A few hours before Thornton and Latimer started laying out trays of pulled pork and brisket, the House Modernization Committee held a hearing titled “Pathways to Success: How Practicing Civility, Collaboration, and Leadership Can Empower Members of Congress.” Wednesday night, the Congressional Softball Game held a reception for the breast cancer charity’s sponsors and participants. Next Wednesday, the two parties will take to Nationals Park for the Congressional Baseball Game, and earlier that same day members will hit the pavement together for ACLI’s Capital Challenge, a 3-mile road race. The barbecue lunch is hardly the only bipartisan social event on the congressional calendar. Schumer and McConnell for clearing the schedule for the event. This year, Coons thanked Majority Leader Charles E. “Harry Reid bitched about it,” Isakson told CQ Roll Call in 2019, adding that Mitch McConnell worried the barbecue was a precursor to a leadership challenge. When the tradition started, leaders in both parties looked at it leerily. A bill to replenish the fund has attracted bipartisan support in both chambers, including 40 Senate co-sponsors, but Congress is prioritizing other issues, including averting a government shutdown, raising the debt ceiling, and passing the multitrillion-dollar infrastructure and social spending bills.Įven though they sat on opposite sides of the aisle, Coons called Isakson “a great mentor and ultimately a great friend.” Conversations with Republicans over heaps of meat tenderized by gently rendered fat, Coons said, helped grease the wheels for cross-party collaboration. Congress created a Restaurant Revitalization Fund in March as part of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that not a single Republican supported, but its $28.6 billion allocation practically ran dry overnight after 278,000 eateries asked for more than $72 billion in relief. If sharing some sweet tea can sweeten bipartisan deal-making, restaurateurs like Thornton and Latimer may benefit. “At a time where they’re extremely busy with three restaurants, and all the challenges that are going on today in the market - sourcing a product and labor - they still dropped everything that they were doing to come and be a part of this.” The pandemic has hurt the food service industry harder than some other sectors, as Thornton noted while lauding Latimer for making the trip.
Asking pulled pork to pull the Senate together to deal with all that seems like a tall order. On top of that, Congress is facing yet another potential government shutdown, negotiations on police reform collapsed Wednesday, a sizable chunk of the GOP still refuses to acknowledge the validity of last year’s election and the coronavirus continues to ravage unvaccinated Americans. If anything, Coons was downplaying the grim state of affairs, as Democrats and Republicans continue to play chicken on raising the debt limit, risking a catastrophic default of the nation’s credit if neither side blinks - all for the possibility of a small partisan boost in the next election. “And I’d say we’re back into a place where we’re pretty divided.” “Johnny started doing this a little over a decade ago, when the Senate was getting kind of hinky - people were getting mad at each other, there was not a lot of understanding,” said Coons.
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Louis ribs, plus heaps upon heaps of sides like mac ’n’ cheese and baked beans.Īll of those calories were consumed for a noble cause: sating the Senate’s hunger for a little comity. Along with their team, they prepared more than 400 pounds of brisket, pulled pork and St.
After a COVID-caused pause last year, Thornton recruited some help from his buddy Latimer of Jasper, Ga.’s Bub-Ba-Q. to cook slow and low for senators and their staff. This was the 11th time Thornton, of South 40 Smokehouse in Marietta, Ga., trekked up to D.C. “We’re still partially wet,” Thornton said. Wednesday, tending the hardwood fires throughout the damp and windy night. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, and now continuing under the sponsorship of two Democrats ( Chris Coons of Delaware and Raphael Warnock of Georgia) and two Republicans ( Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Roy Blunt of Missouri).Īlong with fellow pitmaster Bubba Latimer and a crew of colleagues, Thornton started smoking the meats for Thursday’s lunch around 4 p.m. “This” is the Senate’s annual bipartisan barbecue lunch, a tradition started a little over a decade ago by retired Sen. “I’m honored … to come up here and be a part of this,” he said. Dale Thornton sounds happier than you’d expect for a man who got 30 minutes of sleep last night, having spent most of it standing in the rain.
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