Democratic Rep. Nanette Barragán considers Republican Rep. Lisa McClain a great teammate. At least in softball.
The two lawmakers are on Congress’ team for the Congressional Women’s Softball Game, an annual event that will pit 17 Democratic and eight Republican members against the “Bad News Babes” press team on Wednesday evening. The team’s bipartisan nature is part of the point — lawmakers note that while men compete on teams based on party for the Congressional Baseball Game, the women lawmakers all work together.
But at a time when the parties are constantly at odds, it’s difficult to leave the politics to the side entirely.
Barragán said she knew very little about McClain before they started playing together, but she appreciated that she was vocal on the field, shouting guidance to other players. As chair of the House Republican Conference, McClain is also vocal off the field, accusing Democrats of fearmongering over President Donald Trump’s agenda, blaming Joe Biden for letting “rapists” and “child molesters” cross the border and saying Democrats need to “own” Biden’s “record of corruption.”
“I just see her like, ‘Oh, she’s a great teammate,’” Barragán said. “Then, of course, I come off the field and I might see something that she said politically and then it becomes unfortunate, because … you’re like, ‘Oh, like, I can’t believe she said that.’ Or, you know, ‘I can’t believe she believes that.’”
“But for the purposes of the charity and the event, we try to leave it all behind and on the field just play together to beat the press,” she added.
Some of the early organizers note that political tensions always existed. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat and co-captain of the members’ team, organized the first Congressional Women’s Softball Game in 2009 along with former Republican Rep. Jo Ann Emerson. Since then, with the exception of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the game has taken place every summer to raise money for the Young Survival Coalition, a nonprofit to raise awareness of breast cancer for women ages 40 and under.
“We’ve been playing this game for 17 years, and you know, we have had some of the most ardent partisans on both sides of the aisle. I mean, heck, I was [Democratic National Committee] chair for six years of this game,” said Wasserman Schultz, who is a breast cancer survivor.
“Not to criticize the baseball game,” Wasserman Schultz added, “but their game is really just an extension of the already very well embedded rivalry between the two parties, and our game is an example of how you can put partisan politics aside to come together around a good and important cause.”
Former Rep. Ed Perlmutter, who has coached the lawmaker team since the annual game started, told NOTUS the members understand “they’re here for softball, for friendship, for a cause.”
“That’s 99% of it,” Perlmutter said. “Maybe 1% of the time or less there might be a little bit of a political overtone, or somebody’s feelings were hurt because an ad was running against them, but that’s like few and far in between.”
It’s not always easy to brush off politics. Rep. Becca Balint, who has been playing on the team since 2023, told NOTUS that “it can be hard when we see members voting for bills that run against my interests, as a gay woman, or as a woman generally, who believes in reproductive freedom.”
“Sometimes I have to psych myself up if it’s the day after a tough vote, or if it’s the day after something happens in committee that really frustrated me, and I have to get up out of bed and say, ‘We’re going to leave it at the Capitol. We’re not going to bring it on the field,’” Balint said. “But we all have to do hard things. … We can’t keep hating each other.”
The game helps with creating bonds across parties. Balint said that during an all-nighter for reconciliation, she started getting frustrated and wound up walking across the aisle to sit down next to her teammate, Republican Rep. Julie Fedorchak.
They talked about how much longer the vote would last, and then about their families, their plans for July 4th and what they used to do before they joined Congress.
“That process for me of knowing someone over there, feeling like we had a good relationship already, gave me the confidence and the courage to just go in the midst of this heated, horrible time and sit and have a human-to-human conversation — and that matters,” Balint said. “I wouldn’t have done that if it weren’t for softball.”
Fedorchak, a freshman lawmaker from North Dakota, called it “a great chat.” She said joining the team was “one of the best opportunities for me to meet my Democrat colleagues on neutral ground.”
“We all have our different ideas, and we don’t agree on probably much of anything politically, but I can still accept that they’re great people, that we can be friends,” Fedorchak added. “I’m going to be kind of sad when it’s over because it’s been really positive.”
The cross-party camaraderie was on display at a scrimmage Tuesday between lawmakers and staffers. Trump’s rescissions package was on some players’ minds, not only because of the debate the legislation will bring, but because the timing of the vote in the Senate could affect whether co-captain Sen. Shelley Moore Capito participated in Wednesday’s game.
Democrats rooted for Fedorchak when it was her turn to bat (“Alright, Julie!” one Democrat yelled). Capito high-fived Rep. Kim Shrier when the Washington state Democrat scored a run (“Great running,” Capito told her).
At one point, Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice, a co-captain, and Democratic Rep. Julie Johnson bonded over their shared connection to Oklahoma State University (Bice is an alum and one of Johnson’s children is attending).
“What’s interesting is there’s people that I’ve played with on this team that I may not have had an opportunity to get to know,” Bice said after practice. “You have some Senate members, you have House members, you have both sides of the aisle, and I think that really builds some unity.”
At the end of Tuesday’s scrimmage, which marked the first time lawmakers had beaten staffers in a scrimmage before the official game, the members of Congress gathered around Wasserman Schultz one last time.
“I know you’re out here having a good time and it’s competitive and everything, but understand that we really raise awareness, we reach women,” she told the team. “I just want to express from the bottom of my heart how much it means, to me personally, that everyone here is sacrificing all their time.”
“Let’s go kick their asses,” she concluded.