Decodedc

For spring break, we are going to take you on the ultimate insider’s tour of the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol. Your guide: Senate historian Donald Ritchie, who will retire in May after nearly 40 years in the Senate Historical Office. The office serves as the Senate's “institutional memory,” according to its Website, collecting information on important dates, precedents and statistics. But it is so much more. Movie set designers, mystery writers and biographers have depended on Donald Ritchie to answer the serious and the trivial questions about everything from carpet color to whether this is actually the most do-nothing Congress. We asked Ritchie for a tour of some of his favorite places in the Senate – and some of our's too – such as: --Lyndon Johnson’s Senate office, nicknamed “the Taj Mahal” for its ornate decorations. --The Old Senate Chamber, where the Senate met from 1810 to 1859. When senators first gathered there, there were 32 of them. By the time they moved out in 1859, there were 64 -- and no mo