Name: Margie Capron
Hometown: Palo Alto, Calif.
Position: Policy adviser to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
Alma mater: Swarthmore College; University of California Berkeley Law and Graduate School of Public Policy
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Washington Examiner: You’ve spent three decades on Capitol Hill, including working for the influential Democratic Study Group before it was defunded in the 1990s. How would you describe your role?
Capron: I came to Capitol Hill in January 1987, and I was working for the House Democratic Study Group. January 1995 was the beginning of Republicans’ being in control, and one of the first things Speaker Newt Gingrich did was he changed the rules so you couldn’t have a group like the Democratic Study Group. Dick Gephardt became the Democratic leader, and he hired me to try to do the same kind of thing — developing materials that were useful for all Democratic House offices, which is what this Democratic Study Group did for the leadership. I worked for Gephardt for eight years, so I’ve really sort of had the same job in a way since 1987, of trying to put together useful materials for the House Democratic offices.
Washington Examiner: How have things changed over time?
Capron: It was less polarized, definitely. And I have my own theory about it. A couple years before [Reagan’s election] he was leading this revolt in the Republican Party, and the slogan was government is not the solution, it’s the problem. Behavior really started changing, and I could see it while I was here.
In the old days, when a new member got elected to Congress, they moved their family to D.C.; they lived here. What does that mean? It means they were playing poker together on the weekend, they played golf together on the weekend, they’d have a drink on Friday night in their offices. They really socialized a lot. It’s hard to demonize somebody when you really get to know them. Starting with Reagan, more and more new members started leaving their families in the District and only being there Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I think that fed to it, that people never got to know each other anymore. The ideology of the Republican Party became “government is bad” and if you live here now you’re part of the problem.
Washington Examiner: Have you always been a Democrat?
Capron: Yes. My dad taught at Stanford. He was at the Council of Economic Advisors under President Kennedy, and then he was deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget under Johnson. So those are my roots, and I saw my parents had those ideals of things like the war on poverty and the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and all the things that happened during the ’60s. In the ’60s, people sort of realized the government could make people’s lives better.
Washington Examiner: You’ve specialized in health policy. What draws you to the topic?
Capron: I just think it’s such a crucial issue. When Nancy Pelosi became speaker and Barack Obama became elected, suddenly everyone was talking about doing health reform, and this was a dream of the Democratic Party for years and years. I was writing about Hillary Clinton’s plan in 1993 and 1994. Unfortunately, there were lots of problems with that; she tried to write that more without Congress, so that didn’t go over very well. [But] universal access to affordable healthcare is something I’ve really cared about for a long time.
Washington Examiner: Describe how you felt on election night, as you realized Clinton would lose? Were you with Pelosi at the time?
Capron: No, I was watching some of it here in the Capitol, but then I was home when I found out it was definitely going against Hillary. I think it was pretty devastating for a lot of people in the office because I think they just assumed. And that’s changed everything about what I’ve been doing since then.
Washington Examiner: So do you think Republicans are actually going to pass an Affordable Care Act replacement?
Capron: I think clearly at the moment they don’t have 218 votes, which is what they need in the House for any specific proposal. All the analysis of the leaked legislative language is that millions of people would lose coverage and premiums would go up. So why would they want to do something that’s really going to hurt a lot of their constituents? I think that’s why they’re having trouble finding anything that would get 218 votes because now it’s real. At the moment they may be able to get it out of committee, but I don’t know how they pass anything on the floor.
Washington Examiner: What would Republicans need to do for Democrats to cooperate?
Capron: I think they would have to say we need to make some changes in the Affordable Care Act that we think would make it better, but stop talking about repealing and starting over.
Washington Examiner: Can you share something about Pelosi that most people don’t know?
Capron: I think she’s a fabulous boss; she really is. She had five children and had never served in elected office until she had already raised her family. Her youngest daughter was a senior in high school, and [Pelosi] always tells this funny story that she went to her youngest daughter — everyone else was in college or off working — and she said how do you feel if I ran for Congress, I’d be in Washington most of the time. [Her daughter] said “oh Mom, get a life, of course you should do that.”
But what I would say is she’s very substantive, she’s very interested in policy. I think a lot of people don’t know she’s not just the face of the party.
Washington Examiner: Republicans have long mocked Pelosi’s statement that Congress needed to pass the healthcare law to find out what was in it. Do you think she regrets saying that?
Capron: There were lots and lots and lots of myths about what the Affordable Care Act was all about, and that’s what I was spending a lot of my time doing — I was writing myth busters, years of doing that. What [Pelosi] was saying is it’s not until it’s passed and implemented that people are going to find out what’s really in it, because they’ve heard all these things that aren’t in it. That’s what she was trying to say. But I’m sure she’s really sorry she said it that way.
Washington Examiner: Do you see problems with the Obamacare marketplaces? What needs improving?
Capron: Any major initiative is constantly amended over time. Social Security was amended constantly after it was established, Medicare has been amended constantly after it was established and this bill also needs to be amended and improved. We want to work with [Republicans] to make it better for the American people. It needs to be more affordable; for some people, it’s just not affordable.
Washington Examiner: What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
Capron: I don’t really have a lot of free time. I go to plays and movies with friends and stuff. That’s how I relax.
Washington Examiner: Any favorite movies?
Capron: Anything with Meryl Streep in it, I guess.
Washington Examiner: Most people don’t spend their whole careers on Capitol Hill. What keeps you there?
Capron: It really is this great intersection of policy and politics. It’s where it all comes together, and I have a passion for it. I like working in the public sector — I don’t want to go lobby for a particular industry or point of view. And I also believe in our system. This is where we come and we all have different viewpoints, and I respect Republican viewpoints. But it is very unusual; most people don’t make a career out of the House.
