WASHINGTON -- It's packing time on the House side of Capitol Hill, with losers moving out, winners moving in and incumbents moving up.
Forty-two incumbent congressmen opted not to run for re-election in 2016, and 13 more were unseated.
That meant 55 vacant offices up for grabs and weeks of packing and unpacking as those with seniority snapped up the prime real estate.
The mad dash, a biennial tradition, started soon after Election Day and is to wrap up by the time the new Congress is sworn in Jan. 3.
U.S. Reps. Rick Crawford of Jonesboro and Steve Womack of Rogers, both Republicans, were among the scores of lawmakers who participated in this month's shuffle.
They left their offices in the Longworth building, a 703,000-square-foot facility that dates from 1933, and moved next door to the Rayburn building, a 2.4 million-square-foot complex that opened in 1965.
Crawford, who moved shortly before the start of the Christmas break, said his new office is more spacious than the cramped space he occupied before.
"It's about 300 square feet larger," he said. "We have [added] ... what amounts to a conference room."
There will be space now for the large Arkansas groups that visit, instead of squeezing people elbow to elbow in the entry room, he said.
"We think this is going to be an opportunity to not only be more convenient and accommodating for our staff, but visitors to the office," he added.
Crawford will be down the hall from Womack, who relocated to the fourth floor of the Rayburn building Dec. 9.
"The member office is a little bigger, so when we have 10 or 12 people show up to meet with me on a subject, I don't have to have them standing in the hallway. There'll be a place for them, so it's a little better situation for us," Womack said.
The location is also advantageous, as it's one floor above the rooms where key House committees typically meet, he added.
For much of December, the hallways in the House office buildings have resembled obstacle courses. Chairs, couches, bookshelves and filing cabinets -- American-made, of course -- have crowded the corridors. Bins are stacked in entryways and cardboard boxes are piled high.
Packing is a pain, Crawford said.
"If you can't get a considerably better space, it's not worth the effort, but this is considerably better space," he said.
Lawmakers and their staff do the packing. Movers handle the rest, transporting it all in a matter of hours.
"They're super fast," Crawford said. "They get it moved, and it happens a lot quicker than you might think."
Paring things down can be a challenge.
"It's a time for us to kind of clear a lot of our shelves," Womack said. "We've been here four years, so some of the stuff we've hoarded that we don't really need."
While Womack and Crawford are changing addresses, U.S. Reps. French Hill of Little Rock and Bruce Westerman of Hot Springs, both Republicans, have opted to stay put, at least until 2018.
"I love the Longworth building," Hill explained. "This office is nicely situated, easy for constituents to find. It's above the 24-hour entrance. ... It's above the cafeteria, the gift shop. It's a straight shot into the Capitol to vote."
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Plus, 1229 Longworth once belonged to a pro football player who became a New York congressman of some renown.
"This is Jack Kemp's former office and when I was in college, Jack Kemp was a personal hero of mine. So I love it and I'm happy, so I didn't want to move," he said.
Westerman said he's content with his space in the 826,000-square-foot Cannon building, the oldest of the three House offices. Built in 1908, it is undergoing a 10-year, $752 million renovation.
"Of the 50 offices or something we had to choose from, there wasn't any we would give this one up to take," Westerman said. "It's in a good location. It's a little larger than some offices. I don't have any reason to move."
While the House scramble is nearly over, the Senate shift is just beginning.
The process on that side of the Hill frequently drags on for months. In 2015, for example, Arkansas' U.S. senators didn't get their spaces until June.
A year and a half after his last relocation, U.S. Sen. John Boozman isn't eager to repeat the process, especially when his 2017 agenda is already getting crowded.
"It's just a lot of hard work to move and ... we're going to have a lot going on in the first several months in the new Congress," the Republican from Rogers said.
For now, Boozman is content with what he has.
"We're blessed. We have a nice office now. It's very functional," he said. "We're not going to move. That's really the bottom line."
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, on the other hand, is still waiting to see what office space becomes available. The Republican from Dardanelle won't have to make a decision until sometime next year.
"When it's his turn he will evaluate the choices and make a decision, but isn't actively planning to move offices," a spokesman said via email.
A Section on 12/27/2016