Staff tags like this one, called “toppers” because they were affixed to the top of a license place, became common sights on Capitol Hill in the 1950s and 1960s. The advent of parking garages beneath the House Office Buildings, a boon to commuters in crowded Washington, made them widely popular pieces of tin. However, House employees learned to use discretion when parking their congressionally tagged cars while off the clock. “If you’re going into a little bar or something like that,” one longtime House staffer waggishly recalled, “go around the block and park it, or don’t take that car with you.”
