Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Contrasting Moral Lessons from the Congressional Boss
Contrasting Moral Lessons from the Congressional Boss
Jul 1, 2025 12:34 AM

I read with considerable attention “Congressional bosses from Hell: Sheila Jackson Lee” in the Daily Caller today. From the article:

Congress was in recess, and the 435 lawmakers who drive the frenetic pace on Capitol Hill were home in their districts glad-handing constituents. For that reason, the door to [Sheila] Jackson Lee’s office was open and the sounds emanating from inside were pleasant laughter and conversation.

‘You could tell when she wasn’t there,’ Stephens said. That was because on a day in which Congress was in session, a different set of sounds often came through closed doors to Jackson Lee’s office: screaming and, many times, crying.

Having worked for a U.S. Congressman, former member Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss), I find some of the congressional staff dynamics and stories both entertaining and troubling. Many of the stories and anecdotes I tell from my time working on a congressional staff are among the most popular for audiences. I also learned a lot of valuable people skills, patience, and passion for helping those in need. In my case, I had the privilege of helping many military veterans with federal issues.

Recently, I attended a social event where some staff of several well known Michigan lawmakers openly unloaded on the arrogance and temperament of their bosses to me in conversations. It did not surprise me. I have heard many similar stories before. It continually reinforces the well known Lord Acton adage about the corrupting nature of power.

I learned a lot from working with and for a congressman and his staff. Many of the lessons I will retain forever. In contrast to the piece in the Daily Caller, here is just one important lesson I pulled from a talk and essay I wrote for Acton on Tap:

The congressman I worked for, Gene Taylor (D-Miss) did help to reinforce something timeless and virtuous.

One day I was dispatched with the duty of locating him in the Rayburn House office building. The reason was simple; the Secretary of the Navy was waiting for him in his office. Some of the staff was panic stricken and mildly embarrassed because they could not ascertain his whereabouts and he was terribly late for the meeting. Congressman Taylor was not frequently attached at the hip with his cellular phone or pager. I remember looking in all the places you would look for a House member in the Rayburn building and not being able to locate him. After I had given up, I preceded to walk up the stairs and found him talking with a maintenance worker in the stairwell.

I told him that the Secretary of the Navy was in his office and he nodded his head and introduced me to his friend, whom he treated like a celebrity, bragging up the individual’s fishing skills. While I did not always agree with the positions or votes he recorded on issues, Gene Taylor always reinforced the significance of treating people the same. He also taught me a valuable life lesson when he told me:

‘You know why I’m friends with the capital police, the maintenance workers, and mon fisherman down at the harbor? It’s because they will continue to be my friends when I am no longer a congressman.’

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Many Americans see religious discrimination in U.S.
Americans say some religious groups continue to be discriminated against and disadvantaged, according to recent surveys by Pew Research Center. The surveys asked Americans which of three religious groups face discrimination: Jews, Muslims, and evangelical Christians. More than three-in-four Americans (82 percent) say Muslims are subject to at least some discrimination, and a majority says Muslims are discriminated against a lot. These results have not changed since the question was asked in 2016. Roughly two-thirds of Americans (64 percent) also...
LBJ’s Great Society lives on
Forget Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton as well. And do the same regarding Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. The most consequential American president since the end of World War II was Lyndon Baines Johnson. The man — who possessed a bination of savvy, lack of character and progressive faith — created the Great Society and helped to shape the modern-day United States. Whether you like him or not, we all live under the shadow...
Robbing Pietro to pay Paolo? The zero-sum game in Italy’s welfare state
Robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is an idiomatic expression about bad – or at least disappointing – economics. Curiously, it was born within the context of the Church’s supposedly poor financial administration of its properties. While there are many sources to the origin of the idiom, there is a famous story from 17th C. England when a bishop was said to have ordered funds transferred from one old church (St. Peter’s Abbey) to another in disrepair (St. Paul’s Cathedral)....
How to think like a Christian
Photo Credit: Michael Matheson Miller Here is a podcast interview I did recently with my friend Matt Leonard, host of The Art of Catholic and Next Level Catholic Academy. Matt and I talked about some of the foundational ideas of Christian thinking in contrast with the dominant secular way of seeing the world. As you can see from the title of Matt’s show, The Art of Catholic, this podcast is directed to a Catholic audience, but many of the ideas...
Can intellectuals actually win elections?
The European Parliament in Brussels In my previous Letter from Rome, I asked whether populists have the capacity to govern, given the failings of the Italian coalition made up of left-wing and right-wing populists and their apparent disdain for ideology. In the wake of the recent elections for the European Parliament, the corollary question is whether non-populists can actually win elections. It’s a bit of a trick question, since elections are popular by nature, even if they are not always...
An introduction to fiscal policy
Note: This is post #124 in a weekly video series on basic economics. What is fiscal policy? As economist Tyler Cowen explains, the simple answer is that it’s a government’s policies on taxes, spending, and borrowing. But how it’s practiced is a little plicated. Fiscal policy can be used in an effort to mitigate fluctuations in the business cycle—to soften the effects of those booms and busts. (If you find the pace of the videos too slow, I’d mend watching...
10 facts about Theresa May’s resignation as prime minister
After surviving a no confidence vote last December, and suffering two of the largest legislative defeats in modern parliamentary history, UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced this morning that she will step down as prime minister. Barely suppressing tears, “the second female prime minister but certainly not the last” said she was leaving office “with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.” Here are the facts you need to know: 1. Theresa...
Study: How do millennial Christians approach faith, work, and calling?
Millennials recently surpassed Baby Boomers and Generation Xers to e the largest generation in the American workforce—a development that has likely led many to recall mon stereotypes about millennials as dreamy-eyed idealists or lazy, plainers. But if we look past our various cultural prejudices, what does the evidence actually indicate? If the attitudes and priorities of Generation Y are, in fact, so strikingly distinct from their counterparts, what might it tell us about the future shape of economic order? In...
Video: Cory Booker makes the case for school choice in Grand Rapids (October 2000)
Sen. Cory Booker, then a Newark city councilman, made the case for school vouchers at an Acton sponsored October 2000 event at the Wealthy Theater in Grand Rapids saying, “The cost of not doing the program is having continuing generations of kids chained to failing schools when they could be easily liberated if the parents were given the right to choose where they go with their money.” School vouchers were then a hot topic in Michigan as Michiganders were debating...
5 takeaways from the European Union last election
Rubber Wall? Although populists have won in many countries — Salvini in Italy, Le Pen in France, Farage in the United Kingdom, Nationalists in Belgium, Law and Justice in Poland, and Orban in Hungary — everything points out that little will change in the distribution of power and in the political dynamics within the European Union. The European unification project is authoritarian, and the European Parliament is a decorative body, practically irrelevant. The Eurocrat establishment is a rubber wall, no...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved