The ins and outs of the Capitol Hill office lottery

In the House, members can paint their private office - the inner sanctum within their suite - any color they want, as long as they buy the paint. But, in the rest of their suite, they have very limited and very bland options.

"Two buffs. A yellow. A blue-ish. And two grays," said Stephen T. Ayers, the current architect of the Capitol, laying out the paint swatches on a table. The choices are limited for reasons of efficiency, the argument goes. Without the restriction, the Capitol might end up stocking 14 different shades of fuchsia at taxpayer expense (Ayers wouldn't say how much this whole process of moving and painting offices costs).

This, House employees say, is where some new members are surprised by their lack of choice.

"Well, how do I work around that?" one remembered a past freshman legislator saying. The reply is polite but firm: You can't work around that. "The rules of the House," officials intone.

House employees recalled that some daring legislators have still disobeyed: In one notorious suite, every room was done in a different neon color. "You didn't need to turn on the lights," the paint was so bright, another employee recalled.

It's quite legal, however, to hang all manner of things on the wall. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), for example, has a martial-arts training device called a Focusmaster (which he paid for himself) that he punches and kicks to stay in shape and blow off steam.

This year's freshmen won't be sworn in until Jan. 5, after a frenzied few weeks in which Hill staffers will move just under 300 offices and paint all 441 House offices.

Asked this week about their unhappy choices, the incoming legislators responded with a characteristic mix of exuberance and unrealistic expectations.

"I want the first floor near the door to the Capitol," said Frederica Wilson, a newly elected Democrat from Florida known for her eye-catching hats. As for paint colors: "I want an African theme," Wilson said.

Billy Long, a newly elected Republican from Missouri, had a common response: It really doesn't matter that much. "They can give me a broom closet," Long said. "And I'll make it work."

But it always matters: Members of Congress have been battling over office space since before there even were offices, just desks. Over the past two centuries, the divvying-up of space has mirrored Congress's larger shift from a disorganized assembly into a body tightly governed by seniority.

In the early 1800s, when House members worked from their desks in the chamber, the best desks were the ones in the middle - where the presiding officer could see you raising your hand to speak. The House's historical office says Virginia and Maryland congressmen, who had the shortest commute to Washington, often showed up first and claimed them.