Any visitor to the U.S. Capitol can obtain a gallery pass at any Senator or Representative’s national office. These passes allow visitors entry to the House and Senate Chambers when the respective group is in session. Johnson County resident Benjamin King is the primary collector of gallery passes to the House of Representatives and Senate Chambers in the world. Patrons may have previously seen some of his collection on display at the Gardner Library and a subset of his collection highlighting congresswomen on display at the Central Resource Library.
His collection highlights the diversity and inclusion of the U.S. Congressional body. He has focused on making it a robust bipartisan collection from a variety of congress persons with his oldest card surviving from 1883 up to current members of congress. One of his oldest cards relates to Kansas, signed by Senator John Ingalls (R-KS) in 1885. Ingalls served as an influential Republican politician instrumental in the formation of the State of Kansas, suggesting both the state motto and designing the state seal. From 1905 until 2022, Ingalls statue was one of two representing Kansas in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection. In 2022, he was replaced by Amelia Earhart.
King’s first pass was signed by Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) in 2017. While visiting Washington for his position with the AFGE Union, King wanted to see the country at work during his downtime so sought a pass from McCaskill’s office. He was able to see Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Senator Al Franken (D-MN) address the chamber in addition to the confirmation hearings of then-candidate for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions.
Since then, he’s asked for passes from every congress person he’s visited with at the Capitol. After a brief meeting with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) outside of the Capitol building where neither of them had a pass for her to sign, he’s taken to carrying around blank passes for members to sign outside their offices. This has resulted in a rather unique card signed by both Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME).
As he built his collection, King started looking around on auction sites like eBay and vintage websites like etsy for historical cards signed by former congress persons. Ironically, a seller in the UK sold him a 1940 pass signed by then-Representative Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX). King explained that many people don’t know what these scraps of paper represent so it’s amazing any of them have survived. He can often find inexpensive listings of gallery passes under various titles and descriptions.
One of his most prized passes in this collection is from Representative Jeannette Rankin (R-MT). Rankin served as the first woman elected to a federal position in 1917 when she was elected to the House of Representatives from Montana. A card signed by Rankin from 1917 is the oldest known pass signed by a woman in Congress. Having been elected for her first term in 1917 and her second term in 1941, Rankin holds the unique distinction of having voted against the US entering both WWI and WWII.
Some passes of note in his collection include one of the first passes issued by Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN); a pass from 1953 signed by then-Senator John F. Kennedy (D-MA); one signed by Senator Hattie Caraway (D-AR), the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate; one from 1916 signed by then-Senator Warren G. Harding (R-OH); one signed by Senator Edward Brooke (R-MA), the first Black man elected to the Senate; and one from 1892 signed by then-Representative William Jennings Bryan (D-NE).
In the beginning, congress members would personally sign every pass handed out. That practice eventually gave way to delegating signatures to their staff, first via the autopen and now via a stamp.
King believes this collection truly highlights the history of our Congress. He’s even been able to bring the collection full circle by showing the first congresswoman’s card to currently serving congresswomen, such as Representative Sharice Davids (D-KS). Davids represents Kansas’s third district, which includes Johnson County, and was the first Native American woman elected to Congress alongside Deb Haaland (D-NM).
King is still chasing his white whales – passes from Representative Shirley Chisholm (D-NY), the first Black woman elected to Congress; and Representative Barbara Jordan (D-TX), the first Southern Black woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, but that’s half the fun of the collection, you never know when or where these obscure passes will pop up.
-Amanda Wahlmeier, Johnson County Library
