Toeing the line in halls of power earns $11 to $16 an hour

"I love this job because I'm very politically oriented, but I'm more interested in issues like loss of civil liberties," explained Ellen Murphy, who has been a professional placeholder on Capitol Hill for a decade. "I'm standing in line now for a finance committee hearing. ... But economics make my eyes glaze over."

Other members of the queue crew sitting in a row outside a House committee room were more concerned with the steady income that could come from prolonged sessions where lobbyists, lawyers and advocates from across the political spectrum will be clamoring for scarce seats.

"Sometimes I don't even bother to ask what the hearing is about," said Paul Piorko, a pioneer in this occupation of idlers that is little known outside the corridors of congressional office buildings.

Line standers earn from $11 to $16 an hour to hold places in lines for lobbyists, activists and others willing to pay to attend congressional hearings.

Committee rooms have limited space, and the public seats are assigned on a first-come, first-filled basis.

"Sometimes they decide the most important issues in the littlest rooms," said Murphy, who is also a freelance photographer.

So line standers assemble hours -- or sometimes days -- before the hearings to claim places for those Gucci-shoed legions whose livelihoods depend upon being inside committee rooms where laws are written and other congressional business is conducted.

It makes no difference whether Democrats or Republicans are in control of Congress, said DeDe, a veteran placeholder who didn't want her last name used. "The lobbyists are always here. And they hire people whose time is less valuable than theirs. I guess that's what it amounts to."

"It's an excellent system," said Mary Lu, the federal affairs director for Chubb Insurance. Replacing her placeholder, she had just assumed the first place in line outside a hearing on terrorism insurance legislation that was scheduled to start in about half an hour.

Clients such as Lu contract with private firms that supply the line standers. Two competing companies -- CVK Group and Congressional Services Co. -- dominate the business, but several courier services also provide spot keepers. The companies usually charge clients from $30 to $40 an hour.

John Likens founded Congressional Services in 1993 after working for "our main competitor" while a student at American University in Washington, D.C.

About half the line standers are students, he said. The others are retirees, people between jobs or full-timers who like the hours or political conversation or proximity to the powerful or, as one explained, appreciate "making money for just sitting on your butt."

Reserving long weekends for the voters back home, Congress works mostly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Dozens of hearings are held on each of these three days when Congress is in session.

Sitting in folding chairs or on the floor, casually attired or sometimes scruffy, dozing or reading newspapers, the line standers contrast starkly in appearance and attitude from the upright and often uptight, tailored folks in business suits who replace them shortly before the doors to the committee rooms open.

Usually the placeholders assemble outside the congressional office buildings hours before the hearings -- often long before the buildings open. Capitol police watch the line standers pass through security checks at designated times.

The code of the queue allows for bathroom breaks without losing your spot. But the order of the line is sacred. Piorko speaks in disgust of companies that use one stander to claim two spots -- thus garnering an extra $30 to $40 an hour in profits. It's unethical, he explains, and cheats a fellow line stander out of a job that day.