Nevada lawmakers settle back into offices

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Oct. 26, 2001 | 9:38 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Three of Nevada's four lawmakers in Congress joined hundreds of colleagues and staffers in moving back into their offices Thursday after the buildings were tested for anthrax.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is still working with about half his staff of 30 in a cramped office space he keeps in the Capitol. Reid's office suite in the Hart Senate Office Building, just down the hall from Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, is still closed.

Anthrax was found in Daschle's office Oct. 15. More traces of the bacteria have been found in two other places in Hart, officials said Thursday.

A few of Reid's staffers are using space in the offices of Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., in the Russell Building, which reopened Wednesday after environmental tests.

"One big happy family," Ensign Chief of Staff Scott Bensing said.

Three of the six office buildings on Capitol Hill used by members of Congress and their staffs -- where much of the business of Congress is conducted -- have reopened after being closed last week for environmental sweeps. Another was expected to reopen today.

Reps. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., went back to their offices in the Cannon House Office Building on Thursday morning and found nothing out of place, their aides said.

After a five-day absence in which technicians tested Cannon for signs of the bacteria, staffers for both members spent Tuesday and Wednesday running makeshift operations in tiny rooms assigned to each lawmaker at the General Accounting Office building off Capitol Hill.

Three of Gibbons' top staffers worked in a cramped room sharing a single phone and a laptop, keeping an eye on a live stream of CSPAN to track what was happening on the House floor. They rejoiced Wednesday when they finally hooked up a computer printer.

Gibbons aide Robert Uithoven, whose cell phone did not receive calls in the massive GAO building, said this week had shown members of Congress just how dependent they are on technology.

Staffers sent messages to Gibbons, who spent much of his time this week in the Capitol, via a hand-held BlackBerry computer/pager, which had been issued to all members of Congress.

Gibbons, a member of the Intelligence Committee, on Wednesday ducked into a closed-door committee briefing from Secretary of State Colin Powell and the CIA.

Congress worked through the inconveniences. The House this week passed an economic stimulus bill and anti-terrorism legislation that offers police increased powers of surveillance. The Senate settled a partisan argument over approving federal judges, passed an agriculture appropriations bill and the anti-terrorism bill.