This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press May 1, 2000
By MICHAEL BITTON
Valley Press Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - Buck's running late, which is not unusual in this town.
He was supposed to meet the Antelope Valley Board of Trade for lunch at the Capitol Club, a Republican-only venue that sits kitty-corner from the Cannon House Office Building.
But he's not here yet, so here they sit. More than a dozen of them.
They nibble on crab cakes and club sandwiches. They sip iced tea and Diet Coke. And they wait and wait and wait for their man to arrive.
Finally, he does.
Congressman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-California, R-Santa Clarita, marches up a curving staircase to the second-floor dining area, delivering half-a-dozen waves and hellos to Beltway buddies before he even gets to his constituents' table.
Once there, though, he shakes every hand, looks deep into every eye, and thanks every person for coming.
It was the Education and Workforce Committee that kept Buck from coming to lunch. He had votes to log.
McKeon chats with the Board of Trade crowd about its favorite topic - what it will take to bring final assembly of the joint strike fighter to Palmdale. He passes around a list of 30 co-sponsors of legislation he'll introduce that asks the Department of Defense to check into where the plane can be built cheapest: Palmdale, which the Antelope Valley Board of Trade prefers; St. Louis, a Boeing favorite; or Fort Worth, Texas, which is Lockheed's first choice.
After another grand thank you, Buck is on his way.
He quick-steps down the round staircase, across the lobby and into a glorious spring day. Tulips of every hue line the sidewalks at this intersection of First Street SE and C Street. On the far curb, Maggie Giammarco, Buck's personal secretary, is waiting behind the wheel of a dark Mercedes.
Buck opens the passenger side door and slips in. "When You Need My Love," a ballad by up-and-coming country artist Darryl Worley, wails from WMZQ, 98.7 on the FM dial.
On the floor in the back seat is what's left of Buck's breakfast: a spent can of creamy chocolate Ultra Slim Fast. Having just missed lunch, he's ready for some real food.
Maggie drives a block south and parks, then makes her way across the street to Taky Thai. With her long, blonde hair, sunglasses and sharp black suit, she's turning heads, literally stopping traffic. She's picking up lunch for the boss, who's too engrossed in conversation with Lew Stults, his Antelope Valley field deputy, to notice the mini-commotion.
Moments later, Maggie returns with a box in a bag and turns a new set of heads, stopping a new flow of traffic. This makes her smile. The boss still doesn't notice. She drives him to the Rayburn House Office Building and parks in the underground garage, where security smiles wide and welcomes her by name. They don't mention Buck's name.
After a quick elevator ride and a stroll down a wide hallway, Buck slips in the back door of his office. It has plush blue carpet and a high ceiling. The walls that aren't covered in bookcases feature art from his 25th Congressional District, much of it having to do with Antelope Valley aerospace.
Buck sits in his burgundy leather chair and pulls out the Thai food. Nobody minds if he talks while he eats. Like running late, it's another Washington custom.
He's been in this office since January 1999, he says between bites. Which office you get depends on how long you've been in town. If you've been here forever, like John D. Dingell, D-Michigan, you get a big office. Dingell's is really, really big.
In the prominent wallspace behind his desk, Buck has a framed print that has nothing to do with home. It's a painting of George Washington kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge.
"I got that at the Pomona Fair," Buck said. "I know Arnold Friberg," who is the artist.
Buck plucked a three-ring binder from his desktop and opened it to reveal a snapshot of him and his wife, Patricia McKeon, with Friberg, all standing in front of the original Prayer at Valley Forge painting. It hangs at Friberg's Salt Lake City, Utah, home.
Like Friberg, McKeon is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly called Mormons.
Evidence of this, too, is in McKeon's office. On a shelf behind his desk are leather-bound scriptures known to Mormons as the Standard Works, which includes the King James version of the Bible, as well as the Book of Mormon and two more volumes of Scripture specific to the religion; The Doctrine and Covenants, which includes revelations given to modern-day Mormon prophets, and the Pearl of Great Price, which includes additional ancient Scripture plus the history of Joseph Smith, the religion's first leader.
On a small table near a sofa, there's a snapshot of Buck and Patricia McKeon with their arms around Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the 10.3 million-member Mormon church.
Another connection to Salt Lake City is Buck's personal calendar, a Franklin-Covey day planner. Buck said he's a friend of Hyrum Smith, who founded the time-management company. Franklin users are known to be maniacal about the binders in which they keep their calendars. Buck's looks a little bit like a rodeo prop, handcrafted by a saddle maker he knows.
"I once had a campaign director who told me to get rid of it," Buck said. "I won the election and got rid of her."
Buck said the Antelope Valley issues he's working on now include keeping final assembly of the joint strike fighter in Palmdale, where the prototypes are now taking shape; getting money for roads and other infrastructure needs in the region; getting funding for the new fairgrounds in Lancaster; and getting more money for the expansion of William J. Fox Air Field in Lancaster.
After a few more minutes of chat, bells start to ring throughout Buck's office. The House of Representatives was being called to vote.
Buck caught the elevator back down to the garage, then powerwalked across the parking lot to a roller-coaster-looking tram. It was filling quickly with lawmakers in similar gray suits, red ties and white dress shirts with buttondown collars. Buck was the only one wearing ostrich-skin cowboy boots. The tram whisked them away to the Capitol.
On the noisy floor, along with 434 other members of the House of Representatives, Buck moves in for his vote.
Members vote at the end of every other row in the House. They slide their voting card into a bar code reader, hit a green button to vote yes, red to vote no or yellow to simply say they were present.
On this resolution, House Resolution 3039, he votes yes. If approved, it will help improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.
But nothing is easily done in Washington.
"The federal government is a cumbersome system," Buck said. But he seems confident he can negotiate it. "It's meant to be that way."