Bill Nelson, U.S. Senator from Florida: News Article: Charm made Carrie Meek effective even when outnumbered

WASHINGTON - Capitol Hill staffers still chuckle about what Carrie Meek did the time she couldn't persuade the powerful chairman of her committee to accept her "little amendment."

Bob Livingston, the new GOP chairman of Appropriations, liked to stand during meetings. At six-feet six-inches he towered over Meek, already a foot shorter, as she sat in the front row of the huge committee chamber where much of the federal budget is divided up.

"He was sort of a Zeus-like figure, wielding that gavel, but he appeared to be a very fair person," recalled Meek, as she looked back recently on her 10-year career in Congress.

Livingston, who later almost became speaker, ruled that her amendment to restore benefits to legal immigrants was out of order.

Meek raised herself up, and the room fell silent. It was the black grandmother from Miami against Zeus, and Zeus didn't really have a chance.

"Well, the chairman has always been so fair to me -- and he is such a good-looking chairman," she began in a soft voice. Livingston blushed, and appeared flustered.

"Mr. Chairman, you're turning red," she continued, as laughter spread through the room. She paused. "I turned red too, but I bet you couldn't tell."

There was pandemonium in the staid spending committee, recalled one witness, and Livingston just shook his head.

"This little grandma broke him up," she remembered.

The upshot: A few days later, Livingston helped Meek get her amendment through the Rules Committee, the traffic cop of legislation before it hits the House floor.

"That's all true," said Livingston, now a prominent Washington lobbyist, recalling the incident with a deep laugh. "And she did it to me more than once."

"But it was a lot more than flattery," he added. "She learned early on how to work with people and get things done. She was very effective. She was also engaging, gracious and a lot of fun."

"Carrie Meek," he said, "was a consummate pol."

SLOWING DOWN At 76, Carrie Meek leaves Congress as the most powerful black politician in Florida, with her son Kendrick taking over the seat in January.

One measure of her influence: Bill Nelson, now a U.S. senator, wanted to make Meek his running mate when he ran for governor in 1990.

This fall, 12 years later, Bill McBride urged her to take the No. 2 spot on his ticket.

She was tempted, but decided against it:

'I couldn't do that campaign the way you should, full-throttle. I told Mr. McBride, `If I felt I could run for lieutenant governor, I never would have left my seat in Congress.' "

During a long interview a few days before Congress ended its session, Meek said she has recovered from a bout with shingles and is in good health. But she decided early in the year that this was the time to retire.

"Physically, I didn't think I could give it my best. This job is very hard on you," she said.

Capitol Hill staffers maintain that Meek was still a force on the Appropriations Committee, but several acknowledged that she appeared to have been slowing down.

In Florida, the lore of Meek is well known. Granddaughter of a slave, daughter of a sharecropper, the youngest of 12 children, she grew up in "Black Bottom," a poor section of Tallahassee.

In an era of strict segregation, she was a top scholar and athlete at Florida A&M and had to leave the state to further her education, getting a degree in public health at the University of Michigan. She worked as a domestic to help pay for her education, became a teacher and administrator at Miami-Dade Community College, entered politics at 52 and became the first black woman in the state Senate.

She arrived in Washington in 1993, the oldest new member of the House and part of a historic trio with Alcee Hastings and Corrine Brown -- the first black representatives from Florida since Reconstruction.

Meek's first accomplishment was a big one, landing a coveted spot on the Appropriations committee as a freshman. She plunged into securing federal aid for South Dade after the devastation of Hurricane Andrew.

PERSONAL TIES CRUCIAL

The House Appropriations Committee is a world unto itself in Congress: 64 members organized into 13 subcommittees, each with a chairman -- called a "cardinal" on Capitol Hill -- who has great influence in steering federal dollars around the country.

"It's a separate universe where everybody is on a first-name basis," said Rep. James Walsh, a Republican "cardinal" from Syracuse, N.Y.

Ideology and partisanship mean little on the committee, where personal relationships are crucial. Little-known lawmakers have the power to decide whether Miami-Dade Community College gets federal aid or whether Port Everglades gets money.

"I learned very early that my relationships with the other members were all-important," said Meek. "Helping another member who could help my district was what is was all about."

When the Republicans took over Congress in 1995, Meek made it her business to get to know the "cardinals," using cajolery, sweet talk, humor and a mix of patience and persistence.

"She was unfailingly polite -- she knew you got a lot more flies with honey than with a fly-swatter," said Vic Fazio, a former Democratic colleague and now a lobbyist.

Through the 1990s, Meek secured millions for hurricane relief, South Florida colleges, seaport and airport projects, mass transit, and jobs and housing programs for her district.

"She was aggressive in a very pleasant way," said Walsh, the "cardinal" over housing and veterans programs.

"You had no doubt where she was coming from, and she made you want to try to help her."

Meek and Walsh were neighbors in an apartment building near the Capitol, and they talked often. One day, when organizers of Shake-a-Leg, a Miami program that teaches water sports to disabled children, came to her office looking for federal aid, Meek knew what to do.

She took several constituents in wheelchairs to Walsh's office without advance notice and waited for him, so they could make their pitch. That might irk other lawmakers, but Meek knew her quarry.

"She knew I prided myself on accessibility, that I would be happy to meet them," said Walsh, who later helped the group secure some funds.

Congressional Quarterly rated Meek one of the top deal-makers on the committee in 1999, a "pragmatic compromiser" who uses "a disarming, down-home, grandmotherly demeanor that can sometimes persuade even an opponent to go along with her proposals."

But not always. Sometimes the kindly grandma became a feisty combatant.

She remembers making no headway with the transportation subcommittee chairman, Harold Rogers.

'So I told him one day, `Mr. Rogers, you are as mean as a junkyard dog,' " Meek recalled. 'He'd say later, `Here you come for something after comparing me to a junkyard dog.' But I knew he actually liked that, because it fit his personality."

Meek said that was her secret. She didn't read every detail of legislation, relying instead on an "an excellent staff," including Chief of Staff John Schelble.

For several years Schelble had worked for Meek's predecessor, Bill Lehman, once a cardinal himself. Schelble knew exactly how the appropriations process worked "and gave me instant capability" on the committee, she said.

Meek concentrated on reading people. That's how she knew when to turn on the grandmotherly charm, and when to use sharper tactics.

"I have a strong intuition about people and which way I should go," she said. "I could get away with saying some of those things because I'm old enough. My candor can sometimes break down the walls people have."

To describe how she reads people, Meek uses an analogy from basketball, a sport she once excelled at:

"If you're guarding someone, you look at the belt buckle so you don't go for the fakes. You know which way they're going to go. You study them and know what they'll do."

Moving down a list of cardinals, Meek ticks off her quick appraisals: "fair man; that one's kind-hearted; that one would pat you on the back and tell you what a nice person you were, and do nothing."

She learned when to be patient and when to be a pest. It took her years to secure funding for research on lupus, a disease that killed her sister, and for programs to help adults with reading disabilities such as dyslexia.

In 1999, Meek barged into a conference committee uninvited to urge David Obey, the ranking Democrat on Appropriations, to earmark funds for lupus. "You know not to do that too many times -- you just learn to pick your spots," she said.

Fazio, a Democratic Party leader while in Congress, said of Meek: "Her timing was always impeccable. Carrie was a bread-and-butter legislator."

FIERCE AS A PARTISAN

Meek the dealmaker could be Meek the partisan on the House floor, which became an ideological battleground after Republicans led by Newt Gingrich took over.

Meek was one of the first Democrats to criticize Speaker Gingrich's lucrative book deal -- which included a $4.5 million advance -- with a publishing house owned by Rupert Murdoch. At the time, Murdoch's Fox TV network was involved in a licensing dispute with the government.

Gingrich gave up the advance but kept the book royalties. On the floor of the House, Meek said Gingrich would make millions from a potential conflict of interest, "and that's a whole lot of dust where I come from."

Angry Republicans had her remarks "taken down," a parliamentary term for comments that are deemed too personal. Democrats rushed to the floor to defend Meek.

"I respect everyone but I'm not afraid of anyone," Meek said during her recent interview. "I remember that event because it galvanized some Democrats."

When the GOP-led House impeached President Clinton in 1998, Meek turned toward the Republican side of the aisle, shook her head and invoked payback:

"From the very beginning you have not wanted William Jefferson Clinton president. You have gotten a path to do it [impeach him] and you're on your way. So you keep going. Your time will come."

Meek said she has used different political styles to deal with different situations.

"My regular demeanor is calm," she said, the result of her upbringing and religious faith. "But there are times when I go into a stronger, maybe more strident manner when I feel that someone is ready to attack. I get on the offense before I have to be on the defense."

But her colleagues don't dwell on those partisan moments. Meek has been known for injecting joy into many situations, including the dance floor.

At a Democratic retreat during her first year, she induced Dan Rostenkowski, the crusty Chicago congressman, to learn the electric slide. Her assessment: "He had minimal skills, but a desire to do better."

And at a state dinner in Lithuania, she wowed Speaker Dennis Hastert and her hosts by joining a group of folk dancers. She had taught folk dance while a teacher. "They were surprised Lithuanian culture had made it to Miami," she recalled. "And coming from a black woman -- they didn't expect that."

WORKED BEHIND SCENES

During her years in Congress, Carrie Meek practiced a basic rule of politics: you can accomplish a lot if you let others take the credit.

In 1997, Miami-Dade government was seeking federal reimbursement for the high cost of search and cleanup operations after the ValuJet crash in the Everglades killed 110 people the year before.

Meek wasn't making much headway in that effort. Then she learned that House leaders planned to help an embattled Republican congressman, Rick Lazio, reimburse local governments in Long Island for the crash of TWA Flight 800, which killed 230 people in 1996.

Behind the scenes, Meek found Lazio helpful. The final bill, trumpeted with fanfare by Republicans, included $3.1 million for Miami-Dade.

On the House floor, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican, reminded colleagues that 'this is Carrie Meek's work,' " she remembered.

Meek regards her top accomplishments as the funds she secured for many South Florida projects, from port dredging to veterans' centers to college programs and economic development for Overtown.

"She left her mark on thousands of Floridians who she fought for in Washington, and in Tallahassee before that," said Nelson.

Meek doesn't hesitate to name her biggest disappointment -- not being able to equalize the treatment of Haitians with other refugees. As a parting shot, she filed a bill during her last week to give Haitians the same rights as Cuban refugees. It has no chance of passage. That's not the point.

"I wouldn't want to leave here after 10 years without trying to make this Congress conscious of Haiti and the plight of its people," she said. "This issue has to be kept alive."

Now it will be up to her son Kendrick to pursue that issue and carry on the Meek political legacy. The retiring congresswoman will provide advice to her son -- up to a point.

"He will listen to me, but he's his own man," she said. 'Kendrick has such manners, he would never say, `You're full of beans.' "

Meek plans to "stop by" Congress when she needs to, supporting Haitians' rights or other causes. And she'll seek money for the Carrie Meek Foundation, to provide scholarships and develop leaders in the black community.

"I will be speaking out, you can count on that," said Meek, surrounded in her office by boxes of papers that will be donated to Florida A&M and the Claude Pepper Center at Florida State.

"But I won't be one of those criticizing Congress as an institution. This was the best job -- the most rewarding job -- that I ever had."

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