This is part of a recurring series on what former members of Congress are doing in their post-congressional careers.
There’s a book on former Rep. Ryan Costello’s bookshelf in Pennsylvania that he keeps meaning to read — a 450-page treatise on lawmaking called “The Congressman: His Work as He Sees It,” by Charles L. Clapp.
It came out in 1963 — more than a decade before Costello was born — and lays out everything from the committee system to leadership to getting reelected to congressional life.
Costello, 49, a Republican who served Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District from 2015 through 2019, sometimes muses about what a Part Two of that book would look like.
After all, he has experienced a good part of what it is to be a lawmaker today: the fundraising calls, sleeping in the office, the long hours and, particularly relevant to now, the government shutdowns.
Now, with six years’ distance from Congress, he could even take a realistic stab at writing the sequel.
“I look at the political circumstances a little bit differently, because I’m removed from it,” he said of his time in Congress. “I kind of look at it like a political historian or a college professor, rather than, like, a spoke in the wheel.”
That remove gives him a unique vantage point to the current partial government shutdown. When Costello left Congress in 2019, the federal government was in the midst of what was at that time the longest shutdown in history.
Just like now, Republicans held the White House under President Donald Trump and both houses of Congress, though that changed as 2018 turned to 2019. That time, the fight with Democrats centered on funding for a border wall — not whether to extend expanded 2010 health care law subsidies, as it does today.
“The thing I learned about government shutdowns is it’s less about an individual person’s compromise, and more about resetting expectations for a lot of the outside interest groups,” he said.
For example, he said, when Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., compromised in the spring and backed a continuing resolution, the Democratic base was furious. This time, Democrats face political pressure not to evoke that fury again.
“The Democrats, they feel defeated, and I think their base feels defeated,” Costello said. “And therefore, you know, there’s a political imperative for them to show that they’re fighting.
“When that is the expectation of the base of your party, it’s hard to deviate off of that and pass a clean CR,” he added. “I think that that’s a dynamic right now.”
He was in Congress 10 years ago, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and Democrat Barack Obama was in the White House. Back then, “if you said 10 years ago that Republicans would be willing to pass a clean CR, people would be like, ‘Oh no, that’ll never happen. What’s the ransom?’ Well, there’s no ransom [among Republicans] right now. The Democrats want a ransom.”
Then there’s redistricting. Costello, who chose not to run after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court weighed in on his state’s congressional map and made his district more competitive, is watching as state after state opts to adopt mid-census redistricting.
“I knew when Trump said something about Texas last winter, I’m like, ‘this is coming. It’s going to happen,’” he said. “And I knew that there would be a Democratic response.”
“I think that this is going to be the new normal,” he said.
Also different from 10 years ago? His view of his own political beliefs.
When he was in office, Costello’s politics closely reflected the views of his closely contested district. Now, he said, that has changed.
“I probably look at things right now more through the lens of Republicanism, whereas when I was in as a member of Congress, it was more like a district-centered view,” he said, saying he would’ve viewed tariffs through the prism of their impact on his district, or the shutdown from the view of federal workers in his district.
“You’re always thinking of how Washington impacts subsets of your constituency,” he said.
He has no regrets about stepping down when he did, though he does still occasionally wish he were a shortstop for the Republicans during the annual Congressional Baseball Game. Now a consultant, he still spends most weeks in Washington, working from Pennsylvania on Mondays and Fridays. On the weekends, he gets to hang out with his kids, who are 8 and 11.
He doesn’t particularly miss the grind of the congressional schedule, but acknowledges that “some of the grind of serving in Congress is what makes it special.”
“Like, I don’t know that I really need to be doing appropriation amendment votes and two-minute vote series at midnight,” he said. “But I’ll always remember doing it. I’ll remember late-night markups and dealing with the urgency of any number of different issues. And also the camaraderie.”
Now, he said, his home in Pennsylvania has few relics of his six years in Congress. There’s a photo of him being sworn in. There are two congressional baseball bats. A couple of awards on the shelf. But that’s it.
His years in Congress, he said, were “a moment in time.”
“It was great,” he said. “But you know, there’s also a lot more to life.”
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