Cutting in Line

Jay Moglia in front of the Energy and Natural Resources committee hearing on Tuesday, March 3. (Photo by Manuel Bewarder)Pay lobbyists enough and they'll move mountains for you, but they won't stand in line at Congress to do it.

Lobbyists depend on their relationships with members of Congress to advance the causes they are paid to advance. Often, this requires going to crowded congressional committee meetings and making front row eye contact.

Since seating is first-come first-served and some lobbyists don’t want to waste hours sitting on cold, stony floors, killing time just to get the best seat. So, they outsource.

Several companies in the region provide this service - known in the business as linestanding. Nearly every week from Tuesday to Thursday, people hired mainly by lobbyists and non-profit advocates brave cold morning hours outside office buildings on Capitol Hill, rush through the doors at 7 a.m. and stand in line until the paying customers present business cards and take their place. 

“I use this service because seats inside are limited. I'd have to get up early in the morning and we support the people’s business,” said a lobbyist who took over a linestander’s spot 15 minutes before the start of an Energy and Natural Resources full committee oversight hearing on Tuesday. The lobbyist declined to give his name or affiliation, but the placeholder’s sign said “Wright & Talisman,” a D.C.-based law firm focused on modern energy industries.

For some, the line-standing business demonstrates a deeper problem: a culture of buying access to Congress.

In 2007, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., championed a bill to prohibit lobbyists from paying outside contractors to hold places in line. The bill made the practice an offense similar to offering gifts to members of Congress and their staff.

The bill died shortly after introduction, but this year, McCaskill “plans to reintroduce the line-standing bill and look for places to offer it as an amendment on other legislation,” wrote Maria Speiser, McCaskill’s press secretary, in an e-mail.

“But what our linestanding business is about, is not exactly that people are buying influence,” said Jay Moglia, who arrived in front of the room of the Energy and Natural Resources committee hearing at 7 a.m.

Moglia was the first in line when McCaskill held the news conference in the hallway, announcing her bill in 2007. He said that linestanders don’t limit the public’s access to Congress.

“There are always hearings the public can see if they want to see how the legislative process works,” he said. In his view, linestanders are running a business and it’s “just capitalism and democracy.”

“If there is a grassroots group and they need to get to a hearing – they have to bite the bullet that day and get out of bed early,” said Moglia, a career bike messenger and a linestander since 2000.

No skill prerequisites and high hourly rates averaging $18 an hour make linestanding an attractive option for all walks of life, said John Winslow, the director of linestanding.com. A branch of Quick Messenger Service, this firm – like CVK, Congressional Services and several other D.C.-based companies – provides linestanders to lobbyists and advocates willing to pony up about $35 an hour for a minimum of two hours.

“The job does not require a whole lot more than you be present, and, dare I say, sober," Winslow said.

The job is equally popular with bike messengers and college students, with a good helping of the District's homeless thrown into the mix, he continued. 

“It’s sometimes a lazy job,” said Chico, who arrived with Moglia on Tuesday. Chico, who only provided his first name, brought his coffee and sat on a folding chair beside his wife Rose. The two are always waiting together and their entire income comes from their linestanding jobs.

“One time we arrived 20 hours before the starting of the hearing,” Chico said.

In the tradition of friendly concert-goers and the queue-abiding British, those standing in line for lobbyists may reserve space for only one replacement. But sometimes, one linestander is replaced by more than one paying client.

And because linestanders, like any other businesses, have to maintain good relationships with their clients, it’s difficult to reject an extra colleague showing up.

“If this happens, it’s up to the other linestanders to step in,” Moglia said.

Enforcement of these rules is left to members of the committee running the meeting, and fellow linestanders.

"We don't police the lines, we don't monitor them," said Capitol Hill Police spokeswoman Kimberly Schneider. "That's not the role of the Capitol Police."

Critics fear that the stronger measures, if passed, will do little more than require low-level paralegals and lobbying interns to stand in line for their bosses.

Bike messengers, increasingly sidelined by e-mail attachments and the weakening economy, rely on linestanding as a stop-gap.

"The bike messenger service has been going slowly downhill, we consider it a sunset business," Winslow said. "This could prove to be the nail in the coffin for them."