The Slow Race to Save the Rayburn Building

When Rep. Mike Rogers’ staff arrived at his fourth-floor office in the Rayburn House Office Building one morning in January 2025, they quickly noticed the clear tube leading from the ceiling above the printer to the kitchen sink. It had been placed there to drain a pink “goo” because of an issue with the pipes.

A few days later, Rogers’ chief of staff gathered the Alabama Republican’s team to pass along the message from the Architect of the Capitol that they would temporarily be moving offices so that the pipes could be repaired. Because of asbestos in Rayburn’s walls, they could not stay through the process, said Carrie Cole, Rogers’ communications director.

“It was just a lot of groans,” Cole said of the meeting. “They told us in the middle of approps season, [National Defense Authorization Act] season — the whole thing.”

Rogers’ team ended up relocating for approximately three months, and Cole said that the AOC’s staff members were “really good partners” throughout the process. But their office is not the only one with maintenance issues in Rayburn. Now, the AOC has said it will request $1.6 billion, nearly double the amount it received for the current fiscal year to, in part, address a range of issues in the building.

“I am most concerned with the level of risk of a catastrophic system failure in Rayburn,” Architect of the Capitol Thomas Austin said in front of the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch in March.

“The condition of Rayburn is at a critical junction, and time is of the essence,” Austin continued. “We are experiencing major challenges each day that impact our ability to keep this facility functional for the needs of Congress.”

Among the problems, Austin said at the subcommittee, are “aging mechanical systems, persistent leaks and structural issues.”

This was a surprise to many members of the subcommittee, who didn’t realize that Rayburn, which opened in 1965 and houses more than 150 congressional offices, was in as bad shape as Austin described and would need that level of funding to fix.

The AOC did not respond to a request for comment, but lawmakers said they have been thinking about what a Rayburn renovation might mean for their day-to-day operations.

“It’s something that we’re still evaluating, and we’re working with leadership to figure out the best path forward,” Rep. David Valadao, the chair of the subcommittee, told NOTUS. “We need to do something. I just don’t know if that’s the right path yet.”

Members are starting to realize this could also create a massive inconvenience for them.

“We’re sinking!” Rep. Mike Quigley, one of the three subcommittee members with a Rayburn office, joked when asked about the building. His first reaction, he continued, was “What the hell? I’m in Rayburn, and I’m not moving.”

“We put things off for a long time, and we’re paying the price,” Quigley said. “But at 60 years, the building should be better than that.”

The subcommittee members told NOTUS that they’re still waiting on Austin and his team to submit a final proposal. Rep. Riley Moore said that the committee hasn’t been presented a timeline yet, “but if they want the money, they better come up with one.”

“It’s representative of how hard it is, unfortunately, for Congress to do anything,” Moore said. “To build things, to make things, I mean we go back to decades past, massive public works projects this country did, or, how about the Empire State Building? It was built in one year and 45 days. We can’t fix one congressional building in less than a decade. That tells you something.”

The subcommittee members made clear that top of mind is balancing the need for repairs with the responsible use of taxpayer dollars. Every member that NOTUS spoke with said that plans for a Rayburn renovation are still actively being discussed, and that no plan has been decided on.

“Everybody has a different point of view on it. So we’re just having a preliminary discussion, it’s very early,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the ranking member of the subcommittee.

But they floated various propositions, including relocating offices to the O’Neill House Office Building and building an overpass to connect it to the campus, or using space at the Library of Congress. One lawmaker said that tearing down and rebuilding the House office building entirely was one possibility.

When asked if tearing down Rayburn was an option, both Valadao and Espaillat said that they were not considering it.

“What we’re looking at is pretty much doing what they did with Cannon,” Valadao said. “Getting to the point where they can do it, and still being able to function, is a big concern.”

The Cannon House Office Building, which was completed in 1908, is in the final stages of its own renovation, which was $182 million over budget as of 2022, according to Roll Call. It has taken more than 10 years to complete, in part due to pandemic delays. Cannon’s renovation, which Austin said in his testimony was entering its “close-out phase,” has been done in five stages over the years.

“I’m of the mind that we can do this in phases, like we did Cannon, which is easier on the members, it’s easier on the taxpayers,” Rep. Nick LaLota told NOTUS of Rayburn. He said he’s waiting to see more information, because he’s “far from a yes on the AOC’s plan.”

Restoring the 60-year-old Rayburn office building to full functionality through a process similar to the Cannon restoration would take 15 to 20 years, Austin said at the hearing.

“All this stuff takes so long, it’s crazy,” Moore told NOTUS. “I’ll give you an example. I was staff here, and they started setting up to fix the Cannon building. I left in 2012 when they were getting it ready, and they’re still not done. This stuff goes on for so long, it just takes so long, everything is over budget, it’s past deadline. We just have to do it better.”

As conversations swirl around a possibly similar renovation project at Rayburn, the potential cost is the central concern for lawmakers.

“We have to strike a balance between making sure we’re careful with taxpayer dollars and that we’re keeping the buildings safe,” Rep. Celeste Maloy told NOTUS. “They’re telling us right now what all of their safety concerns are, and then we’ll have decisions to make about what money needs to be allocated.”