Second Wives Club

The stylist has just finished applying the color to Jeannemarie Devolites Davis's hair, and now the Virginia state senator, who also happens to be the wife of Representative Tom Davis, has 20 minutes of enforced stillness in which to chat on her cell phone. Twenty minutes. That's 1,200 seconds during which the Fairfax County legislator cannot be dashing between Rotary Club luncheons, Chamber of Commerce receptions, and the endless constituent-service functions and fund-raisers that threaten to suck up her every waking moment. That's in addition, of course, to her actual legislative duties and the burden of guiding Virginia toward a brighter future. Toss in parenting commitments, her day job at a small technology consulting firm, and the occasional life- maintenance errand (like a quick color touch-up), and you'd assume Davis's hectic schedule would strain any marriage, much less one in which the husband is a member of the U.S. House.But, as Senator Davis tells it, she and Representative Davis--now entering their second year of wedded bliss--are a perfect fit. "Since my Senate district is in his House district, my job has many of the same commitments his does," she explains. Her constituents are his constituents, so the couple shares many of the same policy priorities, political concerns, and, perhaps most important, fund-raising networks. Evenings and weekends find the Davises working the same business receptions, nonprofit dinners, and neighborhood fairs. "For us," jokes Davis, "a hot date on Friday night is going to events in the same car." Better still, when the senator winds up double-booked, her congressman can cover for her, and vice-versa. Best example, recalls Davis: After George Mason University made it to the Final Four in this year's ncaa tournament, Tom was scheduled to appear at a huge celebration for the team. "But then Tom had to go back to the Hill for a vote. So I got to stand up on stage with the basketball players, in front of thousands of people from my district, and present them with this congressional resolution," she says with obvious delight. "His loss. My gain." Behold the modern congressional wife. Or, to be more precise, the modern congressional second wife. These days, it's not easy to find a woman who can put up with the trials and tribulations of a husband in office--the fund- raisers, the late votes, the constant commuting between the home district and the District of Columbia--and, to put it delicately, it takes many congressmen more than one try. Tom Davis is but one of many lawmakers to blame the demands of politics for destroying his first marriage. "It's miserable on a family-- absolutely miserable," he lamented in an April profile in Washingtonian magazine, noting that his first wife, Peggy, never knew when he'd be home at night. Davis recalled one instance in which he actually arrived home on time, only to find Peggy on her way out the door: "I said, `Why are you headed to the movies?' And she responds, `I can't count on you for anything.'" As Davis acknowledged, the entire family "had to plan their life around me. I don't blame them for that." Happily, the new Mrs. Davis--check that, Senator Davis-- recognizes that it's all part of the job. "Because we basically do the same thing with our careers and both feel strongly that we need to be out in our districts as much as possible," she says, "it makes it much easier for us than for many other couples where the spouses are waiting at home for the Congress members." Hence the rise of the unique Washington subspecies of congressional second wife. In some ways, they resemble the second wives of successful men in other cities and other fields: For instance, men being men, the incoming wives tend to be younger and prettier than the outgoing ones. But Washington being Washington, one finds few big-breasted bimbos, vapid socialites, or any of the other trophy stereotypes associated with masters of the universe rewarding themselves for their success. Rather, the ultimate congressional trophy wife is herself a political animal, able to charm donors, handle the press, and spend an entire cocktail party discussing the finer points of last week's Rules Committee hearing on lobbying reform. In part, it's a template set by the electoral realities of the job: Even blue-state voters might blanch at the thought of their graying congressman dumping his long-time helpmeet for a Beltway version of Anna Nicole Smith. (Some Washington wits joke that congressmen don't earn enough to land themselves real trophy wives.) But the biggest issue seems to be that, thanks to the bizarre, unhealthy, family-unfriendly nature of politics, the only women likely to fall for--and survive being married to--a member of Congress are themselves creatures of Washington, rather than, say, hometown sweethearts from Providence or Omaha. It's a situation that, ironically, has only gotten worse under the family-obsessed GOP congressional regime. In some cases, the second-wife-to-be is assumed to have helped show her predecessor the door (think Randi Fredholm, for whom then-Senator Tim Hutchinson dumped his wife of 28 years, and Callista Bisek, the third Mrs. Newt Gingrich). In other cases, a lawmaker simply decides that he has outgrown his old life--and wife (as when Jon Corzine walked out on his 33-year marriage during his second year in the Senate). In still others, it's the wife who calls it quits (the first Mrs. George Allen; the first Mrs. John Kerry). But, whatever the particulars, the noxious effect of politics is generally blamed, and a sociological pattern emerges: Increasingly, the only folks who can stand to be with inside-the-Beltway types are other inside-the-Beltway types. In recent years, arguably no political theme has electrified domestic politics more than the breakdown of the traditional family. Gay marriage, abortion, teen sex, welfare, drugs, feminism, humanism, unfettered capitalism-- you name the issue, some enterprising candidate has used it to demagogue his way into high office. But veteran Washington-watchers know the single gravest threat to the family may well be one that not even the most values-oriented lawmaker is willing to discuss in public: congressional interns. "They dress just shy of hookers!" marvels one middle-aged Democratic Senate staffer, noting that staff assistants are just as bad. "You get these young women walking around with their belly buttons showing--in these short skirts. It's the damnedest thing you've ever seen!" To be fair, no one has proved a direct correlation between the number of exposed navels and the frequency of marital crack-ups on Capitol Hill. Yet. But the spectacle of shlubby, graying lawmakers adrift in a sea of fawning, nubile "skinterns" is just the most garish example of the notoriously family-hostile life of your garden-variety congress member. Asked about the issue, longtime Washingtonians will spin you a tale both tragic and tawdry: The long hours; the constituent demands; the relentless fund-raising and campaigning; the sweet, pretty young things who understand your troubles and want to make them all go away. Though it varies in intensity, the onset of Potomac Fever in a lawmaker is as predictable as the annual budget battle. From the moment he arrives in town, even the homeliest, least influential member suddenly finds himself treated like a movie star. "You get a full-time staff and this huge payroll for My Name Inc., and you wind up with all these people working for your own little personal cult of personality--all paid for by the federal government," says Chuck Todd, editor of the political clip service The Hotline and a self- professed obsessive about the anti-family culture of Washington. The resulting delusions of grandeur can be tough to take for wives who've known the lawmakers since they were nothing more than small-town lawyers or high school nerds. "These guys get used to a certain lifestyle and a certain level of sucking up," says Todd. "My guess is that's not easy on a marriage, because the wife is not used to sucking up." Particularly for a spouse who played a key role in getting her man elected, the sudden demotion to bit player can be a shock. Observes the Senate staffer, "You're walking into a situation where you go to a cocktail party reception and have all sorts of people making a beeline for your husband and basically ignoring you." Even Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor used to complain that her marriage to Senator John Warner was brutally lonely and hard on the ego. "Not only is a senator's wife not heard, she's pretty much not seen, " she lamented to Time in 1989. After two decades as the girlfriend and then wife of Representative Sanford Bishop, Vivian Creighton Bishop has watched more than a few congressional spouses struggle to adapt. "Having to spend a lot of time without their husbands" is the toughest adjustment most newcomers make, says Bishop, who was recently elected president of the Congressional Club, a nonpartisan organization for spouses founded in 1908. "The members have to attend a lot of receptions. They have to meet with a lot of constituents as well as corporate people and attorneys." Then there are the floor votes that keep them out until the wee hours. And, of course, the coterie of flirting, fawning women who seem to follow their husbands everywhere. "A huge number of us have talked about some of the females who sort of ignore us or don't want to give us respect as spouses," Bishop says in her soft, measured voice. She recounts one event at which her husband was being fussed over by a female lobbyist who, when the congressman asked if she would like to meet his wife, sniffily replied, "No, I don't want to meet her." "My husband was shocked," recalls Bishop. "I was shocked." To help members navigate these rough shoals, the Congressional Club has long hosted orientation sessions--offering tips on everything from weathering press conferences to handling surly Hill staffers--and matched up newbie spouses with more experienced "big sisters." In addition to providing the scoop on schools, housing, doctors, and shopping, the big sisters often wind up offering counsel on how to cope with being shuffled to the periphery of a lawmaker's new life. But, ultimately, there's only so much you can do, and congressional wives without their own power bases often find themselves marginalized--even among the other women. "Congressional spouses who stayed home and did not have a career get utterly dismissed," observes Washington Post gossip columnist Roxanne Roberts. "This perception, which has nothing to do with reality, is that they're not interesting and cannot be useful except to influence their husbands." More than three decades after the fact, the story of the first Mrs. Bob Dole, nee Phyllis Holden, remains one of the most heart-rending cases of a woman "outgrown" by her congressional husband. An occupational therapist at the Michigan hospital where the young Bob was sent to recuperate from war wounds, Phyllis asked the handsome World War II hero to a dance at the local officer's club. In June 1948, the couple married, and Phyllis devoted herself to nursing her new husband back to health. (As the story goes, she even attended his college classes with him, taking notes and writing out the answers to tests from his dictation.) Twenty-two years later, in December 1970, Senator Dole informed Phyllis their marriage was over. The relationship had been dying for some time, with the senator clocking long hours and seeing less and less of Phyllis and their teenage daughter, Robin. Still, Phyllis made it clear for years afterward that the divorce was entirely Bob's idea and that she remained perplexed as to what had prompted him to end the marriage. A 1996 Vanity Fair piece suggested another woman was involved, but Phyllis, Bob, and various observers have long chalked it up to the senator's absorption with his career. As Dole wrote in his autobiography, Unlimited Partners (co-written with second wife Elizabeth), "Mine was not the first or, sadly, the last marriage to founder on the political rocks." Occasionally, a congressman's decision to dissolve a first marriage causes him professional grief. When then- Representative Billy Tauzin left his first wife, Gayle, and then wed former executive assistant Cecile Bergeron in 1993, his Cajun constituents took it hard. Gayle was popular around the district, and observers noted that many voters were angrier about the congressman's dumping the hometown favorite than they were two years later when he announced he was moving from the Democratic to the Republican side of the aisle. Ultimately, the smooth-talking Tauzin managed to mend enough fences to salvage his seat. Former Senator Tim Hutchinson was not so skilled. In 1999, the die-hard Christian conservative offended much of his base when he left his longtime wife for former aide Randi Fredholm. Lingering resentment over the issue is thought to have contributed to his defeat in 2002. For the most part, however, divorce and remarriage are now so common in the broader culture that they no longer pose a significant political liability. The Hutchinson affair notwithstanding, even self-professed family-values Republicans like House Majority Whip Roy Blunt--who married his second wife a mere six months after the divorce from his first was final--tend to be forgiven for their personal indiscretions come election time. Not that some of the tackier displays of "trading up" don't still raise eyebrows. Take, for instance, the whirlwind romance between Representatives Mary Bono and Connie Mack. Mack arrived in Washington in early 2005. Eight months later, he filed for divorce from his wife of nine years and immediately began showing up arm-in-arm with Bono--who also dumped her husband. Then, of course, there's the Story of Newt, whose marital history evokes as many gasps as snickers. For most men, cheating on one's first wife and then serving her with divorce papers while she is in the hospital recovering from uterine cancer would be the low point. But, twelve years into his second marriage, Gingrich began an affair with Callista Bisek, a Hill staffer 23 years his junior, during which he loudly and self-righteously decried the personal sleaziness of Bill Clinton. The affair went on for six years before Gingrich finally gave second wife Marianne the heave-ho to wed Callista. Nor is there much of a social price to pay for such splits. When a new wife starts showing up at Congressional Club events, says Bishop, "it sometimes takes older wives a moment to accept her--especially when the older wife was active on committees and had lots of friends. But overall, I don't think there's ever been a case when we just did not accept a new spouse." Indeed, the most awkward situations tend to involve the former spouses: Thanks to a rule change made for Phyllis Dole, congressional ex-wives are allowed to retain their memberships post-divorce. But eventually, says Bishop, most exes wind up feeling uncomfortable and drift away. In the litany of travails that contribute to congressional divorce, none is more frequently cited than a spouse's not moving to Washington with her husband. This decision to remain behind in the home district may be driven by any number of reasons: the desire not to uproot children, a spouse's unwillingness to sideline her own career, the prohibitive costs of living in D.C. But, as often as not, the driving force is the lawmaker's fear of having political opponents tar him as a Beltway denizen out of touch with his constituents. Especially on the House side, where members stand for reelection every two years, there is such pressure to keep one's life rooted in the district that the legislative calendar has been compressed so that most business is conducted from Tuesday to Thursday, allowing members to spend the rest of the week back home. In theory, this schedule provides members more time to spend with their families. In practice, it's a domestic disaster, says American Enterprise Institute scholar/superpundit Norm Ornstein. "Having the lawmaker in Washington all week creates a tremendous pent-up demand among the family members," he says. "Then you get home Thursday evening or Friday, and they're all going to be anticipating that, now, it's daddy time. But then you say hello and goodbye and go out to campaign, and you wind up missing them all weekend, too." While this practice has a long history, Ornstein blames the 1994 Republican Revolution for accelerating the trend. "It was almost a sea change," he asserts. "The new Republicans were coming in to take over Washington not because they wanted to be members of Congress, but because they needed to heal the country from this horrible virus. They didn't want to stay too long, or they might catch it. They certainly didn't want to infect their families with it." The pressure mounted, says Ornstein, to the point that lawmakers in both parties now are automatically expected to keep their bases of operations in their districts. Out on their own in Washington, lawmakers get increasingly wrapped up in their new lives--and their new hotshot status--leaving their wives behind both physically and emotionally. Eventually, notes Todd, "wives start to think, `My God, he's changed.'" The next thing you know, Congressman X is feeling misunderstood and underappreciated by the missus, even as droves of attractive, politically savvy, ingratiating young women thrill to his every word at committee meetings and Hill receptions. One Hill reporter, echoing the views of many, put it succinctly: "The life of a member of Congress is set up for infidelity in a way that I can't think of for any other profession--aside from being a rock star." Whether or not a lawmaker bows to temptation, every couple of years a juicy domestic spat hits the news, with a member's estranged wife accusing politics of destroying her marriage. When her 33-year union to then-Senator Jon Corzine ended in 2003, Joanne Corzine publicly charged that politics had been a toxic force in their relationship. Two years later, she waded into her ex-husband's race for New Jersey governor, telling The New York Times, "All day, people around him were telling him to do whatever he wants to do to get ahead, things that the Jon I've known since we were in high school would have never been comfortable with," she said. "And I think it's made him lose sight of anything but success, getting to where he wanted to get." Even more pointed were Susan LaTourette's remarks in late 2003, after her husband of 21 years, Representative Steve LaTourette, revealed that he was having an affair with a lobbyist and wanted a divorce. "I think Washington corrupts people," a furious Susan announced. "He was a wonderful husband and father, the best I ever saw, until he went there. ... Now he's one of them. All they care about is getting reelected. I hate them all." In matters of the heart, there are no hard and fast rules. But, for an ambitious pol seeking a second wife to satisfy both his personal and professional needs, there are a couple of general guidelines to consider. At the very least, spouses need to be conversant on the hot political topics. "Any woman not equally informed and able to carry on a conversation is considered a liability," says Roberts. Better still is the spouse who can discuss political arcana with her husband's colleagues. "You need somebody who is able to carry on cocktail chatter," stresses the Senate staffer. "You need somebody who will at least have a basic understanding of how the Hill operates and what it means to offer an amendment in committee and who understands what unanimous consent means." And, if the wife has her own BlackBerry full of power brokers and donors, all the better--both in terms of helping her husband network and of burnishing his image among his peers. Luckily for lawmakers, the odds of running into just such a gal are improved by the fact that members of Congress spend most of their time at work-related events populated by political types like themselves. Thus, the rise of the hot staffer (Mrs. Tauzin, Mrs. Hutchinson, Mrs. Gingrich) and the power lobbyist (Mrs. Tom Daschle, Mrs. John Dingell, Mrs. Blunt) as second wife. "Who knows how many relationships have been forged over bad egg rolls at a reception at the Rayburn House Office Building?" jokes the Senate staffer. In many cases, the bizarre, insular, intense nature of politics is what jumpstarts a romance-- even, alas, at the expense of an existing marriage. Observers compare it to what happens on movie sets with Hollywood stars. "These people are human, and this is how their lives are structured," philosophizes social doyenne Sally Quinn. "They're thrown together, and what are they going to do?" For many, Senator Elizabeth Dole still reigns as the prototypical second wife. "She builds him up and gets her own power in the bargain," summarizes a longtime Beltway TV producer. Other oft-cited examples of second wives forging such win-win partnerships include airline lobbyist Linda Daschle and auto industry lobbyist Debbie Dingell--both of whom have benefited professionally over the years by dint of their husbands' congressional positions (though not in any direct quid-pro-quo way, of course, because that would be illegal). But by far the most notable--and notorious--power union of recent times is that of Roy Blunt and Abigail Perlman, director of government affairs for Altria. Since his 1996 election, Blunt's swift rise in the House has been credited to his close ties to K Street--ties undoubtedly strengthened by his friendly relations with the go-to gal for Altria, which just so happens to be one of Blunt's top campaign contributors. Perlman, meanwhile, could not have asked for a more energetic champion of her employer's interests than her congressional beau. In 2002, within hours of being named majority whip, Blunt quietly inserted a provision benefiting Altria-owned Philip Morris into the Homeland Security Act. Unfortunately for the couple, the measure was pulled as soon as colleagues discovered it, and when Blunt ran unsuccessfully to replace Tom DeLay as majority leader earlier this year, the boondoggle provided his opponents with much ammunition--highlighting the complications that can arise from having a power wife. All things considered, say observers, congressional marriages are much more likely to stick if both parties accept that politics is a demanding, often all- consuming mistress, and they can pull together as a team. That way, says Ornstein, the spouses "have similar rhythms and lives and really understand the dynamics and pressures that go with the job." This, clearly, is what Representative and Senator Davis are counting on. Listening to Jeannemarie wax rhapsodic about the excitement of campaigning, the nobility of public service, and the all-around fabulousness of voters, it's evident that, this time around, Representative Davis doesn't need to worry about his wife resenting his job so much as stealing it. Of course, no degree of professional compatibility guarantees wedded bliss. And there's nothing more formidable than a hard-charging, win-at-all-costs Washington power player with her eye on your spouse. As the veteran producer wryly observes, among the myriad stresses even the savviest second wife must contend with is the knowledge "that hubby is at all times surrounded by blue- eyed, blonde-haired, scheming third-wife wannabes." To put it in Newtspeak, for every Marianne, there's a possible Callista. As any savvy voter can tell you, it pays to keep a close eye on your congressman.

Essential reporting, interpretation, and opinion on politics and culture. Don't miss our latest.