WASHINGTON — At the annual Congressional Ball at the White House in early December, Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern strode toward President Biden to deliver a message more serious than season’s greetings.
Flanked by gold-trimmed Christmas trees in the Diplomatic Reception Room, the Worcester Democrat thanked him for the White House hosting a major hunger and nutrition conference that McGovern had essentially willed into existence. Then, he told the president that it wasn’t enough.
As he moved through clinking glasses and formal attire at the festive annual event, McGovern buttonholed other key officials, including Biden’s chief domestic policy adviser, Susan Rice, to reiterate that only the federal government could help end hunger.
“I reminded them that … they have an ambitious plan, and we just need to get it done,” McGovern told hunger advocates in a conference call the following week.
A Washington veteran better known for his tactical maneuvering as outgoing chairman of the lower chamber’s gatekeeping body, the House Rules Committee, McGovern is deeply and visibly passionate about ending hunger in America. He relentlessly presses people of import on it in nearly every conversation, whether with the president, Cabinet secretaries, colleagues in Congress, or advocates.
“This is my obsession,” he said, matter of factly.
Rarely cast as a central political issue, the effort to feed the nation’s hungry is most often fixed on the America landscape at food kitchens and church pantries. But at a time when aid organizations are being pushed to the brink and food insecurity is growing, McGovern and advocates say the battle must be fought and won in Washington, with policies that measurably improve access to food.
And, through sheer political will and a mastery of the ways of the House, McGovern has scored meaningful accomplishments, including in the just-passed federal government spending package.
