The US House of Representatives Can’t Even Agree on a New Chaplain
A secretive bipartisan conclave on Capitol Hill is struggling to identify a spiritual leader who a majority of representatives can back.
When the US House of Representatives is in session, Brad Wells, a 53-year-old Baptist pastor to a Washington, DC congregation, can be found nearly every day outside its chamber. He’s available for prayer and to lend spiritual and moral support to members, including during votes, he explains. His credentials for the US Capitol are sponsored by someone in the House, though he won’t say who. The tall, Bible-toting Wells introduced himself as “the undercover chaplain,” before clarifying that he’s just joking — performing House chaplain duties in secret “would not be kosher.”
Wells readily admits he’d like to be considered for the official job, though. In a secretive process that has dragged on for months, a little-known bipartisan conclave of five House Republicans and five Democrats has been considering multiple candidates to be the next House chaplain — and there remains no whiff of white smoke.