It was late Thursday at the Capitol, and the crowds had gone. Outside House Speaker John A. Boehner’s suite, the halls were empty and silent, save for a police officer strolling through the rotunda. On the marble floor were pieces of masking tape with the names of elected officials scrawled in black, marking the places where they stood to greet Pope Francis hours earlier.
Politico’s Jake Sherman and I stood there for an hour or so, steno pads in hand and trading stories, as we waited for Boehner to appear. We had heard rumors from several lawmakers that Boehner was mulling retirement and that, as a Catholic, he privately saw the pope’s congressional visit, which he had orchestrated, as a fitting denouement to his long political career.
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