Reps. Rich McCormick and Beth Van Duyne went public with their relationship after DailyMail.com reported he had filed for divorce and been seen frequently with her, but they’re far from the first couple to meet and fall in love on Capitol Hill.
In a field that demands overlap between professional and personal, the deeply ambitious, sometimes-awkward staffers that prop up the U.S. government often meet and find spouses at work.
Others have engaged in scandalous love affairs that have rocked the halls of Congress.
Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer of New York is a famous matchmaker within his office and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, boasted last year that his office had paired up 20 married couples.
And a handful of House members have preceded McCormick and Van Duyne in dating while they’re both in office.
DailyMail.com breaks down the details of those relationships:
Married 2007: Reps. Connie Mack and Mary Bono Oswald
Ex-Rep. Connie Mack IV and former Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack arrive at the 24th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival – Awards Gala at Palm Springs Convention Center on January 5, 2013. They would divorce that year
California Republican Mary Bono married singer Sonny Bono in 1986, became mayor of Palm Springs from 1988 to 1992 and was elected to Congress in 1998, where she served until 2013.
Sonny, of the ‘Sonny and Cher‘ duo, had been elected to Congress in 1994 and after he died while skiing in 1998, she ran in the special election to succeed him.
But Florida Republican Connie Mack would not take office until 2005.
After Sonny, Mary was briefly engaged to country music drummer Brian Prout and married to Wyoming businessman Glenn Baxley for 18 months.
She married colleague Mack in 2007, changing her name to Mary Bono Mack, but the couple divorced in 2013. Bono and Mack were the third married couple to serve in Congress together.
In 2012, Connie Mack lost his primary for a Florida Senate seat and Mary lost reelection to the House. A source told the Washington Post that losing their elections and no longer being in Washington together had led to their split.
Since 2015 Mary Bono been married to former astronaut Stephen Oswald.
Mack, whose birth name is Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy IV, remarried international development expert Jennifer Key in 2018 and has worked as a lobbyist since leaving Congress.
Married 1994: A House floor proposal for Reps. Bill Paxon and Susan Molinari
They began dating shortly after they took office and married in 1994 after the House floor proposal
Paxon and Molinari were both New York Republicans who came to Congress won class apart. Paxon won a Buffalo-area house seat in 1988 and Molinari won a special election for her dad’s seat in 1990.
They began dating shortly after and married in 1994 after the House floor proposal.
‘What she said was, ‘Yes, I’ll marry you, but get off the floor,” Paxon recounted to the Associated Press.
They each left the House in the late ’90s, had two children together and relocated to the Washington, D.C., area permanently.
Molinari became a host for CBS before becoming VP of public policy for Google from 2012 to 2018. She now serves as co-chair for VERITY NOW, a group working for ‘equity in vehicle safety.’
Paxon went into lobbying, and at one point lobbied for Boeing, now mired in controversy.
Married 1989: Sen. Olympia Snowe and Gov. John McKernan date in Congress
Republicans Snowe and McKernan met and began when they both served in the state legislature, and they overlapped in Congress together from when McKernan joined in 1983 to 1987, each serving one of Maine’s two House seats
Republicans Snowe and McKernan met and began when they both served in the state legislature, and they overlapped in Congress together from when McKernan joined in 1983 to 1987, each serving one of Maine’s two House seats.
Snowe served in the House from 1979 to 1995. The couple married in 1989, after McKernan took the governorship in 1987, making Snowe both the first lady of Maine and a House representative.
Snowe became a senator in 1995 where she served until 2013.
While in Congress the pair had nearly identical voting records – they even both switched from opposing aid to the Nicaraguan rebels to later supporting such aid. The pair are still married today.
Married 1976: Andrew Jacobs of Indiana and Martha Keys of Kansas
For Democrats Jacobs and Keys it must’ve been love at first sight: the pair married only a year into their congressional careers
For Democrats Jacobs and Keys it must’ve been love at first sight: the pair married only a year into their congressional careers.
Keys lost her 1978 reelection race, but Jacobs went on to serve until 1997. Keys went on to President Bill Clinton’s now-defunct Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
The couple separated in 1981.
May 2024: Beth Van Duyne and Rich McCormick confirm relationship
Earlier this month, Glamorous GOP Rep. Beth Van Duyne broke her silence on love affair with married Georgia Republican Rich McCormick, confirming that they are ‘happily engaged in a relationship.’
DailyMail.com exclusively revealed the pair had developed a particularly cozy relationship just as McCormick and his wife have filed for divorce.
Footage from the March 7 State of the Union address shows McCormick stroking Van Duyne’s arm, and sources say this is commonplace for the seemingly smitten pair.
Rich McCormick pictured smiling at Van Duyne during a press conference at the Capitol last June
After 12 years of marriage and less than two years into his congressional career, Georgia Republican Rep. Richard McCormick has filed for divorce from his oncologist wife Dr. Debra Miller
They’ve been caught arriving at and leaving late night events together, and multiple eyewitnesses have seen the pair holding hands just off the House floor.
Van Duyne told DailyMail.com that Rich and his wife are both ‘incredible people’ and his marriage has been ‘over for quite some time.’
‘His marriage has been over for quite some time as I understand it, he’s filed for divorce.’
‘I’m single. We’re both parents of adult children and empty nesters. We are happily engaged in a relationship and beyond that it’s a personal issue.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .