Politico Pro Q & A: Sen. Shelley Moore Capito

As chairwoman of the Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito has a relatively small sum at her disposal - $4.4 billion for fiscal 2017 - at least compared to other appropriations subcommittees.

But it's still a plum assignment for a freshman senator, and one that the West Virginia Republican doesn't take lightly. Her panel has jurisdiction over the congressional campus, which includes the Capitol Police, an institution with hefty responsibilities that has stumbled at times in recent years.

Below is a transcript of the interview, lightly edited for clarity and length.

What are some of your priorities in the Legislative Branch bill this year?

Well, it's the smallest appropriations bill, number-wise. But it covers the entire campus here at Capitol Hill. It's the House and Senate operations, it's the Capitol Police, Library of Congress, Sergeant-at-Arms, Botanical Gardens, Government Printing Office, GAO and a few others. Architect of the Capitol, that's obviously a large budget.

It's very comprehensive and it's important obviously to the members, but I think it's important to the guests and the visitors, and safety, and everything that goes on here on Capitol Hill.

The Congressional Budget Office, a favorite of ours, requested a $1.1 million increase to hire more staff specifically to look into the Affordable Care Act and some of the proposals around repealing it. Can they expect a boost this year, is that something you're going to consider?

Well, I'm certainly going to consider that. It's going to be a tight budget year, everybody's probably telling you that. And it's a matter of setting priorities. I think what we're finding in the Congressional Budget Office, GAO and even Congressional Research Service is that a lot these organizations are graying, a lot of their talent is getting old - I'm not being critical since I am, too. But they're getting older and replacement talent, it takes a while to get in the groove.

It's not like you can just all of the sudden start at CBO and then you're going to be able to score something as massive as health care. So we try to take that into consideration but at the same time trying to keep as flat as we can the number of new appointments and new hires because it's not so much hiring that person that year, it's the accumulation of the benefits and everything else that accumulates, that make it that much more expensive.

Obviously with tight funding one area where it gets a little tougher is security. In your world that's the Capitol Police, so I'd be interested in hearing your appraisal of their performance and if you think they have the resources they need to keep this whole place safe.

Well the Capitol Police is quite large and it is a massive security operation that has changed a lot and probably needs to change some more. And I think that we want to make sure they have the best, not just equipment, but training available. And we've worked on their training budget with them to try and make sure that they're not keeping people in the force when they really should be coming back for retraining in certain areas.

I think you saw with what happened at the Capitol Visitors Center two weeks ago, really makes you realize how absolutely important they are, that they are ready and alert and prepared for what can come their way.

There have been incidents throughout the last couple years that have looked at the disciplinary actions of the Capitol Police. I'm fully apprised of this. There's a Capitol Police Board and there's a disciplinary board that these things go through, but we have good open communication with them.

It's an open campus. We want to keep it that way. But that provides challenges.

There's a new Capitol Police chief that started recently. Have you talked with him?

Yes, I had talked with him before he became the chief. I'm sure we'll have more extensive conversations. The outgoing police chief presented the budget but I know that the new chief is very much aware of it.

There's been some controversy around the contractors that provide food service here at the Capitol, whether their employees are being fairly compensated or not. Is that issue going to be raised at all in your bill?

It came up in our committee hearings, the concern was raised. I certainly am concerned about when it came to light about the wages that they were being paid.

I think the Rules Committee really has jurisdiction over restaurant associates and their contract, but I think it came to light that in renegotiating the contract, higher wages were renegotiated or asked for or requested, but then there was some reassignments into different areas. I don't think that's fair. So we're watching it. I think our committee could ask for some accountability.

It seems some deficit-minded lawmakers are shrinking the number of their staff. Does the legislative branch need more money to make sure there is sufficient staff?

I think the staffing for the Hill comes really through a couple of ways. It comes through the individual Senate and House offices. The House deals with theirs separately, so I'm really just only over the Senate, and the rest of the other things we share. The committee staff has a separate line in the budget that is appropriated by the Rules Committee.

I haven't heard an outcry that anybody feels understaffed, quite frankly. I don't see this as a problem throughout the campus, I really don't. And now everybody's going to be knocking at my door, so thank you very much.

You just passed your one year anniversary of being here in the Senate. How is it going and how has the transition from the House been where you were for 14 years?

Oh, it's great. I mean transitioning from the House is a little bit simpler, I think, than transitioning from business or maybe even from a state legislature. I think being on Sen. [Mitch] McConnell 's leadership team has been a great learning experience for me, gives me a head start to the week and really insight into not just short-term but long-term planning, which I enjoy. It's also given me an opportunity to weigh in and disagree and, believe me, I have.

In terms of lifestyle, it's more relationship-driven than the House, so it takes time to develop those relationships. But since we [Republicans] eat together at lunch three days a week we get a lot of opportunity. In terms of developing relationships on the other side, when I first came more than a few Democrats asked me to come out and we had breakfast together.

It's really a function of numbers I think more than anything else. There is a camaraderie - you can see it when we gather on the Senate floor. It is slower and of course that was always the big joke from the House, "Well it's slow, you're going to eat Jell-O all the time and have oxygen" - it is slower, but I think it's supposed to be more deliberative.

It's much more powerful. I've recognized that from the second day I was here. I made a call to an agency and they actually called me back and did what I wanted. That doesn't happen much on the House side. At least a couple phone calls to get what you want.

And what about serving on the Appropriations Committee?

I really like that. I wasn't on it in the House. It just gives you such a breadth of knowledge. You know you take votes on controversial issues. We took some votes on whether we're going to have whales at Sea World or some other kind of mammals, and marijuana, you know, some of the kinds of things that never get to the floor. And so I find that interesting and I hope that this year we have a functioning appropriations system because I think we'll get some really good debates going on the floor.

Are you optimistic that we will?

Yeah, I think so. And hopefully we'll start with Energy and Water next week. Which I heard last time Energy and Water was on the floor was 2011. They told us that at lunch today.

The late West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd was on the Appropriations Committee for a long time, including as the powerful chairman. Do you feel like it's important for West Virginia for you to be on the committee?

I think it's key for a small state to have a bigger voice, and you can have that on the Appropriations Committee. I would not pretend to be having as loud a voice as Sen. Byrd.

Not yet, anyway.

Not yet, anyway. Obviously a lot of it is learning the rules. You know I mentioned the Senate is more powerful, but you have to be strategic and know how to use it, and obviously he did. Very, very well, to the benefit of our state. Appropriations and being an appropriator is a storied tradition in our state, so I was thrilled to be there.

In an increasingly polarized environment, you're one of the few senators who is serving with a senator from the other party. What kind of perspective does that give you to be serving with Sen. Joe Manchin here?

Well I've known Sen. Manchin for decades. Our families know each other. That helps. It's a small state so you know you're going to interact a lot. And I served as congresswoman when he was governor and we worked really well together there.

We have our differences and neither one of us is too shy about bringing forward the differences. The difference might be I don't think that when West Virginians hear us differ, I don't think they get the feeling that it's any kind of personal thing or I'm trying to take him down politically or he's trying to take me down politically. I think we're careful about that because we want to maintain our good relationship. I know his daughter's getting ready to have twins so we're on alert for that.

Sometimes I must admit I think, "If we were both in the same party would that be better?" I don't know. You have rivalries in a different way when you're both in the same party. It's to the state's advantage, too, to have voices in both conferences.

Any final thoughts on the appropriations process?

I'm really anxious to see what happens when we go to the floor, to see if we can get cloture, if we can get good, solid debate and if we can close the chapter on at least that first bill. Because I think we've been so criticized for gridlock, for partisanship and not doing your job, and not getting things done. I tried to tell a bunch of people the other day all the things that we did last year. I think if we can show that we can work together on controversial issues - which funding the government can be - I think it will be good.