Cardin Is Learning The Ropes, His Role
Low-Key Newcomer Considered a Natural Successor to Sarbanes

By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 10, 2006; C04

Congressman Benjamin L. Cardin had only just stepped onto the U.S. Senate floor this month -- his first visit to the august chamber since this fall's election -- when he instinctively pulled out his cellphone.

Before it reached his ear, Cardin says he felt a sharp jab from Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), who snapped, "Don't you dare!"

After 20 years in the nation's lower chamber, and 20 more as speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates, Cardin (D) is still adjusting to the peculiar customs of his new job. But in the unmarked basement warren of transition offices for new members, the soon-to-be junior senator from Maryland said he is brimming with plans.

"I'm not coming to the Senate to retire," said Cardin, 63, when asked about the charge that his Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, frequently leveled during a year of campaigning. "I'm going to be very busy. And I won't waste a minute."

The man who once advised freshman House members to zero in on one or two subject areas and develop a specialty, quickly discovered that he would have to abandon that approach after two decades as one of the House's experts on health-care and pension matters. He served on one panel: the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

When Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who will become Senate majority leader next month, called Cardin shortly before the election to ask what committees might interest him, Cardin said his answer was Finance, where such matters are often deliberated.

"He said, 'Not gonna happen,' " Cardin said, laughing.

Instead, Cardin will find himself in the thick of deliberations over the Iraq war as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and will serve on panels that deal with the budget, the environment, minority business and judicial appointments. When he rattled off the list of committees during an interview last week, Cardin paused at the thought of it. "I'm wondering how I'm going to be on five committees," he mused.

James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, said Cardin will see a "significant difference" as he switches chambers. Serving on all those committees means that he will be able to range across a wide area, which he is likely to find liberating.

What he is not likely to be, Thurber said, is a headline-grabber -- perhaps in contrast with his Democratic colleague across the Potomac in Virginia, Sen.-elect James Webb, who quickly made waves.

Cardin said he didn't see the exchange between Webb and President Bush at a White House reception for freshman members of Congress. Bush asked, "How's your boy?" referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq. After a brief exchange, Webb replied, "That's between me and my boy, Mr. President."

Cardin's exchange with the president that evening was "very friendly," he said. Bush ribbed him about his tough campaign against Steele, the GOP's candidate.

In the end, Maryland political observers from both parties said last week, Cardin is likely to become a natural successor to the man whose seat he will take, retiring Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D), a workhorse who shapes policy and legislation without much attention.

"He's a legislative workman," Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who will soon be House majority leader, said of Cardin. "When Ben hears a problem and hears testimony, he knows how to turn that into a legislative solution. In the Senate, that legislative skill, that problem-solving skill, will really be valued."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company