Book Review: Freshman Orientation by Edward I Sidlow

My Feedburner usage stats are getting alarmingly high these days so I've continued to keep my eyes open for ways to learn more about politics, in hopes of eventually knowing what I'm writing about.

Freshman Orientation: House Style and Home Style is the story of Rep. Joe Schwarz’s first term (and so far only) in the U.S. House of Representatives. I was intrigued by the book primarily because it has Allyson Schwartz’s photo on the cover, along with Schwarz and 14 other members of the 2004 freshman congressional class. (One note: Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-03) is following in the Abraham Lincoln tradition of Illinois representatives who do not photograph well.)

But it is a good book in and of itself. If you have ever wondered “what happens next?” after a candidate wins, this book will tell you. It is a short book, 157 pages of text, but most of it is about legislative not electoral politics. Sidlow writes about the process of setting up district and DC offices, hiring staff, finding office space and equipment. He provides some detail on the politics of office space in congressional office buildings. If I had read this book a year ago I would have been a lot more patient with the staff of newly elected congressional representatives. He also discusses the problems of finding living space for the congressman and his staff, and the logistics involved in going back and forth between DC and Illinois. There are congressional committee memberships to lobby for and alliances with other representatives to be made, based on geographic or issue-oriented interests.

Schwarz did not win the Republican primary for a second term but there are rumors he may run again. There are no mentions of blogs in the book but there is some discussion, particularly in the chapter on the 2006 primary, of the use if the Internet in campaigning.

My only qualm with the book is what I view as the indiscrete and unnecessary mentions of the names of two staffers who did not stay in the congressman’s employ. There are a number of ways to talk about staff turnover without going into individual specifics and putting that information in print guarantees that it could follow those people around for a long time. Sidlow was otherwise conscientious and this lapse surprised me.