THE WEEK IN REVIEW: WASHINGTON D.C.

Sunday, June 24, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

WASHINGTON - One noticeable difference between Washington and the West is the ties of the residents to their former homes.

Las Vegas and other Western cities are filled with people from across the country who have flocked to their new home s . They leave their regional roots and sometimes even their home-team jerseys behind and, like generations of settlers before them, reinvent themselves in the West.

In Washington, many residents have one foot in the district and the other in their old hometowns. They never quite leave their old world behind, or embrace the new one.

On Capitol Hill, staff members work for a member of Congress and travel back home on weekends. They stay for a political season, then hit the campaign trail. Perhaps , never being forced to embrace the new city, they hang on to their old regional flavors and let them spill out with pride.

The effect can be disorienting. Are they here or there?

In such a place, it was somehow normal that as spring turned to summer, the blue-and-white striped uniform of the Southern gentleman made its seasonal debut on the Hill.

As the solstice arrived, so did the seersucker suit.

On Thursday senators held their annual seersucker suit day, and the cool and breezy stripes were everywhere. On men. On women. On staff members and aides.

Washington is in fact situated on the cusp of the South. But the style was being embraced by those representing states three time zones away.

A bipartisan caucus of senators showed up around lunch time to pose in their latest styles. No catwalk, per se, but plenty of mugging for the cameras.

They suited up, heeding Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott's reported call to loosen up. The annual fashion day was his creation. (Lott lifted a leg of his pants just so to display powder pink socks.)

It would be hard - no, make that impossible - to imagine such a thing in Las Vegas.

Thus Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was having none of it. Summer or not, he stuck to his trademark dark suit .

In fact the majority leader shared his thoughts on that particular fashion statement a few weeks back during an evening talk at the National Archives. During a question-and-answer session, a gentleman approached the microphone and, before posing his question , noted that Reid might guess that he was from the South because of his seersucker suit.

Before the man could proceed, Reid interjected. You know what they say about seersucker suits: Sears makes them and suckers buy them.