Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [10]
Gabby and her chief of staff, Pia Carusone, had spent days talking through the question of the vote for Speaker. Just thirty years old, Pia is precociously smart and terrifically wise about the inner workings of elected office. Like Gabby, she views government service as a high calling. But both of them understood that to survive in Washington, and to win elections back home, they had to accept and indulge political realities.
None of us knew Gabby’s decision until we were sitting in the visitor’s gallery, watching her cast her vote. I think she got a kick out of keeping us in suspense. In the end, she was one of just two representatives to vote for Georgia’s John Lewis, the legendary civil rights leader. I smiled. That wasn’t even a name we’d talked about. But it was a smart way to go: Gabby had found a way to avoid controversy by using her vote to honor a man who deserved recognition.
It continued to be a very hectic day, rushing around with my parents and Gabby’s parents in tow. Gabby and I took turns pushing her dad in his wheelchair, in and out of elevators and down the halls of Congress. Then, when late afternoon came, it was hard for me and Gabby because it was time to say goodbye.
I needed to be back in Houston for work first thing Thursday morning. So Gabby walked me out to the street, where her operations director, Jennifer Cox, was waiting to drive me to the airport. We hugged, and I said, “I’m proud of you. Enjoy the new term.” Of course, I didn’t know that would be my last time seeing her whole and healthy. But it was sad just the same, like all of our many goodbyes.
As that Wednesday wound down, and our parents headed for home, Gabby found herself back in her office with Pia, thinking about the weekend.
“So what’s on the agenda when I’m in Tucson on Saturday?” she asked.
Pia said that there was a memorial service in the early afternoon for a campaign supporter who had just died. The morning was free.
“I have to wear a suit anyway for the memorial service,” Gabby said. “Why don’t we do a Congress on Your Corner?” Gabby had already held a couple dozen of these events in her career, and she thought they were an important part of her responsibilities. She felt constituents deserved the chance to ask her questions, to air grievances, and to meet the people on her staff who might be able to help them.
Pia tried to dissuade her. Gabby had been going nonstop all during the 2010 campaign, and in the months since. “Why don’t you take Saturday for yourself?” Pia said. “Give yourself a break. And it might be too late to set things up, anyway.”
“No, let’s do it,” Gabby told her. “I want to start off the new term strongly. And there’s so much going on in Washington. Let’s hear what people think of everything.”
Normally the Congress on Your Corner events—dubbed COYCs by Gabby’s staffers—take two weeks to organize. Now here was Gabby, asking to set this one up on just two and a half days’ notice. Pia knew that it was tough to tame Gabby’s enthusiasm for encounters with constituents. COYCs were always scheduled for ninety minutes to two hours, but usually lasted four hours. That was Gabby. It was hard to stop her.
And so Pia relented. “Let me e-mail Ron and Gabe and see if we can pull it together,” she said.
Ron Barber had been Gabby’s district-office director since 2006. Born in England, he had retired from Arizona state government after a long career helping to run programs for people with developmental disabilities and mental illness. Now, at age sixty-five, he served as a much-appreciated voice of wisdom and experience for Gabby.
Gabriel Zimmerman, thirty, was director of community outreach for Gabby in Tucson, and she always said he brightened the office there with his positive energy. When enraged constituents were calling on the phone, or when Gabby’s staffers felt overwhelmed with tedious duties and wondered whether it was time to find another line of work, Gabe was like a twenty-first-century Jimmy Stewart character—tall, handsome, and filled with idealism. “We’re so lucky to have