The Drinking Culture on Capitol Hill is Worse Than You Might Think
There are whisper networks among female staffers about which bars to be careful in—and which booze-drenched lawmakers to avoid.
MARK TWAIN ONCE LAMENTED the way Washington’s never-ending flow of booze prevented him from attaining proper health and a good night’s sleep.
“Washington is no doubt the boss town in the country for a man to live in who wants to get all the pleasure he can in a given number of months,” Twain, a former congressional reporter and staffer, said in an 1889 interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “But I wasn’t built that way. I don’t want the earth at one gulp.”
Twain reported that his doctor advised him to give up the town’s lifestyle for the sake of his longevity. He died in 1910 at the age of 74.
Many years later, booze remains a major lubricant of formal and informal Washington functions. Indeed, for today’s Capitol Hill staffers and reporters, the prescription for a long and successful career often starts with off-hours drinks.
But it comes with risks, and not just the ones Twain’s doctor warned of. For women, going to the bar brings the potential of being groped—occasionally by a prominent congressman. One female staffer who talked to me for this edition of Press Pass relayed that this happened to her at a bar in the city. She declined to name the member on record, for fear of reprisal, but relayed that she got away from him by swapping seats with a male colleague.
It was a moment notable, in part, for its commonness. In ways big and small, younger women in D.C. make calculated decisions to minimize their risk of harassment by powerful political figures, and they rely on whisper networks to know which lawmakers to be more vigilant around. Some of their bosses—or the power-players they interact with or report on—are known for having too much to drink, others for cheating on their wives. Some are known for both.
“This was something that was really present for me from the time I was an intern,” a House staffer told me, referring to how she learned to conduct herself during off-hours drinks and to avoid ending up in a vulnerable position with male lawmakers or senior aides.
But they go to the bars anyway, not just because it is inherently unfair that they should be deprived of these social settings but because
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