Senate Seersucker Thursday Returns June 11

Cassidy, center, is championing Seersucker Thursday. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)
Cassidy, center, is championing Seersucker Thursday. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)
By Niels Lesniewski
Posted May 27, 2015 at 4:04pm

It is time to once again mark your calendars — Seersucker Thursday will be June 11.  

The Senate tradition was resurrected last year after being discontinued in 2012 amid concerns the event wasn’t appropriately serious. The wearing of the lighter summer suits dates to the days before air conditioning in the Capitol, but it was Republican Trent Lott of Mississippi who really started the annual event in 1996.  

This year, freshman Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., is taking the leading role in encouraging his colleagues to join in wearing seersucker apparel.  

“This uniquely American fashion has a storied history dating back to 1909. Louisiana is proud to have played an important part in introducing the country to seersucker apparel. The first seersucker suit was designed by Joseph Haspel at his Broad Street facility in New Orleans,” Cassidy said in a statement for the Congressional Record.  

“This lightweight cotton fabric, known for its signature pucker has been enjoyed by Americans from all walks of life during our hot summer months,” said Cassidy. “Mr. Haspel said it best, ‘hot is hot, no matter what you do for a living.”’  

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California has long been the leading Democrat behind the seersucker effort.  

This year’s Seersucker Thursday happens to fall on the same day as the 54th Annual Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game .  

The traditional annual photograph will be taken at 2 p.m. or immediately following votes that afternoon, a Cassidy aide told CQ Roll Call.  

The aide highlighted the role that Cassidy played in bringing the tradition back in the House of Representatives last June, with the Senate following suit with a Seeksucker Thursday of its own later in the summer, a move that drew applause from Lott , who dismissed criticism of the tradition.  

“The Senate’s too damn stuffy,” Lott told CQ Roll Call last July. “They need to loosen up a little bit.”