This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 6, 2011 - WASHINGTON - Hitting the ground running in his new job, Roy Blunt was named to the U.S. Senate's Republican vote-counting team shortly after he was sworn into office Wednesday as Missouri's 45th senator.
Escorted into the Senate chamber by his Republican predecessor, former Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, and Missouri's Democratic senior senator, Sen. Claire McCaskill, Blunt smiled broadly after Vice President Joe Biden administered the oath of office.
"I look forward to continuing to work for Missourians as I've had an opportunity to do in the past," Blunt said in a statement afterward.
Within a few hours of the swearing-in, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., appointed Blunt and two other senators who are former U.S. House Members to an expanded Republican Senate vote-counting team. The new Congress now has 47 Republican senators.
Senate Republican staffers said that Blunt -- who had previously served as both House majority whip and minority whip -- could become a Republican Senate liaison to the House, which is now controlled by Republicans. Blunt says he has a good working relationship with Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and is a friend of the Democrats' majority whip, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland.
Earlier, a crowd of about 100 well-wishers -- who watched the swearing-in on a giant screen in a meeting room of the Dirksen Senate Office Building -- cheered when Blunt took the oath of office. They snacked on roast beef, ham and a cake decorated with the seal of the U.S. Senate as they watched the Missouri Republican assume his new office.
"I think Roy will follow in Kit Bond's footsteps and be a great senator," said one of those supporters, Al Koller, who owns a plastics manufacturing company in Fenton. Another supporter, Frederick D. Palmer of Ladue, described Blunt as "a true leader who has exceptional skills as a legislator."
Palmer, a senior vice president of Peabody Energy in St. Louis, attended the Blunt gathering with his wife, Gayle, He predicted that Blunt would rise quickly to become a leader in the Senate's Republican ranks.
In his statement on Wednesday, Blunt said he was taking office at an important time in U.S. history. "The moment we face is a moment where people really want to know: Where are the private sector jobs? Why is the government spending so much money? And are we going to live in a country where the government is bigger than the people, or where the people are bigger than the government?"
Blunt added: "I am going to do everything I can to ensure that we live in a country where the people are bigger than the government, and I will continue my conversation with Missourians to be sure that we continue to fight for jobs and commonsense solutions to the problems we face."
A couple of hours after his official swearing-in on the Senate floor -- where photographers and family members are not permitted -- he and family members took part in a photo-op ceremony with Biden in the ornate old Senate chamber in the Capitol.
Beaming, Blunt took the oath of office again and then introduced Biden to his wife Abigail, their young son Charlie, and other members of the family, including Blunt's son Andy. Always obliging, Biden posed for photos with the group.
"I think Roy is just enjoying the day," McCaskill told the Beacon after taking part in his swearing-in and later dropping by at the celebration of Blunt supporters. "The day you get sworn in, you can kind of let your breath out."
McCaskill said Blunt "could easily end up being a bridge from moderate Republicans over to some of the more conservative members who were just elected. It would not surprise me to see Roy very quickly gain a position of trust in his [Republican] caucus."
Asked about their working relationship, McCaskill said: "I think that Roy and I will work together well. There will be things we disagree on, obviously. But there will be many things we agree on."
Blunt took office during a busy day on both the House and Senate sides of the Capitol. Crowds of family, friends and supporters gathered at the offices of Missouri's two new House members, both Republicans: U.S. Reps. Vicky Hartzler of Harrisonville and Billy Long of Springfield.
Long, an Ozarks auctioneer and former talk-show host who got support from Tea Party activists in southwest Missouri, said he planned to work hard to represent "the friends, neighbors, families, and businesses of the 7th District" in Congress. "For too long, our government was not listening to the will of the people. I have taken the message of smaller government, common sense fiscal policy, and more government accountability with me as I fight for our values in Washington."
Among the Hartzler supporters was Koller, who said the new congresswoman -- who defeated former Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Lexington, in November -- "is true to herself and true to her beliefs. She'll make an excellent member of the House."
Describing herself as "determined," Hartzler took part in a roundtable discussion with Diane Sawyer -- televised Wednesday on her evening news show -- that included new U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and several other new members of the U.S. House backed by Tea Party activists. Hartzler said that, despite White House warnings that failing to increase the national debt ceiling would have catastrophic results, she would not vote to raise the debt ceiling. And she told Sawyer that, even though her family farm in Missouri had received more than $750,000 in payments from farm subsidy programs, she felt that such agriculture subsidies should be "on the table" for possible spending cuts. "Yes, there's a lot of us farmers that have participated in the program(s)," she said.