The Mystery Social Media Account Schooling Congress on How to Do Its Job (GABE FLEISHER, 03/08/2024, Politico)
Earlier this year, Matt Glassman — a congressional scholar at Georgetown who has spent most of his adult life studying the Hill — wanted to know the answer to an obscure procedural question. “When was the last time a ruling of the chair was overturned on appeal in the House?” he asked on X, tagging an anonymous user named @ringwiss.
Less than a minute later, the mysterious account responded with an answer — 1938 — and a decades-old edition of the Congressional Record to prove it.
That kind of speedy response time and wide-ranging legislative knowledge is what has made @ringwiss a go-to resource for staffers, lobbyists and reporters across Washington looking for answers on congressional procedures, especially in a year when lawmakers have been stretching procedures to novel ends and increasingly bucking leadership — creating a need for deeper understanding of oft-forgotten rules.
His tweets have gained renown around the Capitol for their nuanced discussions of arcane congressional rules and history, and for his comfort with correcting longtime lawmakers and Washington journalists alike. His following is only around 4,000, but it’s a well-connected bunch, including congressional chiefs of staff, committee staff directors and other leading insiders.
“He’s just a complete parliamentary obsessive and savant, really like no one I’ve ever met, even people in the parliamentarian’s office,” Glassman told POLITICO Magazine.
U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Capitol building in Washington. “He’s just a complete parliamentary obsessive and savant, really like no one I’ve ever met, even people in the parliamentarian’s office,” Matt Glassman, a congressional scholar at Georgetown University, said of Kacper Surdy, aka #ringwiss. | Francis Chung/POLITICOThe catch: Nobody knows who he is. […]
“When the Senate isn’t doing anything, there’s a quiet hum that’s captured by the microphones,” Surdy told POLITICO Magazine. “And that’s very, very soothing. It’s kind of like white noise. It’s very relaxing, even when nothing’s going on.”