You all know the guy 0r gal who starts every conversation by telling you what important person they were talking to. Thank goodness there aren’t a lot of them, probably more in DC than other places.
Well, I try not to be that guy, but recent events have overtaken me. So, I want to mention that Senator John Thune and Senator Chris Van Hollen were both partners of mine when I was at the law firm of Arent Fox. And that got me thinking about other connections I have had and so I’m just going to do a dump on you.
Let’s start with my neighbor in 1979. Congressman Tom Daschel from South Dakota moved in next door. Tom later became the majority leader of the Senate. We met when I helped him get his car unstuck from the snow in his driveway. A guy from South Dakota who can’t drive in the snow? Tom had clearly spent too much time as a Washington staffer. Over the back fence, I asked his wife, Laurie, what Tom’s position was on the right to bear arms. She said Tom was in favor of the right to arm bears. They divorced in 1983. His loss. Tom’s new wife was a former Miss Kansas. Oh my.
One of my best friends at the firm was Senator John Culver from Iowa. Prior to serving in the House and the Senate he had been a star fullback for Harvard and later a Marine. We had a lot of common interests. If you want a good laugh, go the YouTube and select John Culver’s eulogy of Ted Kennedy. It is a riot!
Senator John Thune was a partner at Arent Fox after he left the House and while he was running for the Senate. He ran against Tom Daschel. Arent Fox is a strong Democrat law firm but sees the advantage of keeping a number of Republicans on the team. Senator (and super actor) Fred Thompson and John Thune were examples. We helped John win his campaign for Senate. Daschel had bought a home in DC and declared a homestead deduction claiming DC as his residence. This didn’t go over well in South Dakota. Laurie, his first wife and later ambassador to Denmark, would never have let that happen. Some in the firm put a campaign commercial together based on the Apprentice TV show. After explaining what Daschel had done, someone looking like Trump said, “Daschel, you’re fired!”
Chris Van Hollen was at the firm when I joined. He was also a member of the Maryland General Assembly. I saw him as a dedicated, conscientious, and hard-working lawyer. Prior to coming to the firm, while at the Department of Transportation, I sent a letter to the Maryland Attorney General advising that their recently passed “gas guzzler tax” was illegal because regulating gas milage was a Federal issue, not State. Chris, who didn’t know me, attacked me in the press as a political crony. Then, Maryland Governor Schaefer sent a letter to the Secretary of Transportation, Sam Skinner, warning him to look out for me because I was a loose cannon. I thought the whole thing was kind of humorous, particularly when I was given the task of drafting the response to Governor Shaefer.