Lake County News-Sun: Lake County's congressional reps well aware of those who once occupied their offices; 'He was a hero to my generation'

One day, during a debate on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives approximately five years ago, U.S. Rep Brad Schneider, D-Highland Park, found a spot to sit near U.S. Rep John Lewis, D-Ga.

“I just want to breathe the same air as you,” Schneider said.

From the time Schneider was first elected to Congress in 2012 until Lewis’ death in 2020, Lewis became a colleague, then a mentor and eventually a friend to Schneider as they served together on the House Committee on Ways and Means.

When the last office Lewis occupied became available in January of 2021, Schneider selected it as his own. He said he does not intend to move again as long as he remains in Congress.

“He was a hero of the Civil Rights Movement, who worked with Dr. (Martin Luther) King and he became a friend,” Schneider said. “He was the conscience of the Congress. He was respected by everyone.”

The offices of Schneider and the other members of Congress who represent parts of Lake County — U.S. Rep Jan Schakowsky, D-Evanston, U.S. Rep Bill Foster, D-Naperville, and U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Chicago — in Washington are cloaked in history.

Schneider’s first office in 2013 was once occupied by former President John F. Kennedy, when Kennedy was a congressman from Massachusetts. Schakowsky sits where two former speakers of the house once sat.

While Foster’s office was once occupied by a sitting senator — Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. — and John McHugh, the secretary of the Army for President Barack Obama, Foster said the most significant thing to him is that it was his parents’ meeting place.

Quigley is only the second person to occupy his office in the Rayburn House Office Building. It was the home of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure from the time the building opened in 1965 until 2016, when a House pioneer had it before he did.

Office selection is done by seniority. Schakowsky said it took her 24 years — since she was first elected in 1998 — to get an office on the fifth floor of the Rayburn building with a view of the Capitol dome.

“It’s a luxurious view of the Capitol,” she said. It’s so nice after all these years to be able to look out and see that. I look out and realize I’m looking at the Capitol of the United States.”

Making his first office choice in January of 2013, Schneider was among the last to pick as a freshman member. People began selecting his initial office suite in the Cannon House Office Building over a century ago, in 1909.

In January, 1947, a freshman Congressman from Massachusetts’ 11th District selected Suite 325 — U.S. Rep. John F. Kennedy, D-Mass. Schneider has had two other offices since, but he was fond of his time there. A picture of Kennedy hangs in his current office.

“He was a hero to my generation,” Schneider said.

As the 69th of 72 members of Congress to occupy his first office, Schneider said he was not aware of them all. He recently learned one was U.S. Rep. Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., D-Md., who also had it for two years as a freshman from 1939 to 1940. D’Alesandro was father or former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

A pair of former speakers once occupied Schakowsky’s first office as freshmen. One she described as discredited — former Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Yorkville — and the other with great reverence — former Speaker Sam Rayburn, D-Tex.

“He was Mr. Democrat,” she said of the most tenured speaker in history, who held the gavel three separate times. “He was a very young man then. He was there when the (office) building opened. He got a lot of legislation passed. He knew how to make deals.”

Foster said his current office was occupied at one time by Rep. Marcy Kapter, D-Ohio, who is the longest-serving woman in House of Representatives history, and former Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn. He worked closely with both of them, but the most significant thing to him was family history.

In the 1950s, his father — George William Foster — was working as an attorney for a committee, and his mother — Jeanette Foster — had a job in the office of former Sen. Paul Douglas, D-Chicago. His father once took some documents to Douglas’ office. Then his trips became more frequent.

“He kept finding reasons to go to Sen. Douglas’ office so he could flirt,” Rep. Foster said.

Just the second person to occupy his office in the Rayburn Building since it was converted to members’ quarters from a committee meeting room, Quigley has the opportunity to make his own history there. He moved into the suite last year.

The only other occupant of Quigley’s current office was Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif. She was a pioneer as the first Latina to serve as a chair of a House Appropriations Subcommittee, the first woman to chair the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the first woman to chair the California Congressional Delegation.