordinate.

My two committees will handle very different subjects, but my sense is they both share something crucial: They’re not a haven for the kind of hyper-aggressive partisanship we’ve seen elsewhere. They both have a reputation for being somewhat removed from the outrage cycle. At the first Science meeting, one member told us that while she expected this Congress to be particularly divisive, she hoped that they’d let our committee “nerd out in the corner.”

By the way, I was going to be able to give you my personal assessment of Rep. Santos because he was originally assigned to this committee, but last week he removed himself from both of his committees. I haven’t had the chance to meet him yet, but I happened to turn the corner and end up ten feet behind him in the tunnel on the way to vote last week and it was quite a sight. As he walked, reporters swarmed him and yelled questions at him for several minutes. He didn’t answer and eventually they gave up.

Safe to say that he and I are having very different day-to-day experiences as new members of Congress.

Recently, I was on the House floor watching a debate on a bill. I was standing towards the back in the narrow walkway that wraps around the room.

While I was there, I happened to bump into another member of Congress. This was a member I had never personally met, but let’s just say that I knew this person by reputation.

And it wasn’t good.

I had seen this person do their thing on TV and Twitter and it was clear this wasn’t someone I was going to be able to work with.

But it's important to be polite so I put out my hand and said, “Hi, I'm Jeff, the new guy from North Carolina.”

And then we talked for 20 minutes.

As it turns out, this person is brilliant.

Their knowledge of the issues, their knowledge of their district, the things they had done to try and help people back home were really impressive.

The more subjects we touched on, the more I thought to myself, “Well, we could work together on that, and that, and that.”

It was the single most memorable conversation I’ve had since getting sworn in because there was just a massive gap between who I thought this person was and who they turned out to be.

Now - for some reason - this person has decided to cultivate an image that is completely different from who they really are, so it’s not like my assumptions were unjustified.

And I certainly can’t condone what is a fairly cynical political strategy on their part, to create a persona so deeply at odds with their true self. You can never really trust someone who is willing to do something like that.

But it taught me an important lesson: Don’t assume anything about anyone here until I’ve had a chance to meet with them personally.

It’s a closely divided Congress and for me to get anything done I have to find common ground with lots of other people - and unlikely allies can still be allies, at least on certain things.

So, with a wary mind, I’m going to reset my assumptions about everyone here and give myself time to come to my own conclusions about each of them.

All for now,
Jeff