Ryan Ray
Without any standard operating procedure governing the transition following the death of a Congressman, Bill Young’s family has had little recourse when the late lawmakers’s personal affects began to go missing, writes Warren Rojas in CQ Roll Call:
A corrosive mix of myopic estate planning, lax oversight and a moving truck-sized hole uncovered in guidelines governing continuing congressional operations has decimated those closest to the late congressman.
The 22-term Florida Republican died on Oct. 18, 2013; he was laid to rest on Oct. 24 not far from here, at Bay Pines National Cemetery in St. Petersburg. There’s been no such solace for those left behind, a group — including his widow, former House aide Beverly Young; the couple’s adult sons; newly minted Appropriations Committee member Rep. David Jolly and Young’s former chief of staff, Harry Glenn — currently at one another’s throats regarding the location of myriad keepsakes and the preservation of Young’s political legacy.
“You have to understand the amount of drama that has surfaced since my father’s passing, mostly from people fueled by hatred for other people,” Patrick Young, the youngest of the longtime lawmaker’s brood, said in an email that begged off weighing in on the dispirited morass.
Beverley Young has been dispossessed of mementos of a spouse’s public life, including Congressional materials, irreplaceable photos, even a substantial stash of U.S. currency:
“He kept $10,000 in his desk because he believed the terrorists were going to attack the grid … and no one would be able to get to the banks,” Beverly Young explained.
… “He says, ‘It’s in my desk. Upper-left drawer. Key is in my nightstand,’” she related while rereading his instructions, her quivering voice echoing through the three-bedroom, elevator-enabled condominium she had shared with her frail spouse. “I never got that key. That key was in his pants the day he went to the hospital.”
At some point, she said her husband’s chief of staff began peppering her with snapshots he’d taken inside the Rayburn office. “[Former Young Chief of Staff Harry] Glenn had to have the key because he opened up Bill’s desk and he sent me pictures and he says, ‘Here’s pictures of everything in the desk drawers. I don’t want to be accused of taking anything,’” she said. (Glenn told CQ Roll Call no cash-filled envelope was found in the desk.)
Whether he had Beverly Young’s permission, Glenn was, at least in the eyes of House administrators, the best candidate to resolve the longtime lawmaker’s outstanding obligations.
And while Glenn remain sanguine on the prospects of a copacetic resolution for all involved, the late Young’s widow feels otherwise:
“I think everybody along the way has tried to do the right thing to both protect personal property, to honor the memory of the congressman and to make sure everything gets where it’s supposed to go,” he said. “I think we did a pretty good job.”
An emotionally drained Beverly Young would beg to differ.
“I will never be able to win,” she said. “I’m just a constituent.”
