There seems to be some debate regarding which House office has the biggest ball of them all.

It seems that early this summer, an intern in the office of Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) decided the random pieces of twine that kept the mail together were going to waste, so she put them good use … by making a big ball.

“Over time, [the ball] has become bigger and bigger,” McKinley Press Secretary Katie Martin tells HOH.

It’s pretty big considering it’s a relatively new ball, she adds. Martin maintains the ball daily, sometimes with help from the mail carrier, who donates excess bits of twine.

HOH heard there is some sort of contest over which office has the larger textile ball.

“I don’t know if it’s a contest,” Martin says. “I’ve never seen anybody else’s ball.”

But she heard a rumor that Rep. Kurt Schrader’s (D-Ore.) office, which is across the hall from McKinley’s, has a pretty large ball of yarn.

“They won’t show us how big theirs is,” she tells HOH. “So we’ve kept ours a secret.”

So we called Schrader’s chief of staff, Paul Gage, to ask whether their office has a ball and whether theirs is bigger than McKinley’s.

Gage sounds pretty confident that his office has the bigger ball, but he says, “I’d have to see their ball.”

Well, HOH can confirm that Schrader’s office has one big ball.

“Very impressive,” Martin tells HOH after peeping Schrader’s ball. “We have done well with the time we had, and I feel confident in our yarn ball’s future.”

“We applaud Mr. McKinley’s office on their adorable little ball of twine,” Gage says on behalf of his office. “It’s a good start for a first-term office, but they clearly have a way to go before reaching the level of Team Schrader.”

Martin also tells us that the office  of Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) has a rubber band ball of considerable size.

DesJarlais Chief of Staff Trent Edwards confirms that the ball exists but declines to speculate on its size as compared with those of the other balls.

“I have seen no other ball,” he tells us, but he says theirs is “bigger than a softball.”