Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)
Before he was a 17-term congressman and the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, he was working in student government at this university.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), House Minority Whip and a member of the Democratic Party’s congressional leadership since 1989, has deep roots in College Park — a place he said was key to his development into one of Washington’s most recognizable figures.
“I grew up, essentially, at the University of Maryland,” Hoyer said. “When I came as an 18-year-old, I was not probably ready for school, ready for responsibility.”
He may have been immature coming into school, but a lot can change in about half a decade. By the time he graduated in 1963, he had the makings of a politician.
He was a standout student, majoring in government and politics and history and finishing his degree with 142 credits. He also worked six hours per night for several years as a file clerk for the Central Intelligence Agency before working as an intern in former Maryland Democratic Sen. Daniel Brewster’s office between 1962 and 1966.
“I learned a lot about dealing with people at the University of Maryland,” he said.
Fifty years after his graduation, Hoyer said he follows the Terrapins religiously and comes to the campus often for games. He was even here for the men’s basketball win over Duke in February.
“I’m a huge basketball fan. I go to a lot of football games as well, but basketball — college basketball — is my favorite sport,” he said.
He is especially fond of the Terrapins’ two winningest coaches, Lefty Driesell and Gary Williams — a former neighbor.
Hoyer has gotten to know current coach Mark Turgeon, too, in part through his work in the summer of 2011 to earn former men’s basketball center Alex Len eligibility to play for the team. Len, a Ukrainian and an NBA draft prospect, was in the country that summer on a visitor’s visa, but needed a longer-term student visa to take the court.
Hoyer’s office helped push the visa through at Turgeon’s request, beating a late-summer deadline for Len to be eligible in his new coach’s first season, the congressman and athletic department officials said.
“That was a very tall order,” Hoyer said. “We worked very hard but got that done.”
Hoyer believes the program is headed in a positive direction, and he’s looking forward to seeing what else the coaches and their players can do.
“I’m a fan of Mark Turgeon’s,” he said. “I think he’s doing a good job of recruiting, and I think he’s going to lead Maryland to some very substantial success in the Big Ten.”
But Hoyer’s most pertinent interests lay in Congress, and he expressed significantly less cheer about the outlook on Capitol Hill than inside Comcast Center.
Congress’ federal budget faces several looming threats, between a quickly approaching debt ceiling and the pending expiration of a resolution allocating funds to the budget this September. Hoyer said he was hopeful, but he worried a comprehensive, longer-term deal — the “grand bargain” sought for years by Democratic and Republican leaders — would be elusive.
“I’m not overly optimistic, because the track record that we’ve been on for two-and-a-half years now is not a good one,” he said. “It’s not one that would lead to optimism.”
He called for spending restraints and revenue increases, both ideas that have been anathema to some in the parties’ bases, to reach a “balanced solution.”
Don Kettl, public policy school dean, said the likelihood of such an agreement decreases as the days pass.
“The odds that political Washington can come together behind such a deal don’t seem to be growing at all,” he said. “The further we get down the road, the harder it’s going to be to make that deal.”
Hoyer swiped at members of House Speaker John Boehner’s Republican caucus for their “rigidity” and unwillingness to compromise, which he believes has led to the most hyperpartisan, divided Congress of his legislative career.
“Over the last two and now almost a half a year,” he said, “it’s been the most confrontational, most polarized, the least willing to come to compromise and create consensus of any Congress in which I have served since 1981.”
His concerns do not stop at the budget, though. Gun control is another legislative passion of Hoyer’s, and he has fought for more expansive gun control in the past, a pursuit that earned him an “F” grade from the National Rifle Association and transformed him into a villain of the anti-gun law movement. He was very disappointed at the failure of a bipartisan Senate amendment to expand background checks for gun purchases earlier this month, Hoyer said.
“We need to make it very clear to citizens, both from a constitutional standpoint and a policy standpoint, nobody is going to start taking guns away from people,” he said.
Though Hoyer anticipated senators would eventually continue their gun control push, Kettl did not foresee the passage of a substantive bill.
“The bottom line, for better or worse, is that the NRA has a scorekeeping system,” Kettl said. “Members of Congress, especially conservatives, are fearful of losing a high score.”
The easiest way for Hoyer and the Democrats to pass their agenda, of course, would be to retake the House majority in next year’s midterm elections. On that front, Hoyer is optimistic.
He said the extreme views of far-right Republicans could turn off moderate voters and that Democrats’ opinions on spending and social issues were believed to be popular in national surveys. Hoyer noted his party did take a majority of the House votes in November.
“It indicates, clearly, that there is large support, significant support for Democrats in the House of Representatives,” Hoyer said.
Kettl said picking up a majority would be a challenge for the left.
“The House races will be disconnected from the presidential race, so any possibility of [riding] coattails from the Obama administration will be gone,” he said.
Hoyer’s seat, however, seems safe, Kettl said. This state’s residents elected him for the 5th congressional district 17 times by wide margins, which Kettl calls a testament to both demographics and Hoyer’s skill as a leader.
“Part of it is that he comes from a district with a lot of Democrats,” he said. “Part of it is that he’s worked very hard to make sure that even though he’s risen through the ranks, he’s never lost the touch back in his district. He works very hard at that.”
