The click of heels against the marble floors echoes through the halls as staffers hurry to happy hour, yoga or home. It’s 6:30 p.m., and the entire Dirksen Senate Office Building is rushing.
Everyone except Hans Scheltema, who leans against the wall in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee room.0726 07
Scheltema, a hulking man in a blue Hawaiian shirt, isn’t going anywhere fast. In T-shirts and sweat pants, Scheltema and about 20 others flip through newspapers and talk about nothing. Mostly, though, they are just waiting, as they will be for another 16 hours.
They are the patient, the uncomfortable, the poorly paid. They are line-standers.
Like the Capitol Police or Bullfeathers bartenders, line-standers make their living off Congress and those who lobby it.
Read Waiting for Good Dough
by Lina Lerer ~ July 26, 2007 ~ The Politico.com