Leaving home for the U.S. House

Kevin Woster, Rapid City Journal

CLEAR LAKE – From the visitors’ bleachers in the Deuel High School gym, it was easy for Kristi Noem to see what she will be missing.

Success in politics comes with a price. And Noem was surrounded on a recent winter evening by the price she will pay when she heads off to Washington, D.C., on Saturday to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“I’ll have to miss some of these nights, and that will be hard,” she said, splitting her focus between a reporter’s questions and the hustle of her daughters, 16-year-old Kassidy and 13-year-old Kennedy, as they joined their Hamlin Chargers teammates in a losing basketball effort against the Deuel Cardinals.

But missing some won’t mean missing them all. Noem was quick to point that out. She will live in D.C. during the week, keep in touch by phone and e-mail and fly home on weekends to be with her family.

But even at home, she will handle the assortment of constituent meetings and congressional duties that make the lives of U.S. House members something less than their own.

“There’s going to be some changes. Mom will be gone,” Noem said, as her 8-year-old son, Booker, rested against her shoulder and lobbied the representative-elect for a concession stand trip. “But I’ll be home on weekends, for weekend games and other activities. And there are other more extended breaks. And we’ve had some experience with this during my years in the state Legislature.”

Two terms in the South Dakota House of Representatives kept Noem in Pierre for a couple of winter months four years in a row. That meant missing family time during the week and going home on weekends.

“They’ve had a little taste of what that will be like,” she said.

But it was only a taste. And it was only in Pierre. Noem’s nationally prominent defeat of three-term Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in November took her to a higher level of politics, and sacrifice.

Moving to the nation’s capital means a more life-altering commitment for her and for her family. Her husband, Bryon, who sat behind his wife at the game chatting with a collection of friends and relatives, said he is ready for that. And he believes their children are, too.

“I think this is a great opportunity for Kristi, for us as a couple and for our entire extended family,” he said. “Seeing the nation’s capital from an insider’s perspective will be very special for all of us. People ask, ‘How are you going to do it at home?’ But there are challenges in everything you do.”

The coming challenge faced by the Noems is a familiar burden for members of Congress and their families.

Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson and his wife, Barbara, faced the same issues and same decisions when Johnson was elected to the U.S. House in 1986. Republican Sen. John Thune and his wife, Kimberley, experienced the same thing after Thune won the U.S. House seat previously held by Johnson in 1996.

Both senators said they empathized with what Noem is going through.

“There’s no right way to address this issue,” Johnson said. “I know that Kristi wants to remain on the farm. And I wish them well. These are tough decisions to be made.”

The Johnsons decided to move to the D.C. area, eventually settling nearby in Virginia for a congressional career that has reached 24 years, and counting. Johnson said he was committed to having his family with him on a daily basis as he went about his congressional duties.

“I was determined to have my kids with me in Virginia, in elementary and high school,” he said. “I wanted to read them bedtime stories, watch them play sports and go to South Dakota on the weekends.”

When the Johnsons moved to the D.C. area, their daughter, Kelsey, was 5 years old and sons Brendan and Brooks were in the fifth and ninth grades. Barbara Johnson, who left a tenured teaching job at the University of South Dakota to make the move, said deciding where to locate the family is “just the most difficult decision” new congressional members must make.

“Either way, there’s some pain involved,” she said. “It’s a difficult transition.”

Thune remembers those difficulties well and has a personal understanding for both the notion of keeping the family at home or taking it to D.C.

“We tried it both ways,” he said. “My first term in the House, we moved out there and rented a house. But what we kind of concluded after a couple of years was that it wasn’t for us.”

Thune liked the idea of their children growing up in South Dakota. And Kimberley Thune made perhaps the most compelling argument of all as she considered how little time Thune was able to spend with the family and still meet his House obligations and campaign realities.

“There was one stretch where I was gone seven weekends in a row, and my wife looked at me and said, ‘If I’m going to be lonely, I’d rather be lonely in South Dakota than here,’” Thune said. “So we came back and put the girls in school. And I’ve been blessed that they were able to go through elementary, middle school and high school in South Dakota.”

But being blessed hasn’t been easy or uncomplicated. Thune keeps a hectic travel schedule back and forth between Washington, D.C., where he keeps an apartment about six blocks from his office, and the family home in Sioux Falls. His previous schedule in the House, which typically operated on three- or four-day work weeks, was more travel friendly than the one he faces in the Senate, particularly since he gained GOP leadership roles.

“It was kind of designed to accommodate people who go back and forth, because they’re running every two years and the system kind of helps people get home,” Thune said. “In the Senate, it’s one or two nights a week more than the House.”

Thune still tries to get home every weekend, often flying in Friday and out early Monday. He usually works on Saturday but tries to reserve Sunday for family.

“Our policy has been not to schedule on Sunday unless it’s a pretty extraordinary circumstance,” he said. “I try to keep Sunday open, as a day for family, then on Monday you turn around and go again.”

That means plenty of time on planes going to and from or waiting in airports.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in the Minneapolis and Chicago airports. And that part of it’s not fun,” he said.

Barbara Johnson said her husband’s busy work schedule on weekends and breaks was part of the reason she wanted to move the family out east.

“If we had stayed in South Dakota with the schedule he kept, we wouldn’t have seen him very much,” she said. “He’d go back and be in different sections of the state on weekends. He really worked hard at staying in touch.”

Just as the Thunes like the way their decision worked out, the Johnsons are happy with theirs. All three Johnson children came back to South Dakota to start college at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion where Tim Johnson had practiced law. Brendan and Kelsey stayed to graduate, while Brooks went into the military.

“Not one of them would look at another college,” Barbara said. “Vermillion is our hometown, and that’s the only place they wanted to go.”

Kristi Noem said she understands that South Dakota pull. She also knows that her family would not be happy living in the D.C. area. She is counting on Bryon and an assortment of relatives to help keep life as normal as possible for the children.

“We’re basically surrounded by my family and my husband’s family as well,” she said. “We’ve got so many young kids and cousins in this community, and so much support. If I didn’t have the family I have here, I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing this or serving in Congress.”

Noem’s daughters said they are ready for increased responsibility in supervising their little brother and helping their dad manage the home.

“It’s very exciting,” Kassidy said. “We’ll all have to step it up at home. But we’ve done that before. This will just be a little bit more.”

Kennedy said she is particularly excited about spending time with her mom in Washington, D.C.

“I’m really looking forward to going out there, and all the things we can see and learn,” she said.

Kristi Noem said she will head for Washington and her work-week apartment without any goals on a long-term stay. She said she went into her state House commitment two years at a time, vigilant for signs that it was hard on the family.

She plans the same approach for the U.S. House seat.

“We’ve been very clear that if the family doesn’t do well, we won’t continue to do it,” she said. “Our family is our priority.”

Bryon Noem believes his wife will serve the family well by serving the state and nation. She will do more to change Washington than it can ever do to change her, he said.

“Kristi is so grounded. Her life isn’t out there. Her life is here,” he said. “Her job is now to go out there and work for the people.”

Kristi Noem was in the middle of those people in the Deuel High School gym with her daughters and husband nearby and Booker resting near sleep on her lap.

It’s a lot to give up in home and family, if only for a week at a time.

“I really look forward to my work out there for South Dakota,” she said. “But it is pretty hard for me, to go out there without them.”

Read more at Kristi Noem for Congress