Melissa Mark-Viverito Surveys the National Mall

The Speaker seems to be preoccupied with the Smithsonian Institution this month.  First, Councilmembers Laurie Cumbo and Ben Kallos introduced a resolution urging Congress to commission a National Women's Museum.  The resolution has momentum, and an initial hearing has already been held on the topic, indicating that it will likely be voted on (and passed) at one of the next few stated meetings.  The resolution, like virtually all such statements, will go straight from Chambers into the circular file, but clearly someone in the Speaker's office is interested in pushing it.

Next, the Speaker herself introduced a resolution yesterday, asking Congress to authorize the construction of an American Latino Museum.  In order to spare planners the trouble of figuring out where to put it, the proposed legislation offers to house the Latino Museum in the venerable Arts and Industries Building, one of the oldest buildings on the Mall.

Does all this concern with the Smithsonian betray the Speaker's ambitions for a move to Washington as the next step in her political career?  It makes sense: the two Congressmen who overlap her district have a combined age north of 150 years, and the Speaker will be out of a job on the first day of 2018.  It seems unlikely that she is planning an early retirement.