Lateefah Simon is a widowed mother who’s taking a brand new process, shifting her 13-year-old to a brand new faculty. She used to be born legally blind and her existence is set to move via some additional upheaval.
When requested what worries her maximum, Simon paused for a second, then took a deep breath. Simon spoke back, “I can do no matter I will in order that my 8th grader finishes her science homework. And, God bless, attempt to lend a hand her move that French elegance too.”
Simon, 48, arrives in Washington Monday for orientation classes close to Capitol Hill having been elected as the brand new U.S. Congresswoman representing California’s twelfth District, which incorporates Oakland and Berkley.
Simon, who counts Vice President Kamala Harris as an in depth mentor, served as a civil rights legal professional and helped the sufferers of intercourse trafficking, can be sworn into office with the 119th Congress on Jan. 3, 2025.
CBS information
Simon is arriving in a Washington this is transfixed by way of the return of President-elect Donald Trump, his oversized character and his pledges to overtake the federal government and safe retribution towards political enemies.
However Simon and a few of her new colleagues don’t intend to move not noted — regardless of which celebration controls the Congress or the White Area.
Together with her imaginative and prescient impaired, Simon has trusted public transportation and has a historical past of advocating to make mass transit extra obtainable to low-income folks. She is embracing the chance to prevail Rep. Barbara Lee, an established modern fixture in Washington who left place of work to pursue an unsuccessful marketing campaign for the Democratic celebration’s nomination for U.S. Senate in California in 2024.
Talking to CBS Information by way of telephone whilst making ready for her first travel to Washington as an elected congresswoman, Simon mentioned she first will have to rebound from Harris’s defeat within the Presidential race. “I am devastated. My mentor used to be the President we deserved. However Kamala would at all times say: ‘Head up, roll up your sleeves, get to paintings.’ So that is what I intend to do.”
Simon mentioned she’ll pursue roles with the Area Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, making an allowance for her background championing problems with mass transportation, and can search out early management roles.
Simon instructed CBS Information it is vital that there’s range a few of the individuals of key panels. “We will have to protect the values of now not simply our celebration, however the folks of the USA, specifically me, as disabled folks,” she mentioned. “Additionally the elders, the oldsters who’re searching for well being care, queer children. I’ve paintings to do.”
Simon and the handfuls of others who have been newly-elected to Congress on Tuesday face a extra fast hurdle: A tidal wave of existence adjustments.
For Simon, that comes with shifting her daughter to a brand new group midyear.
“So long as my seat is at the ground… I would possibly not bitch”
For Tom Barrett, an army veteran who received a aggressive race for a vacated seat within the Michigan seventh Congressional District, it’s been unattainable to easily open the entire textual content messages.
CBS Information
Barrett instructed CBS Information, “I will’t even let you know what number of telephone calls I have won within the remaining couple of days. I most definitely won 1,000 textual content messages simply on election evening. I have not learn all of them.”
Barrett, a Michigan state senator from the Lansing space, bested a Democratic challenger in one of the crucial heated and dear Area races within the Midwest. Barrett mentioned he’s hesitant to make any calls for of his new colleagues.
“I joked to Area Speaker Mike Johnson that so long as my seat is at the ground — and now not within the higher Gallery — I would possibly not bitch,” Barrett mentioned.
“I acknowledge that this is a important process that has numerous duty,” Barrett mentioned.
However he seems poised to paintings conveniently in a Trump-dominated Washington. When requested for his best legislative and management priorities, Barrett uncorked a reaction that name-checked Trump six instances.
Barrett spoke of “extending numerous the provisions of the Trump tax cuts,” “Serving to the Trump Management stem the glide of folks over the border” and restoring prior “Trump insurance policies.”
Barrett served as a helicopter pilot within the U.S. Military within the Iraq Conflict and mentioned he’d be thinking about a seat at the Area Committee on Armed Services and products. However within the period in-between, the Eaton County, Michigan, resident will have to discover a other flight plan. He’s spending time searching for the most productive weekly plan to trek by way of air to Washington, D.C. from both Lansing, Grand Rapids or Detroit.
“He is getting an apple juice; I am getting a lager”
After an arduous marketing campaign by which he and his marketing campaign volunteers touted that they knocked on 200,000 doorways, Democrat Josh Riley mentioned he used to be having a look ahead to 1 quiet, post-election evening together with his 4-year-old son.
“He is getting an apple juice, I am getting a lager and we are going to watch a Cornell hockey sport,” Riley mentioned.
Riley received one of the crucial dear Area races within the country, defeating first-term Republican Marc Molinaro in an 11-county swath of upstate New York, spanning from Cooperstown to Binghamton and the far away New York Town exurbs.
Arriving at a tumultuous second in Washington, Riley mentioned he’ll now not attempt to compete with Trump or his robust colleagues for a focus. Riley instructed CBS Information, “I am not looking for a strategy to stand out. If I do that process effectively, folks in upstate New York can have extra process alternatives and just right wages.”
Riley mentioned he’ll take place of work with a top precedence factor: Housing costs. “Some of the issues I would love to do,” Riley mentioned, “Is prevent the predatory follow of Wall Side road entities operating round upstate New York, gobbling up our unmarried circle of relatives properties and the use of them to extract income. Housing must be checked out as a civil proper, now not as a driving force of income.”
Riley, an legal professional and previous congressional aide, stated his two-year time period is predicted to be spent within the minority celebration within the Area. However with slim margins, Riley talked of exploring becoming a member of a New York Republican’s proposal for housing affordability.
“8 firehoses”
Rob Bresnahan laughed slightly when he mentioned, “I am consuming out of not anything not up to 8 firehoses at the moment.”
Bresnahan is getting his first style of elected place of work, however starting within the large leagues.
“It is beginning to really feel somewhat extra actual,” Bresnahan instructed CBS Information, “I by no means idea a child from Butler Side road in Wyoming, Pennsylvania would now be a member of Congress. I imply, it is, it is unbelievable.”
CBS Information
Bresnahan edged a veteran Area Democrat to safe the seat representing the Scranton space of Pennsylvania. He leads {an electrical} and building industry, whilst additionally operating in actual property construction. His creation to politics integrated an surprising pressure: Bresnahan mentioned his fiancée, an area tv information anchor, labored as the similar broadcast outlet on which his opponent aired assault commercials towards him.
“I give her such a lot credit score for having the ability to, you understand, watch the terrible issues that have been being mentioned about me,” Breshnahan mentioned.
Bresnahan used to be one in all two Republicans to oust Democratic Area incumbents within the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The ones victories gave Republicans an edge in securing a majority keep watch over of the Area, which might turbocharge Trump’s legislative schedule in 2025.
Bresnahan instructed CBS Information he’d search a seat at the Area’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
“I perceive the importance of infrastructure and transportation, out of doors of conventional roads and bridges,” he mentioned. “Airports, levies, ports, freight rail and tool distribution techniques and sewer techniques, that’s the basis and the hierarchy of wishes of a society. I truly assume I will make a tangible distinction with simply my historical past of what I have executed.”
“In the event you alternate one thing and it is unpalatable to the opposite facet, they are simply going to come back and kick it out subsequent time”
Rob Mackenzie will arrive in Washington with a 7-month-old son, who used to be born simply days sooner than Mackenzie received the principle to safe the Republican nomination in Pennsylvania’s seventh Congressional District, within the Allentown space.
And Mackenzie can be bringing a rescue canine too.
Mackenzie instructed CBS Information that he and his spouse “are going to be loading up the SUV and happening and looking for an condo.”
However the brand new paintings starts briefly.
CBS Information
Mackenzie mentioned it can be crucial for Congress to transport rapidly at the problems with inflation and border safety championed by way of applicants, together with Trump.
After toppling incumbent Democrat Susan Wild in a heated battleground race that captured the eye of each events, Mackenzie argued that bipartisan efforts grasp essentially the most promise of giant alternate.
“If you need lasting alternate, you need to do it in a bipartisan model,” he mentioned. “In the event you alternate one thing and it is unpalatable to the opposite facet, they are simply going to come back and kick it out subsequent time. After which the pendulum swings backward and forward.”
Mackenzie, 42, is one in all dozens of Participants of Congress-elect who will constitute politically-purple congressional districts, by which the opposing celebration is more likely to muster a well-funded challenger in 2026.
He’s going to start his new process, with a direct doable political goal on his again. Mackenzie mentioned his a hit problem to Wild used to be a pricey and grueling fight.
“In an in depth and aggressive district, it used to be by no means going to be a blowout,” he mentioned. “That is not the truth of this district. So we at all times knew it used to be going to be shut, at all times aggressive.”
Mackenzie has served within the Pennsylvania state legislature, that specialize in monetary services and products and banking problems, and would search an identical committee paintings subsequent yr within the Area. The Area Tactics and Manner Committee and Monetary Services and products Committee are anticipated to play oversized roles, as Trump pursues new tax cuts, price lists and marketing campaign pledges to take on inflation.
“Nationwide dialog about Trump-this and Trump-that”
Kristen McDonald Rivet capped her victorious election week with a Friday trek to a cell phone retailer. Her 15-year-old son wanted a cell phone restore, which used to be joking known as a “nationwide emergency.”
The mum of six already repaired one of the vital harm her celebration suffered Tuesday. McDonald Rivet, a state legislator in Michigan, received a aggressive race for Michigan’s eighth Congressional District within the Flint space. Trump prevailed within the eighth Congressional District and Democrats fearful about their possibilities there, as a result of the retirement of longtime Democratic Consultant Dan Kildee, the newest in a circle of relatives dynasty that is held the seat for many years.
CBS Information
“This is the article: My district voted for Donald Trump,” McDonald Pivet instructed CBS Information by way of telephone, after coming back from the cell phone retailer restore challenge. “There may be numerous nationwide dialog about Trump-this and Trump-that. After we’re operating on such things as prescribed drugs, the price of housing and decreasing the price of groceries, then I am on board.I am not going to become involved within the yelling and screaming and the stuff that makes politics terrible.”
She paused a second, on the subject of CBS Information that it truly is placing simply what number of groceries a 15-year-old son can eat. (She appropriately fact-checked that the CBS Information reporter’s 14-year-old son used to be additionally prodigious at consuming top volumes of meals)
McDonald Pivet arrives in Washington with years of enjoy in Michigan’s state legislature in Lansing. “I have spent my existence operating on problems, like growing financial safety for households, specifically for youngsters. I began my profession in Head Get started. Those problems are best of thoughts, together with growth of the kid tax credit score.”
119th Congress
The crowd of newly-elected US Area individuals arrives at a most often volatile second in Washington, however amid a unprecedented spec of steadiness within the decrease chamber. Management of Area Republicans and Area Democrats is predicted to stay unscathed, after a pricey and heated election by which the margins within the Area may emerge unchanged.
Orientation classes for brand new individuals of the Area start this week close to Capitol Hill, with one of the vital newly-elected searching for residing quarters and coaching classes for his or her distinctive new jobs.
A number of of those that spoke with CBS Information mentioned they have got spent their first days as an elected federal legit operating to search out workforce and constituent carrier mavens.
Bresnahan, the incoming freshman Consultant from northeast Pennsylvania, is amongst those that will have to wind down — or to find contingency plans – for personal companies again house. “I am additionally an actual property developer and am attempting to determine, y’know, who’s going to think my position right here,” he mentioned.
Bresnahan additionally has a put up at the native SPCA board in Pennsylvania to navigate, as he concurrently tries to learn how to navigate the winding hallways and tunnels of Capitol Hill.
As for Simon, who says she is transferring her daughter to a brand new faculty upfront of starting a time period in Congress, the juggling of her new profession is already nicely underway. As a unmarried mother, she’s bearing an extra burden.
Simon paused a couple of moments in silence, then instructed CBS Information, “This is the deal: It’ll be a tricky process. However there are unmarried moms who’re slightly making minimal salary. And they’re making ends meet slightly. I can determine it out.”