The Ice Bucket 

By Jamie Dupree

When I started working on Capitol Hill 30 years ago, every single office in the House of Representatives got a special delivery outside the door each day.  It was a bucket of ice.

After the Republicans won control of the House in the 1994 elections - for the first time in 40 years - the GOP started looking for ways to reform the way Congress worked, and one of their symbols became the ice bucket.

Speaker Newt Gingrich lugged it around Washington, taking it on television and more, using it as an example of how Congress had become needlessly bloated with Democrats in charge, as Republicans vowed to reform the House and save money in the process.

Fast forward to 2010, and the GOP is looking for the 21st Century version of the ice bucket, as they start to get ready for the new session of Congress in January.

"I was already on staff up here when they delivered the ice," said Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), "and it was crazy."

Now Walden is working out of a room in the bowels of the Capitol, running the GOP Transition office in the wake of the 2010 elections.

With reporters packed into the room, Walden praised Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who made sure that the GOP effort had working computers and phones by 10:30 am on Wednesday - the day after Republicans won control of the House.

Walden, whose wife was there as a volunteer answering phones, will lead a team of 22 Republicans whose job it is to figure out how the House should change for the better.

"I approach this as a small business owner," said Walden, who up until a few years ago ran a group of radio stations.

"There has to be a better way to operate this place."

The GOP is not only taking suggestions from staffers and the public, but Walden said he's going to go back to an old time idea - the suggestion box - in order to get some simple ideas.

"What would make it more efficient?"

One item I've already written about is reform of the current committee system, which could be combined with GOP efforts to slow down spending in Congress as well.

Republican members of the team will meet next week on the effort, which will take a look at everything from rules to ensure that lawmakers can read bills up for a vote, to a new schedule for lawmakers that would make it easier to get their work done in committees without repeated interruptions for votes.

Another much talked about idea is going to a three-weeks-on-one-week-off schedule, so that there would be less emphasis on the Tuesday-Thursday schedule that's become the norm, where lawmakers fly into town on Tuesday afternoon and scramble to fly out by Thursday evening.

"We're all ready to roll up our sleeves and go to work," Walden told reporters.

It sounded good, but then I suddenly thought - weren't these guys just in charge four years ago?

Maybe they just need to find another bucket of ice.