Happy Monday, this is Congress Editor David Sivak welcoming you to our second edition of Capitol Tea, a weekly column dedicated to life on Capitol Hill. Miss our debut? Catch up here.

In this edition …

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– Tulsi’s birthday skateboard. Tim Burchett wants to turn a belated present into a full-fledged business.

– Fetterman’s hoodie collection. These days, his three suits are collecting dust.

Are you a House or Senate staffer? Get in touch with ideas for future editions.

THRASH TALK

Rep. Tim Burchett’s (R-TN) love of skateboards could soon become a full-fledged business, but first, he is clearing the idea with the House Ethics Committee.

Burchett spoke with ethics staff on Wednesday night about selling boards he makes by hand in his Tennessee barn. He ran through different business structures, according to a spokesman, but left without a “final assessment.”

Instead, staff cautioned that his dream company comes with hurdles unique to being a House member.

“House Ethics shared that while it is permissible for members to own or invest in companies, starting a business could violate the Committee’s guidance on Members’ personal participation in the endorsement or promotion of organizations, products, or services where they have a financial interest,” Burchett press secretary Will Garrett said.

Burchett’s most recent creation is a gift for Trump intel chief Tulsi Gabbard, and he’s been proudly carrying it around Capitol Hill. It appeared on media row for an interview with our intern Mackenzie Thomas. Burchett also took it for a test drive last week outside the House steps. (It’s worth a watch.)

For years, the boards have been a passion project that Burchett built sporadically, putting to use bamboo from a nearby synagogue that congregants let him harvest. Gabbard’s board is a composite of bamboo, oak, and banana plant fiber. 

“It’s cheaper than a psychiatrist, I always say,” Burchett told me last week.

Now, he wants to go professional and says friends are willing to pay handsomely. He currently has three other skateboards in the works with different fiber compositions.

“I got people, like buddies of mine, throwing money at me. Want me to build one for their grandkids and stuff,” Burchett, 60, said.

The backstory behind Gabbard’s is years in the making. The two are friends from her days as a Hawaii congresswoman, and at some point, he promised to make her one. It’s become a running joke whenever they cross paths, but he decided to follow through in March, when they saw each other at President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress.

“She said, ‘Burchett, my birthday is next month — where the heck’s my daggom skateboard?’”

In total, Burchett estimated that he’s made 25 to 30 skateboards over the last 25 years, a labor-intensive process that has only become slower now that he spends his weekdays in Washington. Burchett, who represents Knoxville, Tennessee, arrived in D.C. in 2019.

“I just make them when something new comes out, a new idea, but it takes me so long now, because of Congress,” he said.

He traced his fascination with bamboo to an article he read in National Geographic as a child and mentioned in passing that he wants to try making a car body out of it. (According to Burchett, bamboo is the “poor man’s carbon fiber.”)

He is still trying to arrange a time to deliver his skateboard to Gabbard.

CARHARTT CONFESSIONS

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has found a silver lining in GOP control of the Senate: He can wear his trademark hoodie and shorts all of the time.

In an interview, Fetterman told me that “one upgrade” of Democrats losing in November is that he no longer has to take turns presiding over the Senate. The duty, which falls to members of the majority party, required Fetterman to adhere to the chamber’s dress code — for men, a coat, tie, and dress pants.

But now, he can avoid the Senate floor altogether and says he went the first half of this year without wearing a suit, only breaking his streak for a class photo on July 15.

Fetterman’s dressed-down look is controversial, so much so that colleagues adopted the dress code in 2023 after he caused a mini uproar over Senate decorum. Fetterman can still vote, but he must walk to the door of the chamber and give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. I caught up with him one Thursday afternoon as he sat on a nearby bench waiting to vote.

Notably, Fetterman said he has thought about ditching the casual attire, citing the criticism he has received in the press, and gave me an ambiguous “it’s possible” when I asked if that could still happen. I was surprised to learn he has three suits in his wardrobe.

But for now, Fetterman is sticking with his signature mesh shorts, which he pairs with either a Carhartt-brand hoodie or a loose-fitting Dickie shirt. In case you’re wondering, he has three white hoodies that he puts away in the fall and four black ones for the colder months.

“You know what the rule is, no white after Labor Day,” Fetterman said. That appears to be just about the only style rule he follows, but he proudly noted he made the New York Times’s “most stylish people” list in 2022.

Back home in Braddock, Pennsylvania, Fetterman’s wife will, at times, pull the trump card and make him wear jeans or pants, but he says Gisele realizes she is fighting a losing battle. 

As a demonstration of his commitment, Fetterman showed up as our guest to the 2024 Congressional Dinner in shorts, sporting a tuxedo-printed hoodie that he called a “benign kind of trolling.” Gisele wore a shimmering black dress and stylish coat.

“I mean, she has great fashion sense, and we kind of average each other out. I bring it down for her, and she brings it up. So that’s really — that’s part of the ongoing negotiation,” Fetterman said.

“Earlier on, she would really push for more pants. And then I think she kind of realized that’s kind of like a lost cause,” he added.

At 6 feet, 8 inches, Fetterman is the tallest senator in Congress, so part of his outfit boils down to the difficulty of finding clothing that fits, but he also cited “comfort and lack of ironing” as criteria.

“There’s no agenda other than it’s just comfortable,” Fetterman said.

As for the class photo, Fetterman said he only wore a suit so he could appear with his son Karl, who is currently interning as a Senate page.

“I did that because my son was going to be in that picture, too, in the page class,” Fetterman said.

IN OTHER NEWS

Two service workers whose jobs were at risk due to a shake-up in the House’s food offerings have a new gig: manning the coffee cart in the Cannon office building.

Black Crown Collective, the coffee company taking over the cart, has hired a barista and supervisor who were among the nearly 200 Sodexo employees whose contracts were ending, according to Black Crown founders Sam and Drago. The new hires had been working for Common Grounds, the previous cart operator.

“Bringing them onboard was important to us so that we could retain their experience and familiarity with the space and respect their contributions / quality of work within the program, while maintaining a manageable team size for our growing small business,” they told me via email.

Black Crown, currently a two-person team, is the third vendor known to be hiring former Sodexo employees, along with food service companies Metz and TCMA, but has nonetheless gotten swept up in a boycott.

Flyers for the boycott, launched by Unite Here Local 23 last week, target the coffee company and five other vendors. The union is suing two of those vendors, owners of a Starbucks and Jimmy John’s, over the loss of employment, as we reported on Friday.