Yvette Clarke Plays It Cool, On Clinton and Congress

WASHINGTON — Rep. Yvette Clarke, two months after the Brooklyn Democrat's swearing in as the newest member of the city's congressional delegation, is focused on staffing her Capitol Hill and district offices, as well as keeping up with the fast pace of committee hearings and floor debate.

Introducing a first bill? Not yet, she says. Same with weighing in on the presidential campaign — she is the only Democratic member of Congress from New York who has not endorsed Senator Clinton for president.

"I don't want to reinvent the wheel," Ms. Clarke said in a recent interview in the Longworth House Office Building. With a relaxed smile, she sat on a couch in a sparsely decorated office that she said she hasn't gotten around to decorating. "I was thinking tropical," she said with a laugh.

Ms. Clarke, 42, came to Congress from the City Council, where she succeeded her mother, Una Clarke, the first Jamaican-born member of the body. Thus far, Ms. Clarke has perhaps drawn the most notice in the Capitol for her distinctive fashion sense — the white, knee-high boots she wore on the day of the interview attracted a number of comments on the House floor, an aide said.

Her path to Washington wasn't easy. She won her seat in the 11th District only after defeating three rivals in a Democratic primary whose racial dynamics attracted national attention. One of the opponents defeated by Ms. Clarke, who is black, was a white City Council member, David Yassky, who ran a well-financed race.

As a result of the hard-fought win, she is being watched closely back home, and she knows that a primary challenge in 2008 isn't out of the question.

"It creates a lot of pressure, and you know what, you don't take anything for granted," Ms. Clarke said. "I have to earn re-election. That's the way I see it. I'm not like, ‘Oh, I'm in this seat forever.'"

Observers look for Ms. Clarke to follow the lead of the many veteran Democrats in the city's delegation, but she has not joined them in one respect: she says she is not committed to supporting Mrs. Clinton in the 2008 presidential race. "I haven't crossed that bridge yet," she said, although she praised both Mrs. Clinton and Senator Obama.

While she's been quiet on the legislative front, Ms. Clarke scored an early success by securing a seat on the key House Homeland Security Committee, with the help of the dean of the delegation, Rep. Charles Rangel, and other well-connected lawmakers. Ms. Clarke also sits on the Small Business Committee and took the seat of her predecessor, Rep. Major Owens, on the Education and Labor Committee.

The decision to go for Homeland Security was a strategy, Ms. Clarke said, based on the fact that no current city lawmaker sat on the committee and none were likely to give up their seats on other committees, since most had moved up in seniority when the Democrats took control of Congress. The assignment will give the city an increased role in oversight of the federal Department of Homeland Security, which has faced criticism from local officials for its decisions about antiterror grant funding.

The only surprise, Ms. Clarke said, has been the level of energy and the speed at which things have moved early on in the House.

"The briefings are fast and furious, and so are the hearings," she said, "which, to me, is a good indication that people are really understanding how important it is that we whip that agency into shape as soon as humanly possible."

The freshman congresswoman got a vote of confidence from Mr. Rangel, who, despite the tensions in the 11th district, said Ms. Clarke could be in Congress for decades. "She brings excitement and new thinking to old problems," he said, calling her a "real professional."
"She's young enough to have a career here as long as she wants," Mr. Rangel added.

Yet Ms. Clarke knows it may not be that simple. She said one of her vanquished opponents, Chris Owens, urged her after the election to be vocal in Congress and not to become complacent.

"I take that advice to heart," she said.

In an interview, Mr. Owens, who had run to replace his father, Rep. Major Owens, said people "want to feel like they have a champion in Congress."

"They want to know that she's going to be the voice of the district, that she doesn't get lost in the sea of other voices and other districts," he said.

As for the close election, Mr. Owens said: "She only got 31% of the vote, so yes, there's pressure."

For now, Ms. Clarke is concentrating on getting settled in. While she has brought several aides from the City Council to staff her district office in Brooklyn, she has turned to Washington veterans to lead her Capitol Hill headquarters. Her chief of staff, Terrill North, was a policy director for Rep. Martin Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat, and another top assistant came over from the office of Rep. Gregory Meeks, a Democrat of Queens. She did bring one aide from Brooklyn, Mary Bishop, who serves as her scheduler.

Aides describe Ms. Clarke as someone who is passionate about issues but also down to earth. One aide, who did not want to be identified by name, said that while many lawmakers chose to live centrally on Capitol Hill, Ms. Clarke picked an apartment on the outskirts, near the higher crime neighborhood of Anacostia. "Many members of Congress tend to live in a really sheltered world. She doesn't feel the need to be sheltered," the aide said.

For Ms. Clarke, meanwhile, amid the challenges of adjusting to life in Washington and the pressure of the close race she won, she says she has tried to keep the focus on her constituents back in Brooklyn. "I don't think they're concerned about whether I'm going to be vocal on the issues or vote right on the issues. Good Dems are good Dems," she said. "They want a representative that really reflects their values."