A few more days on the job and I learned to carefully review his “corrections.” As he thought through his positions on various issues while responding to a constituent’s letter, he would often modify his thinking or move in new directions. I learned to review these “revisions” carefully as a source for his views on the myriad issues swirling around any Member of Congress.

One of the things I admired most about Charlie Bennett was how seriously he took his single vote in Congress.

Many Members used the legislative guides provided by the Whips of both parties that outlined positions on bills and recommending how they should vote. Charlie would look the material over, but he followed his own mind and conscience in deciding how to cast his vote.

Several weeks after I joined his staff, he yelled “John, uh, Tracy.” Things were looking up, he was beginning to remember my name. “Come in here.”

“Sit down, but don’t say anything…yet,” he directed.

When I was sitting in front of his desk, the huge dome of the Capital filling the entire window behind him, he explained that he wanted me to listen as he outlined a particularly complicated bill and reviewed how he might vote when it came on the floor for action. After outlining the major thrust of what the bill would accomplish that was good for the country, he began to review the proposed amendments.

The challenge here was to understand and anticipate that the “wrong” amendment could and often did change a bill he intended to support into one that he could not support. Voters back in Jacksonville might wonder why he had expressed support for the bill when it was proposed and then voted against it when it came to the Floor of the House.

No matter, even if he did get some “flak” from time to time, he never let that influence his vote or change his mind on an issue. If he wasn’t convinced that the bill was good for the country, it did not get his support.

Many months later, after I had learned the issues and his thinking, the “don’t say anything” rule was rescinded.

It was always a thrill to be asked to sit in on one of Charlie’s “bill analysis” sessions.