| “I sleep in my office,” reads the headline of Rep. Buddy Carter’s op-ed. “The rest of Congress should, too.” Congressman, how big is your office?! Ha-cha-cha-cha. Carter’s essay is a kind of cool behind-the-scenes look at all the hours spent not legislating on the Hill (so … lots), including the overnight ones a few dozen members stick around for. “There’s a bond,” Carter writes, “among those of us who wake up on a cot or couch, brush our teeth over the same sinks, venture to one of the cafeterias for a hot cup of coffee, and, at the end of the day, fall asleep to the faint scratches of the building’s worst tenants, the mice.” That bond extends across politics; the Georgia Republican describes a big bipartisan slumber party. He’s gotten especially close to the Democrats he hits the House gym with. Sleeping over, he explains, increases the too-few opportunities lawmakers have to actually get to know the folks across the aisle, making for much better government. Kate Cohen’s place of refuge is a little bigger than 432 Cannon House Office Building; it’s New York. And honestly, she writes, it’s more than just a sanctuary state to her after this election: “New York is my country now.” Her piece is an appreciation of all the work blue states are doing to preserve good government and safeguard their residents. Kate says for that to keep happening, those residents need to get to work safeguarding their blue states back. Even in a frustrating national environment, Kate recognizes that she can still “defend on my own political turf the blue-state protections that shield my family — protections everyone in America deserves.” | 
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