Like high school...

‘It is like high school’: Meet the House’s freshman cliques

Democrats are forming alliances, in a bid to gain friendships and influence.

By MELANIE ZANONA, SARAH FERRIS and HEATHER CAYGLE

At the end of freshman orientation, Rep. Abigail Spanberger was in a bind.

The Virginia Democrat had hoped to grab an office next to her closest buddies in the new Congress — a group of fellow military veterans who’ve dubbed themselves the “Gang of Nine.” But she hadn’t gotten a chance to check out the spot her colleagues had chosen and it was time to make a decision.

“I had that split-second moment, like, do I choose an office I haven’t seen... or give up on your friends?” she recalled in an interview.

Spanberger stuck with the group, solidifying the ties of former CIA agents, Marine Corps vets and a Navy helicopter pilot who have become one of the most visible crews of freshmen roaming the House. They now text every day in a group chat, sit together on the House floor and eat Chinese food while waiting for late-night votes.

Within the House class of 2018, the biggest in a generation, some of the most high-profile Democratic freshmen have begun to splinter off into their own little cliques.

The creation of such alliances is a longtime tradition on Capitol Hill — a play not just for friendship, but influence. Together, these freshman lawmakers have a far better chance of bending the fractious caucus in their direction.

“It is like high school — I just hope I’m better at it,” quipped Rep. Max Rose, a 32-year-old New Yorker, who was awarded a Purple Heart while serving in Afghanistan and hopes that his gang of military moderates can duplicate the success of the new stars on the left.

Indeed, the most well known group, by far, is the “squad” of progressive women of color: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (D- Mass.).

They regularly pose for selfies together on their prolific Instagram pages, with captions like “sister love” and “album dropping.” They rush to each other’s defense when one is attacked by the right. And their joint policy statements snag more news coverage than those of some committee chairmen.

“It was literally a joke from that Instagram post. I just wrote ‘squad’ and it stuck,” said the 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez, who has over 3 million Twitter followers. Before they knew it, the squad had become synonymous with the rising progressive forces looking to remake the Democratic Party.

Then there’s the “Big Six” — the six freshmen designated as liaisons to leadership and who became close as they coordinated the early days of the 116th Congress.

It includes Reps. Haley Stevens of Michigan and Colin Allred of Texas, who were elected by their fellow freshmen to be co-class presidents, as well as four other members picked to sit in on leadership and strategy meetings: Reps: Katie Hill (Calif.), Joe Neguse (Colo.), Deb Haaland (N.M.) and Lauren Underwood (Ill.).

The Big Six — which received its nickname from Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) — might be seen as the over-achievers in the bunch, the ones likeliest to climb into leadership one day.

The freshman class has largely remained united publicly, despite an ambitious group teeming with both liberal firebrands and two dozen new members occupying Trump-won districts.

Still, cracks have begun to show. Some moderates were privately fuming after Ocasio-Cortez suggested during a closed-door meeting last week that she would alert her army of activists when moderates vote with Republicans. A more public clash is likely as the caucus grapples with its ideological divide on health care, climate change and other issues in the coming months.

But for now, freshmen members are dismissing the idea that there is any competition or tension between the various factions.

“This is not like ‘Mean Girls,’” joked Underwood, a member of the Big Six. “There is no captain of the football team, and we’re not all trying to be homecoming queen.”

These kinds of informal coalitions are hardly new to Congress, particularly for the scores of first-time candidates who make the leap to full-time politicians. The “Pink Ladies,” a half-dozen moms who were elected together in 2012, and the “Pennsylvania Corner,” a decades-old crew of lawmakers whose districts run along the northeast corridor, can still be seen sitting together on the House floor.

Serving in Congress can be painfully isolating, particularly for this class of younger freshmen with small children a cross-country flight away. Some of the Gang of Nine spouses even have a group chat of their own to commiserate, while several members bought Girl Scout cookies from Spanberger’s daughter.

“We rely on each other for everything from what Halloween costume my kid is wearing, to how are you gonna vote on this bill?” said Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), an Air Force veteran.

Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, said her group has been crucial to surviving the breakneck pace of the House, where new members were sworn in during the longest government shutdown in history.

“There’s no way that I would’ve been able to have worked the last couple of weeks in the way that I’ve worked without the support of some of my freshman friends,” the New York Democrat said. “The squad, of course, those are my sisters.”

“But there are also really amazing members like Lauren Underwood and Katie Hill, that support extends to them as well,” she added, name-checking two members of the Big Six.

The early days of a new Congress can sometimes offer little time for socializing, with new offices to set up and a robust legislative agenda to pass. This class, though, has made a concerted push to plan extra-curricular activities.

Stevens said she’s considering planning a “reading hour” at the Library of Congress after another freshman, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), complained to her that there isn’t enough time to “actually do the homework” and read legislation.

“I said, ‘Go get your library card, I’ll take you over there and we can do reading hour,’” Stevens said.

Some members’ close-knit relationships existed before the new Congress, with Underwood and Stevens texting each other encouragement via emojis during their attempts to unseat GOP incumbents.

The Gang of Nine — whose origin name is still hotly debated in the group — was lumped together in part because they all were endorsed by Rep. Seth Moulton’s Serve America and hail from Republican-held districts. But they didn’t all meet in person for the first time until orientation.

Besides Rose, Spanberger and Houlahan, the group also includes Democratic Reps. Jason Crow (Colo.), Elaine Luria (Va.), Jared Golden (Maine), Mikie Sherrill (N.J.), Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) and Gil Cisneros (Calif.).

“We just gravitated toward each other, like freshman orientation in college where all the sudden we were sitting together and saving each other seats,” Spanberger said.

Some freshmen have even become roommates, like Underwood and Hill, in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood. Others, like Spanberger and Sherrill, have found spots on the same apartment building floor.

The freshman coalitions faced their first real test during the 35-day grueling shutdown, and lawmakers all stuck with their respective groups, though they also learned the limits of their power.

The progressive squad held a press conference together and wrote a joint letter calling on their colleagues to slash funding for the Department of Homeland Security. They weren’t successful — the final spending deal included billions for ICE — but all four held firm and voted against it.

The Gang of Nine unveiled legislation dubbed the “Shutdown to End All Shutdowns Act,” which would have kept the government running on autopilot even without a funding deal. It was a symbolic gesture meant to condemn Washington dysfunction, even as all nine members ultimately backed the funding bill, a classic congressional compromise.

Meanwhile, the Big Six held strategy meetings during the shutdown and helped lead freshman marches to the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to try to put pressure on the GOP. In the end, they worked with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leaders to keep most freshmen on board for an agreement that denied President Donald Trump his wall despite disappointing some in the party.

Stevens said she’s not surprised that the freshmen have begun to sort themselves out, even as the broader class remains remarkably united.

“I think people are finding their friends in Congress,” she said, adding, “We‘re all in this together.”