Sporting a gray ponytail and gold chain with a small anchor pendant around his neck, captain Dave Tilley hardly fits the image of the K Street lobbyist.
But last week the burly 42-year-old fisherman drove up from North Carolina to Washington, D.C. — the first time he had ever been to the nation’s capital — to persuade Members of Congress to change a law that he claims is threatening his livelihood.
“It is quite overwhelming, to tell you the God’s honest truth,” Tilley said as he joined in a spirited rally of fishermen across the street from the Capitol.
For the participants, many of whom stumbled onto buses in the wee hours of the morning last Wednesday, the trip to Washington was hardly a routine matter. Though clearly more at home when out at sea than in the halls of Congress, the rough-hewn crowd was motivated by anger at federal policy that has forced them to keep their nets out of the water.