An O'Neill Again Runs the House, but This One Works Backstage

By Lois Romano
Thursday, February 1, 2007

C atlin O'Neill can't quite remember her first time on the House floor, a little girl in the large comforting arms of her legendary "Pop-Pop." But it is not a stretch to say that today the doors of that grand chamber do not open without the grandchild of the late Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr.

After the Democrats took back control of the House in January, new Speaker Nancy Pelosi put O'Neill, 29, in charge of floor operations, a job that covers everything from regulating the temperature in the chamber to ensuring there is always a Democrat in the speaker's chair.

"My job goes to the operating of government," O'Neill said in an interview. "If I step back, I know it's crucial that everything gets done."

And then there is her unofficial and unsought role as keeper of the legacy.

When Pelosi was agonizing over whether she should move out of Tip O'Neill's old Capitol office into the more elegant digs available to her, it was the late speaker's granddaughter who gave her a green light.

"It was sentimental, and Catlin said: 'It's okay, move the office. The family wants you in the speaker's office,' " Pelosi recalled yesterday. "That was important for me."

O'Neill suspects that most lawmakers do not know her connection to the gregarious, larger-than-life Tip. Those old-timers who do, she says, always have a story to tell about one of the last unabashed liberals in politics.

O'Neill is the daughter of Christopher "Kip" O'Neill-- Tip's fourth child and a Washington lobbyist -- and his wife, Stephanie. Catlin joined Pelosi's staff in 2002, after the California Democrat was elected minority whip. A few years ago she was promoted to floor assistant, a coveted position in the Hill hierarchy because it puts an aide in close proximity to legislators. Sometimes O'Neill is called upon to advise a freshman how to make his or her first floor remarks.

She was born in 1977, the year Tip O'Neill was sworn in as speaker. Her grandfather, one of the most prominent liberal Democrats of modern times, reigned as speaker until he retired in 1987, making him the second-longest-serving speaker in U.S. history, after Sam Rayburn.

Catlin has only sketchy memories of that historic period. "I used to raid the supply cabinet," she confessed about her frequent visits to the Hill.

She does recall with much clarity, however, her grandfather eloquently reciting "Paul Revere's Ride" for her third-grade class, and then asking the students to identify the poem. None could. "Catlin, you must know this," he finally implored.

"I was humiliated," she said, laughing.

O'Neill says the first time she realized the import of her grandfather's life was at his funeral in 1994. She was 16. "Women at the newsstand were crying, helicopters were flying overhead, people were protesting. . . . It was surreal," she remembers.

She says she doesn't dwell on her family history. "Anyone would want to live up to a namesake, not to do anything that would cast a shadow over the memory," she said. "But at the same time, you want to be recognized as your own person."

Turning the Page

The newest member of the congressional Page Board is a mother and a lawyer, the must-have qualifications the Democratic leadership set to help put the messy Mark Foley scandal behind them.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) had the added credential of having a daughter who served in the House page program last summer. Although her daughter's experience was a positive one, DeGette said she was stunned to learn there is no official procedure for reporting legislators who act inappropriately toward the teenagers.

Foley (R-Fla.) resigned from the House last September after ABC News reported that he had sent inappropriate e-mails and sexually suggestive messages to male former pages. The ensuing scandal and the revelation that House GOP leaders did not protect the pages from Foley contributed to the Republicans' loss in November.

The pages are high school students who are paid to run errands for members. They attend a congressionally run school and live in a chaperoned dormitory.

"I understand that Mark Foley showed up at the page dorm late one night drunk and he was turned away, but that conduct was never reported to the Page Board," DeGette said in an interview. "We need to have a more formalized way of reporting this kind of thing -- and we can do it in a confidential way."

DeGette said a number of House members have asked her about official guidelines for how they should or shouldn't interact with the pages. "There's a handbook with rules that govern the actions and activities of the pages, but the guidelines for members are less clear," DeGette said. "We need to clarify the ethics on this, we need to tell the members what's appropriate contact. Some have asked if they can take a page to lunch."

The House voted overwhelmingly in January to overhaul the board that oversees the 150-year-old program, by expanding the partisan board to add a former page and the parent of a former or current page. Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.), the new chairman, and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), both of whom were kept in the dark about Foley behavior, will remain on the board.

Always an Opening in This House Office

Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-Calif.) is one of those members with a reputation for excessive staff turnover -- and that reputation is taking its toll. A month after she took over as chairman of the House Administration Committee, her staff director has left, at least two other staffers in her personal office have left, and sources say others are looking for new jobs.

Several former staffers -- some who quit and some who were fired over the past few years -- report that the congresswoman is difficult to work for because she demeans staff and rarely seems pleased with their work. All asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals.

She once fired an aide for -- among other issues -- leaving a box of candy on her chair, said a source. Her No. 1 rule, the ex-aides say, is that aides can never walk in front of her. The sources also say she is unusually egotistical -- even for a politician -- and insists that staffers tout her accomplishments in news releases and other materials. Her two-page, single-spaced bio on her Web site, one pointed out, used the word "first" 18 times, as in "the many firsts the Congresswoman has amassed since arriving on the political stage."

In all fairness, we must note that Millender-McDonald does not stand alone in her staff turnover. Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) seems to run through press secretaries at an unusually high rate, and Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Tex.), whose aggressiveness on flights has been well reported, is also known to have unusually high staff turnover. The Houston Chronicle once quoted a Princeton graduate as saying he quit when Jackson-Lee threw a cellphone at him.