This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov. 22, 2010 - WASHINGTON - He's a colorful Ozark auctioneer, former talk-show host and political novice who won a U.S. House seat with the campaign slogan "Fed Up" -- promising voters that he'd bring Show-Me common sense to the nation's capital.
U.S. Rep.-elect Billy Long returned to his home in Springfield, Mo., this past weekend after a week of "freshman orientation" in enemy territory -- Washington, D.C. -- with the impression that the influx of conservative Republicans steeped in tea party support can make a difference on Capitol Hill.
"The Republicans in the House welcomed us with open arms. We felt like the cavalry coming to the rescue," said Long. "It was an exciting, exhilarating week."
Long's cavalry comparison seems apt, given the likely impact of the incoming group of at least 85 new Republicans (three House races are still in dispute). The biggest freshman class in decades will constitute more than a third of the House Republicans in the new Congress and will propel the party to House leadership.
But Long and many of his fellow freshman Republicans -- including U.S. Rep.-elect Vicky Hartzler, a farmer and business owner from west-central Missouri and U.S. Rep.-elect Bobby Schilling, who runs a pizza shop in East Moline, Ill. -- are also promising to bring quirky independence to the Capitol.
Long, for one, is a political newcomer, having served in no elective office and pledging to voters that he won't serve long in this one. He owns a Springfield-based auction company, Billy Long Auctions LLC, and travels across the Ozark region as an auctioneer, mainly in the territory of Missouri's 7th Congressional District.
With his trademark cowboy hat and his booming auctioneer's voice, Long promises to be one of the most colorful members of the Class of '10. On Friday, when the freshmen were picking lottery numbers for their House offices, the Ozarks auctioneer got some playful heckling from his classmates. Reported the Washington Post: "When Long pulled out the bad-news number of 79 [out of 85], somebody yelled out 'Sold!' "
Long ended up with an office on the fifth floor of the Longworth House Office Building -- not exactly a choice location. But Long said afterward that he was amazed at all the perks and opportunities that are offered to legislators.
"They say when you get elected it's like drinking out of a fire hose," he said with a laugh. "They're lying about that. It's like drinking out of a fire plug; there's no hose to restrict the flow. A lot of stuff starts coming at you as soon as you win an election."
In temperament if not in policies, Long stands in stark contrast to the man he is replacing in the House, U.S. Sen.-elect Roy Blunt, who is from a longstanding Missouri political family and became an insider among the House Republican leadership before being elected to the U.S. Senate.
Long said he doesn't want to stick around too long, and he supports term limits of six terms for a U.S. House member and two terms for a U.S. senator -- a dozen years for both. "When I started running, more than half of our congressmen had spent over half of their adult lives in one political office or another. They just worked their way up the food chain," Long complained.
"The system's broken; it doesn't work. I think we need patriots and statesmen, not politicians. We need people who go up there for the right reason and not just to advance their political careers."
It remains to be seen how much Mr. Outsider will fare once he gets into the crowd of insiders on Capitol Hill. So far, Long said, he and his Republican freshman classmates got along well during their week of orientation and seemed to get respect from Speaker-to-be John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other Republican House leaders.
"I learned a great deal and our class jelled really well together" during the orientation, Long said. "The Republican leadership and the upperclassmen bent over backward to welcome us to town and tell us how thankful they are to be back in the leadership in the new Congress."
Long, Hartzler and Schilling were all backed by tea party activists in their districts, and all three say they agree with many of the tea party's goals, including slashing the federal budgets, opposing the Obama administration's new health law, and down-sizing the federal government. Long attended at least one of the tea party events in D.C. during orientation and heard from some of the national leaders who identify with the movement.
"In my home district, we've been tea party before tea party was cool. There's a Tea Party Patriots headquarters in Branson and they've been very supportive," said Long. "The tea party isn't a party. There's no head of it. But they know how to send out emails."
Long told the Beacon that "the main thing I want to do is return common sense to D.C. I'd like to see a constitutional limit on taxes and spending -- sort of like the Hancock amendment that we have in Missouri. We can't balance the budget by raising taxes anymore; we're taxed to death right now."
While most of the House Republican leaders are white males, the freshmen elected an African-American and a woman as their two representatives at the Republican leadership table: Rep.-elect Tim Scott, an African-American insurance agent and state legislator from South Carolina, and Rep.-elect Kristi Noem, a South Dakota cattle rancher.
"We rallied as a class and said we needed to have a real voice" in Republican leadership and committees, Long said. "And they gave us that voice."
Long said Boehner impressed him as being "calm, cool and collected. He's very down to earth." And he said he is convinced that he and other freshman Republicans can make a difference in the new Congress, which starts in early January.
"Oh yeah, we can make a difference," he said. "Especially since we Republicans have the majority in the House."