ADD ONE MORE person to the list of employers feeling the Bay Area’s cost of living pains: An incoming Silicon Valley congressman looking for legislative staff and office space.
Former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo will be the region’s first new congressman in decades, and he’s at the early stages of building his teams to serve in the Bay Area and Washington, D.C. His first session in the House of Representatives is Jan. 3, but he said his limited budget to get a team rolling doesn’t match the extraordinary expense of paying employees in California. And while the lease is up for the Palo Alto congressional office of his retiring predecessor, Rep. Anna Eshoo, the location won’t work for Liccardo. The 54-year-old Capitol freshman said he’s prioritizing people.
“Palo Alto office space is not cheap. We need to pay people more to live here and we also need to pay more for things like rent. We are still sorting out the numbers,” Liccardo told San José Spotlight. “We’re spending every possible dollar we have on people and having a really good team. That means we’re looking for relatively cheap options for offices.”
He’s gotten help from a familiar name around town — Matt Hammer, the son of the late former San Jose Mayor Susan Hammer. The 56-year-old political strategist, previously a policy and climate advisor for Liccardo’s congressional campaign, served as Liccardo’s transition director over the last month.
“We’re spending every possible dollar we have on people and having a really good team. That means we’re looking for relatively cheap options for offices.” Rep.-elect Sam Liccardo
Hammer said Liccardo will have his pick of D.C. talent. President Joe Biden’s administration is phasing out, and scores of Democratic bureaucrats are preparing to look for work when President-elect Donald Trump’s Republican administration begins.
“There are a lot of incredibly experienced, talented people looking for work because of what happened in the election,” Hammer told San José Spotlight. “We’ve had lots and lots of interested people applying — people in the Biden administration, people who have been working for Democrat legislators who are retiring or lost election. The situation is quite different on the other side of the aisle, who will be in greater competition for experienced people because they’ll hold majorities in both the House and Senate.”
Liccardo said he’s also selected his chief of staff in D.C., but he and Hammer declined to say who. Sources tell San José Spotlight Liccardo is close to picking Tim Delmonico, an administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. Before that role, Delmonico was chief of staff for Congressman Raul Ruiz, a California Democrat representing Imperial County and parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Delmonico declined to comment.
A geographic issue
Liccardo’s office space decisions reflect the issues he’ll be tackling on Capitol Hill. Rent and wages are one area. But a map of Liccardo’s district, which spans San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, shows why his constituents will need more than one local office.
The district extends to the Bay Area’s coastline, where storm surges and coastal erosion have raised the need for unique federal attention to stave off long-term effects of climate change. For years, Eshoo has had another office in Half Moon Bay. That likely won’t change under her successor.
“We’re going to keep that location. It’s important for us to have a presence on the coast side given the very unique challenges they have around infrastructure,” Liccardo told San José Spotlight. “Then we will have an office somewhere in Santa Clara County that will hopefully be convenient to folks in San Jose.”
His team is still looking at sites and talking to brokers. Liccardo said he’s also talking to government organizations, as he may try to co-locate in a government office. At the same time, he said he’s talking with some of Eshoo’s staff about staying onboard for his term.
“We’ve expressed a willingness to a couple members of Anna’s team who also expressed their willingness to stay on,” Liccardo said. “But that’s in the district office. I don’t want to get out there and say how many and exactly who. In some cases, folks are still mulling it over. It is the first and most important priority for me above committee assignments or other issues. Right now, the focus is on building the team.”
A narrow majority
While Liccardo has attended several orientations on the East Coast for new congressional members, the transition in many ways is just starting. He’s looking at apartments within walking distance of Capitol Hill, namely in the riverfront neighborhood of Navy Yard, where rents run an average of $2,800 a month, according to RentCafe. He won’t get the keys to his D.C. office until Jan. 3.
“I don’t expect we’ll have the full team in place by Jan. 3, but at the very least we’ll have the senior team in both the district and D.C. offices,” he said.
Then comes another consideration for his new life: the commute.
“You need to be out in D.C. for roughly four days from Monday through Thursday for the votes, and then you hop on a plane, usually Thursday night, and get back to the district for meetings and events and so forth. We will certainly be following that pattern,” Liccardo said.
The national political conditions may put pressure on that schedule.
Liccardo, a Democrat, will be starting in a 119th Congress dominated by Republicans. House Democrats will have 215 members and Republicans are looking at a 220-member majority. But GOP leaders expect to lose three members early next year. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz resigned to bid for an attorney general appointment. Then he dropped out. Two other GOP lawmakers are expected to resign as well to join Trump’s cabinet, leaving a period where there will be 217 Republicans and 215 Democrats until special elections can happen.
“(House) Democrats have 215 votes and Republicans, at least for several months, will have 217 depending on whether they’re able to get those in sooner than later,” Liccardo said. “This is a very, very narrow majority that Republicans have. There is going to be a premium on showing up. I don’t want to miss a single vote. For any reason. I am not going to be the cause of any failure of my party to marshall the numbers we need on those crucial votes.”
Contact Brandon Pho at brandon@sanjosespotlight.com or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This story originally appeared in San Jose Spotlight.