Steny Hoyer first came to Congress in 1981, when Tip O’Neill was speaker, the IBM personal computer had yet to launch and the internet was not yet invented. Republicans and Democrats still ate dinner together. This January, his 60-year career in elected office, which includes a stint as Senate President in Annapolis, will end.
When Hoyer was steering the Americans With Disabilities Act to passage in 1990, Sarah Elfreth was a two-year-old starting to talk. Twenty-one years later, she became an intern in Hoyer’s office, and then, like him, joined the Maryland State Senate. She was elected to Congress in 2024 after six years in the Maryland Senate, and at least for a few months she can claim title as the youngest member of the Maryland delegation.
In the latest episode of the Maryland Now podcast, recorded on Capitol Hill, the two sit down with hosts Dori Henry, Josh Kurtz and David Nitkin for a wide-ranging conversation about how Congress works, and why it so often doesn’t. Hoyer, the longtime House Democratic leader and whip, argues the problem is psychological rather than structural. Elfreth describes a chamber that rewards the viral moment over the work product.
They also talk about the erosion of congressional power under President Trump, the mentors who shaped them, and Hoyer’s plans for his last few weeks in the Capitol. His answer: “I’m retiring, not quitting.”
We hope you listen to this illuminating conversation between mentor and protege, but also between two colleagues who have worked hard to represente their constituents and do what’s best for Maryland.
Key quotes from the episode
On how Congress used to work
“Bob Michael was a moderate conservative Republican from the middle of the country… He and Tip got along very well. They differed on issues. They had arguments… but they were respectful of one another. They were friends. They perceived one another as Americans, not just red and blue Americans, but Americans who cared about doing well for the country.” — Steny Hoyer
On the mood in Washington
“Social media certainly, I think COVID also, people just got a lot more comfortable being angry with elected officials and each other and neighbors, and I haven’t seen us recover kind of common decency from that yet.” — Sarah Elfreth
On Congress checking the Executive Branch
“The phrase I use is that the Congress is the creator of its own impotence.” — Steny Hoyer
“That has been the hardest part of this Congress for me. Is not the Democrat or Republican. It’s the Republicans refusing to be the check and balance on the executive.” — Sarah Elfreth
Advice for new members
“Try not to have preconceived notions about each other in this place, but try to approach it with curiosity.” — Sarah Elfreth
“In the final analysis, what you owe them is your conscience, is your best judgment of what is best for the country.” — Steny Hoyer, quoting Edmund Burke
Could structural changes make Congress more effective?
Asked whether anything structural could be done to improve Congress’s standing, such as avoiding recurring fights over the debt ceiling and stopgap spending bills, the two Maryland lawmakers gave different answers.
Hoyer was skeptical. “My view is the answer to that is probably no,” he said. “Because I don’t think the problem is structural, it’s psychological.”
He said the real problem is a mindset that treats deadlines as optional. When he became whip, he said, he talked about “the psychology of consensus,” wanting members to wake up and think, “I’m gonna be on the team. Unless I can’t be on the team.” He pointed to the calendar as proof. Congress is supposed to pass its budgets by Sept. 30, the day of the interview, and he said none had passed. “We have the psychology of December,” he said. “We’re gonna do it in December.”
Rules, he argued, only work if members follow them. The 1974 Budget Act has dates, but “we rarely meet those dates. Not because there’s not a structure that we could follow that would be helpful, but because it’s tough to do.” Structural fixes are “hard if you don’t have people who are gonna follow whatever the structure is.”
Elfreth said structure plays some part. She notes that members of opposing parties are rarely together. “Really outside of orientations and travel, if you get to go on travel, there are no organic opportunities for Democrats and Republicans to be together,” she said. “On the floor, we’re on opposite sides… But in committee we’re on opposite sides.”
She also blamed the schedule. “We fly in on Monday, we have some kind of nothing burger suspension bills on Monday night. We have two days of work and on Thursday we have some other suspension bills… and then everybody goes home. So that’s not a ton of actual work here and it’s also not a ton of time together to actually have the difficult conversations.”
The result, she said, is a system that rewards the wrong things. “The things we prioritize and prize in our politics is strife and division and not the work product.”
Connect With the Show: Questions, comments, or story ideas marylandnow@blendedpublicaffairs.com
Maryland Now is brought to you by Blended Public Affairs and produced by Carper Cre8tive.
