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Author Interview

Wes Allison

Republican v. Republican: A cellular division

St. Petersburg Times

Author Comments on "Republican v. Republican":

This project started as a learning opportunity. When I joined our Washington bureau in July 2004, my colleague Bill Adair suggested I choose one interesting bill and follow it through Congress. Even if I didn't write on every development, the endeavor would help me learn how Congress works and provide a vehicle for meeting lawmakers and aides.

I waited until the 109th Congress was seated in January, after the elections, but I'd begun scouting for bills beforehand. It didn't take long to find one I liked: Moderate Republicans, along with some Democrats, were planning to introduce a bill that would expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

I'd been our medical writer, had written about the promise of stem cell research and had covered President Bush's restrictions on it. I knew our readers couldn't get enough of the issue.

From there, it came down to patience and access: Patience on the part of my editors, who agreed early on to save everything for one major project that would run when the bill was resolved—rather than cover the developments as they progressed. It helped greatly that I was still writing daily and enterprise stories on other topics, so by no means was I out of the mix for that long.

I got to know the key members of Congress and key staffers on both sides of the issue, as well as lobbyists for anti-abortion and pro-stem cell groups. I found, generally, members and aides were eager to talk with a reporter who had a genuine, long-term interest in stem cell research.

I told them the story would run at some distant point in the future, after the bill either passed or failed. This was really helpful as well. They became more candid and more willing to provide the behind-the-scenes details that really drive this story.

I'd offer these tips:

Show up: It's 90 percent of the job. I went to every hearing, press conference and event I could, with the notion that if you just show up all the time, at everything, the players begin to see you as part of the landscape. Once that happens, you'll be amazed at what they tell you.

Cross-check everything: Members of Congress have lousy memories; they're so busy that times, dates and even who was at a meeting can get blurry for them. But their schedulers keep everything, and that's a great resource for reconstructing events and private meetings. I had dozens of background interviews with staffers who provided insight into what was happening behind the scenes. This made me ask better questions of the members and allowed me to look for sharper details. I also interviewed important advocates and opponents in the House and Senate multiple times.

Write as you go: I would have been doomed if I'd had 18 months worth of notes and nothing written. We always intended to turn this series around as quickly as possible, so my editor, Richard Bockman, kept on me about writing each scene as it happened and keeping up with events. By the time the president vetoed the bill, the first installment was essentially finished. The second, while still rough, at least had bones.

Wes Allison covers Congress and politics in the Washington bureau of the St. Petersburg Times. He came to Washington in July 2004 after spending four years in St. Petersburg, first as the medical writer and then as national writer, with a stint "kind of doing both in between," he says. Allison has covered the Elian Gonzalez saga, the 2002 Florida governor's race and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, where he was embedded with an infantry battalion of the 101st Airborne Division.

Allison started his career at his hometown paper, The Greenville (S.C.) News, after graduating from the University of Richmond in 1991. He then spent six years as a state and metro reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch before joining the Times.