$1 billion Federal Agency seeks boss to show up for work

Wanted: Motivated and versatile CEO, preferably with technical, architectural, academic and diplomatic skills, to lead 2,400 employees overseeing a 570-acre complex in central Washington – including the U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court, Library of Congress, parks, restaurants and a large power plant. The position reports to the president, but Congress tries to wrest control.

Political savvy is essential.

There is a nationwide hunt for a new Capitol architect, the federal official responsible for the operations and maintenance of the Capitol complex – the heart of American democracy and dysfunction in more recent years. A special congressional committee is looking for potential candidates on college campuses and museum boards, and in the military, major transit systems and even theme parks.

“This is a uniquely complex role,” said Marshall Reffett of Reffett Associates, the search firm Congress hired. “One term we often use is ‘unicorn’.”

The task of preserving and safeguarding some of America’s most iconic monuments and treasures was largely obscure for two centuries, but has taken on new importance since the attacks of January 6, 2021. The previous architect, J. Brett Blanton, a Trump appointee, stayed home during the attack on the Capitol, enraging members of both sides. President Biden fired him in February after an 800-page investigative report revealed that he impersonated a police officer and used government vehicles for a vacation in Florida, a visit to a brewery and errands from his daughters, sparking the official investigation when they noticed too much. through a Walmart parking lot.

Mr. Blanton’s high-profile outburst is just one factor complicating the search for a new bureau chief that, confusingly, has the same name as the job title, Architect of the Capitol, and the same shorthand reference, AOC, as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat.

Recent reports from the Inspector General document waste, omission, contractual irregularities, workplace misconduct and sexual harassment at an agency with an annual budget of $1.3 billion. Some 17 agency workers knew about Mr Blanton’s misconduct but did not report it. The agency’s $1 billion restoration of the House Cannon office building is on the cusp $200 million over budgetwith some inappropriate expenses be charged to the taxpayersuch as a baby gift, coffee supplies, and attorneys’ fees for contractors being dragged before Congress to account for bloated deadlines and cost overruns. Failures of the Capitol Police Board (the architect is one of three voting members) and Mr. Blanton’s failed response contributed to the Capitol’s breakthrough January 6, according to a Senate report.

Mr Blanton did not respond to phone calls and emails requesting an interview. In the February 9 House Administration Committee hearing leading to his firing, Mr. Blanton said that “it would not have been wise” to drive to the Capitol during the attack “because there would have been almost no way to get to this campus at the time with the number of people that were there.” He ‘wholeheartedly’ rejected the Inspector General’s findings. “The report is full of errors, omissions, mischaracterizations, misstatements and conclusive statements without evidence,” he said.

The job pays $212,000 per year. Comparable jobs in the private sector have more than double that.

“Problem after problem after problem,” Thomas J. Carroll III, a former acting architect of the Capitol, told researchers. He has since left the government. “Getting away was a great vacation,” he added.

The recruiting team declined to say how many applications have come in; Congressional aides involved in the search say the company has identified about two dozen potential candidates. “People who know what this job entails love being asked to think about it,” said Mr. Refett.

“We emphasize service,” he added. “We have to play with ‘You’ve had a great career, and now it’s time to give back.'”

535 bosses

Capitol architects are appointed by the president to 10-year terms, but bipartisan legislation introduced last month proposes shifting control of the agency’s chief from the White House to Congress. The change would bring the architect closer to the attention of 535 of the most demanding bosses in the nation: members of Congress who rely on the agency for everything from running the lottery for lawmakers’ offices to hanging pictures to assigning security details after threats. .

The White House has not objected to the proposed change. The American Institute of Architects, an industry advocacy group, meanwhile, is urging that the next person to hold the position, a qualified architect, bound by the ethical standards of the industry. Mr. Blanton, an engineer with experience in the Navy and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, is one of several non-architects to hold the job, but the first in recent years. Congress is hesitant to limit the search to just architects, but the AIA is nonetheless promoting the opening to its 96,000 members, and has sent a list of potential candidates to the recruiting team.

“This job requires the skills of an architect, especially in space planning,” says Emily Grandstaff-Rice, the institute’s president. But, she added, “because you have good access to many decision makers within government, it’s also a people-oriented position.”

Indeed, the architect’s unofficial duties include maintaining relations with a congress overrun by partisanship. In January, during multiple votes on Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the House speakership, Republicans opposed to him asked the inspector general to investigate the architect for “allowing” Mr. McCarthy to enter the speaker’s offices to move before he got the votes.

Republicans have publicly criticized a nearly $1 million security fence the architect installed before the 2022 State of the Union address and metal detectors installed after the January 6 attack, which they say is an exercise in political prudence after President Trump called rioters to the Capitol. Various Republican legislators have been fined for avoiding the magnetometers.

“I am fully committed to depoliticizing security,” said Representative Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the House Administration Committee, whose first hearing as chairman led to Mr. Blanton’s resignation. “I came into this role and tried to take a fresh look at a lot of things. ‘How we’ve always done it’ is just not enough for me.”

Mr. Steil and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat and chair of the Senate Rules Committee, are among the sponsors of the new legislation.

“I believe in government accountability, which is why we came together across the aisle to call for the former architect of the Capitol to step down over his misuse of office,” Ms. Klobuchar said in a statement. e-mail. “We are now working in a bipartisan way to pass legislation that updates how this officer is appointed to ensure they are accountable to Congress.”

Five more layoffs

The architect of the Capitol’s origins date from 1793, when William Thornton, an amateur architect, became the first official to hold the job after his design of the U.S. Capitol was accepted by President George Washington. Since then, only 11 others have been in the position, including fixtures like George M. Whitean architect, engineer, and scholar who served from 1971 to 1995, supervising the construction of the Hart Senate Office Building and the James Madison Building of the Library of Congress and ascending the dome of the United States Capitol to personally oversee the restoration work.

Today, the agency is responsible for maintaining more than 200 acres of land and 18.4 million square feet of buildings. In addition to restaurants, it also operates parking garages, convention halls, and the subway system that brings lawmakers to the vote. It operates the Capitol Visitor Center and the Capitol Power Plant, which heats and cools 36 buildings, plus Union Station, a major rail hub in the Mid-Atlantic. A phalanx of merchants and artisans preserves and restores the historic buildings, antique furniture and hundreds of priceless works of art.

Chere Rexroat, a licensed architect who was the bureau’s chief engineer, now serves as the acting architect of the Capitol. She has been fired since February five top managers. They include the General Counsel, who toured the country during the pandemic; the financial director; and the director of the Capitol visitor center, for what an inspector general determined an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate supervisor.

Meanwhile, the search for a permanent replacement continues.

Kitty Bennett contributed research.