On the Road in Quest for Speakership; Inside Player Livingston Goes Out Courting Donors to Aid GOP Hopefuls -- and His Bid
Bill Evans is a lobbyist who usually divides his time between Georgia and Washington. But last week he ventured clear across the country just so he could get an audience with the man some people were calling "the pope of Congress."</br></br>He joined a small group of thousand-dollar donors at the celebrity hangout Jimmy's Restaurant to spend a few minutes with Bob Livingston (R-La.), chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. When his moment came, Evans asked Livingston whether he could help resolve a dispute between his client, a paint manufacturer, and the Environmental Protection Agency over paint fumes. Evans walked away with the name of Livingston's staff director, James W. "Will" Dyer.</br></br>"We might be able to accommodate him with some language," Livingston said in an interview later. He meant that he might be able to insert some wording to solve Evans's problem in one of the annual spending bills he controls.</br></br>For Livingston, the encounter was no different from what happens routinely in the hallways and reception rooms of Congress, where he answers supplicants by promising to examine their specific requests for legislative remedies. The significance was the setting.</br></br>Bob Livingston, one of the Hill's consummate inside players, has taken his show on the road. Although he was on the verge of retiring from politics four months ago, the 21-year House veteran has now assembled a national fund-raising drive with the short-term goal of raising money for Republican candidates -- and the long-term goal of propelling himself into the speaker's chair.