Regrets

Although I did get to do a lot here in Washington, there are some things I didn't get to do, and regret it. One thing that surprised me during orientation was the fact that it is fairly easy to go and watch live arguments at the Supreme Court. Essentially, all you have to do is go early to line up at the Supreme Court in the morning and you can go in and watch the live proceedings. Since photography is not allowed within the courtroom this really is a unique experience that you cannot do back in Claremont. Most employers seem as if they would be flexible enough to allow the interns to take off a day, or simply a morning to go to the Court. If you work on the Hill this is also particularly easy because it is directly across the street from the Capitol.

Another regret that I have is not going to the Kennedy Center, I didn't find out until about halfway through the semester, but apparently during the week there is free entertainment. I unfortunately did not get the chance to go. But if I had to do it over again, I would certainly tried to organize a group outing to the Kennedy Center.

Housing

One of the differences between the DC program and living back on campus is that there are no dorms in DC. So instead of deciding whether to live in North Quad, Mid Quad, or South Quad, you instead have to decide where to live within Washington, DC (or possibly outside of Washington DC). I lived in an apartment with Carlos and Jenny. You can see a video of it here.



There are several different options you have to consider:

Is it furnished?
Are utilities included?
Is it close to the CMC Office (Corner of 17th and L Street NW)?
Is it close to your job?
Is it close to the Metro?
Is there a supermarket nearby?
Can it fit everybody you plan to live with?
Is it in a good part of town?

The apartment we lived in had been used the semester before by some CMC students while they were on the program. I highly recommend doing this. It is helpful to know from someone more trustworthy than a random landlord whether or not the apartment is any good.

In addition to our apartment, there were two more groups of three people, one living fairly close to us and the other living in Southeast near the Capitol. There were then two people living on their own, Ben F. lived in an apartment in Virginia and Mike Whatley lived in housing provided by the Heritage Foundation (although you don't have to actually work for Heritage to live there, as Mike did).

It is best to get a furnished apartment (as everybody this semester did) because you do not have to worry about buying or renting all the furnishings for the apartment. That can tend to get more expensive than you might think as me and my apartment mates discovered this summer. You have to remember plates, silverware, couches, tv, lamps, sheets, beds, etc..

Pros and Cons of Interning on the Hill

As always you can go to the group's flickr page for more photos.

Kristen Mallory asked me to do a post about the benefits and drawbacks of interning on the Hill. I have to say that I loved my internship in Rep. Schakowsky’s office. Not only was it cool to intern in a small office like that, but an added bonus was the fact that she represents me in Congress. It was nice to know about the specifics of the district for the office in which I was working. With that said, I will say that from what I have heard from people I know that have interned in other Hill offices that it seems to be a mixed bag in terms of the quality of internships on the Hill.


I think that mine was great. In other offices, interns sometimes will only answer phones, sort mail, and write a couple of responses to constituent letters. At my internship I did not have to sort mail, and only had to do the phones for maybe one or two hours a week (which actually was surprisingly enjoyable). I also got to sit in on staff meetings. My office held two staff meetings a week, one was without Schakowsky, before she got into the office for the week, and the second one was to brief her on the upcoming hearings, legislation, and to get her feedback on how she wanted to proceed. Some other people that I know that I talked with were surprised that the office let interns in on staff meetings (and the office that I am in now does not let interns into staff meetings). I got to experience how the staff interacts with their boss, and how Members make decisions on various topics behind closed doors. It was a great “behind the scenes” experience to see how members act candidly when they are not interacting with the general public.



The people in my office were also great about making sure that I got to do substantive work as well as experience things I may not have been able to otherwise. The staff took me to the House floor, I got to be the only intern at a meeting of about twelve Members and Justice Sotomayor (which I blogged about earlier), got to sit in the gallery during the healthcare vote in the House late on a Sunday night (which I also blogged about earlier), and Rep. Schakowsky used my name and my “story” in the opening statements of a committee hearing. Of course, I had to do some typical Hill intern duties: organize a filing cabinet, take some flags to the flag office, and make copies. I did however get to do some pretty substantive work. During the Toyota scandal, the staffer who usually handles consumer protection had a lot on her agenda, so I got to help out and was the only intern at the briefings held by the Toyota lobbyists. I then got to write up notes and some potential questions for CEO Jim Lentz and the Secretary of Transportation. Of course, I was not the lead staffer or the one making decisions on what types of questions she would ask, but I did feel as if I got to have an impact on the process, and at the very least I got some good face time on C-SPAN and at least one news broadcast.



In addition to this, I got to be involved in the process for picking projects for appropriations requests for the district. Again, as an intern, I wasn’t picking which project would receive funding, but I did get to help review and summarize each project in order to help present it to my boss and to put on the website. The final main project of the semester was President’s Fiscal Commission to which the Speaker appointed Schakowsky. For the last month or so, I did research on various members of the commission and what their positions were in addition to various proposals to help lower the deficit and the national debt. This helped me develop a potential topic for my thesis.

Supreme Court

As always you can go to the Flickr page for more photos.

We went to the Supreme Court during orientation, but on May 3, Angela and I made one more trip there. On that day the Supreme Court announced that the public would no longer be able to enter through the famous front doors of the Supreme Court that are usually depicted in movies and pictures. Since we hadn’t had the chance to do it when we went for a tour (they don’t allow people to enter when the court is actually hearing arguments), we decided we should enter through the doors at least once. We managed to get about an hour off from work (the Court is across the street from the Capitol) just to go through the doors. When we had gone on our tour, Dr. Spalding mentioned that this is one of the few buildings in DC where you can still walk directly up to “power.” The Capitol steps are no longer open to the public to walk into the Capitol and the White House has strict security procedures. Although it was rather anticlimactic to walk through the doors, it is nice to be able to say you walked through the famous doors, which are about 100 feet from the actual courtroom where the justices deliberate. People will still be able to exit out the door after they are done with tours, but they will now direct all traffic through one of the side entrances for a new visitors center.

Camped Out at the Office

One of the four classes on the Washington Program is Government 127. This is a program that is focused around a semester long research paper. Most of us wrote on a topic that was related to our internship. As college students, who were also interning full time, many of us naturally procrastinated a good deal until the last week or so. There were some notable exceptions, including Ben F., who was done a good week before it was due. But for most of us the paper meant many sleepless nights that last week. Many of us spent it at the office. We ate, slept, and worked there. We all ended up finishing our papers on time (although some of us got pretty close to the deadline). I thought that this picture captured the feelings of that last week pretty well.

Day on the Hill

As always you can go to the Flickr page for more photos.

On April 27 at 1pm, we all headed to Capitol Hill to meet with Congressman David Drier, CMC alum from the class of 1975 and an alum of the Washington Program, and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, my boss and representative. Mr. Drier has an office in the Capitol (something which only party leadership usually gets). Although some of us, including me, got there a little late, we all found our way into his office. His is the only office with a pinball machine in it (as you can see in the picture). As the former chairman and the current ranking member, he discussed with us the role of the House Rules Committee. He explained the difference between an open and closed rule, and his hopes that the open rule would be used more this year. He also explained the “read the bill” phenomenon, and how that originated due to a bill that was rushed through a couple of years ago. We then went around the room and explained where we were interning and what we were doing at each place. We also got to ask some questions. We then snapped a picture back in his private study.






We then went outside to the Capitol steps to wait for Ms. Schakowsky. It was a busy day with several different Members of Congress meeting various groups from their districts out on the steps. One prominent voice on the steps was a protestor who was in favor of the new immigration law that had passed in Arizona (this was only two or three days after it was signed into law). When we got to meet with Ms. Schakowsky, we went around the circle and explained where we were interning and then took a picture with her. At this point, most of the members had left and we were one of the only groups left. The protestor, possibly knowing Schakowsky’s liberal positions (she was named the most liberal member of the House), decided to focus on her. As we stood there taking the picture, he yelled at her non-stop, calling her “sweet lips” and “toots.” Although it was clear that we could hear him, we did our best to ignore him. Dr. Spalding then asked her to rate the heckler and she humorously said that he had some of the best pitch and consistency she had heard and that his performance is a testament to the first amendment. She went on to explain her opposition to the new Arizona law. We had a quick meeting because she was late for a meeting off of the Hill, but it will certainly be one of my most memorable experiences with a Member of Congress.

Mt. Vernon

As always you can go to the Flickr page for more photos.

Every semester, Dr. Spalding organizes a group outing. There a couple of various locations that the group has gone in the past. This is usually a place a little bit outside of DC that we might not get to if we were going on our own. This year we went to Mount Vernon in Virginia. This is where George Washington used to live and is buried alongside his wife, Martha.



We met Dr. Spalding, her husband (also Dr. Spalding) and her two kids at the Pentagon City Metro stop bright and early. Carlos, Jenny, Isaac, Angela, Ben, and I climbed into her car and a brand new rented minivan to drive over to Virginia. It was about a half hour to forty-five minute drive, it was a very scenic drive down the George Washington Parkway. There had been some predictions of rain for the day, but it turned out to be a Once we got there, we watched an introductory movie that talked about George Washington’s life and the history of the grounds. Our first stop walking around was the house where George Washington and his family lived (in the picture above). There was quite a long line to get into the house, but some “contemporaries” of George Washington kept us occupied as we waited (pictured below).



We walked through the bedrooms of George Washington, peered into his kitchen, saw the view off of the back porch and went through the slaves’ quarters. Dr. Spalding’s husband, who has done some work with Mt. Vernon, explained to us that much of the furniture and the foundation was showing signs of aging, so a couple of years ago they decided to install air conditioning. There had been debate over whether or not to do this, because of concerns that the air conditioning might upset the “originalness” of the building. However, it was determined that the benefits of the air conditioning would outweigh the negatives.



After seeing his house, we decided to go grab some lunch before exploring the rest of the grounds. We were given two $10 vouchers. We had to spend exactly $20 or else we would not get change, so it was a challenge to make sure that we got exactly $20, and several of us ended up with food to take home. We then went and toured some of the other areas of the grounds. Washington, in addition to leading the Continental Army and the country, was a farmer, who came up with some innovative new farming techniques. There was an area dedicated to demonstrating some of those techniques and included animals and vegetation. Our last stop was at the museum. The museum was organized to go through Washington’s life from the time he was born to his death. It featured many wax depictions of him (pictured with Isaac above), some videos and interactive exhibits. Our exit out of the place was slightly delayed by a landing helicopter, but Dr. Spalding’s kids were very excited to see it. The group ended up getting dropped off in Old Town Alexandria. It turned out to be a great little place, with a small town feel (kind of like the Village in Claremont). We walked to the water and stumbled upon this guy. He played some Bach as well as the national anthem and God Bless America for us. Overall, it was a great trip, and probably one of the highlights of the semester.

Guest Speaker: Charles Krauthammer

As always, you can go to the Flickr page for more pictures.

On April 26, we met up at about 2pm at the office of Charles Krauthammer, a columnist and frequent commentator on Fox News. He has his own personal office, not far from the CMC offices. We met with him for about an hour and he talked to us about his thoughts on the Obama administration. He criticized how they have handled the relationship with the British and with Israel. He explained how he thought Israel was our strongest ally in the Middle East and that a vast majority of Americans supported a strong relationship with Israel. He also explained that he thought the Obama administration was taking our relationship with England too casually. He said that in the early months of the administration, an Obama official explained that there was “no special relationship” between the two countries. Krauthammer called this ridiculous and said that there was indeed a special relationship between the two countries, and that we needed to be more aware of our standing in the world. Krauthammer then took questions from us (including Dr. Spalding). After we were done, we all went back to work until class again that night.