You've heard about this business, right?

Democratic and Republican legislators are pairing off to sit together for the annual speech in a symbolic gesture of bipartisanship, and some of the combinations so far are intriguing.

So who are the leading members of the Washington State delegation planning to cozy up to on Tuesday night?

Cantwell: Her closeness with Republican Susan Collins <strong>goes beyond this one night</strong>.
  • Cantwell: Her closeness with Republican Susan Collins "goes beyond this one night."
Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell will be sitting next to Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine. "Their collaboration and friendship goes beyond this one night," says Cantwell spokesperson Janeen Heath. "You may recall the major climate/clean energy bill (the CLEAR Act) they introduced together."

Democratic Senator Patty Murray will be sitting next to Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas. (Murray's re-election campaign cast Cornyn, in an April e-mail, as the Wall-Street-purchased puppet master for Dino Rossi. But hey. That was April.)

Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott? "He's going to try to sit next to Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wisconsin) or Kevin Brady (R-Texas)," said McDermott spokesperson Kinsey Kiriakos.

Try?

After consulting with a source familiar with Congressional seating machinations, I began to understand. Apparently it's a bit of a free-for-all on State of the Union Day—first come first served, with lawmakers camping out for hours in center aisle seats so that they can (maybe) get caught on camera shaking the president's hand—and thus one makes advance seating assumptions at one's own peril.