Office of Senator Maggie Hassan, Washington, DC
For more than two months this summer, I worked as an intern in the office of Senator Maggie Hassan, the Democratic Junior Senator from New Hampshire. In this capacity, I performed a host of managerial and research tasks, which included: manning the front desk, where I answered and addressed constituent calls, directed callers to the appropriate staffer, greeted guests and seated those who had meetings—for all intents and purposes, acting as the face of the office; sorting constituent and organization mail and inputting it into the online database to be addressed by the respective staffer; attending Senate Committee hearings and other briefings both out of my own interest and to take minutes for a delegating staffer so as to compile them into a memo upon my return to the office; running around the Senate and House complexes to collect Representatives’ signatures on official letters; delivering notes and papers to staffers outside the Senate floor, as well as to the Cloak Room; and much more.
Far and away my favorite part was attending Committee hearings, where I could sit in rapt attention while such wide-ranging subjects as Chinese theft of intellectual property, the race to 5G NB-Iot, cybersecurity, and healthcare were hotly debated by star Senators and field experts. And I would be remiss if I did not admit my exhilaration with the high drama that unfolded in some of the testier hearings, such as the Foreign Relations Committee’s interrogation of a State Department official on the veracity of the administration’s claims that tariffs on imported steel and aluminum from ally countries were in the interest of national security; or in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the administration’s proposal to redraw the lines of executive agencies, where the battle lines were drawn between Republican and Democratic Senators. I learned so much about such a diversity of topics, all of which are directly confronting the American state and its people and demanding legislative action, and yet which I had barely had any awareness of before walking into those hearing rooms. Though I was only able to probe about 20-30 hearings in my time there (a tiny sliver in the enormous universe of the legislature’s responsibility) I nonetheless feel far more oriented than I did when I first stepped foot in the buildings. Certainly, this transcends the learning I have done in my history major classes, as it compounds that perspective of the past with the excitement—and jeopardy—of taking action to shape the future.
So too were there moments of enormous frustration and gloom—ones that I hope to never encounter again. The third week of my internship, one of my fellow interns (there were four of us in the office) was in the Capitol Rotunda when President Trump walked through. She shouted an expletive at him, then fled the scene. A week later, Fox News publicly reported her name, and our office faced a hell-storm of angry callers from across the nation—some demanding that she be instantly fired (our Senator had deemed that her one week suspension and revocation of her Congressional ID, thus barring her from the Capitol, on top of her sincere apology, were adequate recompense), while others simply called to return the expletive, or get “inventive” with a whole new host of degrading and disgusting language. That Tuesday, I managed the phone lines for eight hours, answering one call after another. All in all we logged approximately 10,000 calls that week, the vast majority of which were abusive in nature. Given that it was the interns’ responsibilities to answer these phones, as well as all the hundreds of voicemails, with help from only one staff assistant, you can imagine it was a very dark week for me. So too was it a lesson in just how quickly things can explode in national politics—as well as how quickly the news cycle turns. One week later, the calls had slowed to a small trickle, with only one or two truly committed trolls still calling us to scream vulgarities.
Nonetheless, the office was very supportive, understanding, and above all, kind. I felt very comfortable around them from very early on, and only harbored slight anxiety asking clarifying questions after an initial request from a staffer. Even when we made a mistake, they sent a polite and unbothered email to us just to let us know the right technique for the next time. Meanwhile, I felt happy to be a member of Senator Hassan’s team. My politics are not exactly in agreement with the Senator’s, as she is a moderate Democrat and I a Socialist. However, while I found it painful at times to have to conform to this line—particularly answering constituent calls, where I more than wanted to sympathize and commiserate with callers on the issues of the judiciary, climate action, and Israeli aggression in Palestine—I nonetheless developed a deep respect for her meticulously thoughtful political ethic. She reviews and edits literally every single word that comes out of her office, and is not one for making spur-of-the-moment or otherwise impassioned decisions, taking the time to make a reasoned judgment based on all evidence and opinion. Certainly this kind of thoughtfulness could stand to be emulated on a wider scale—it would do some good in de-entrenching our politics and making discussions productive and good-faith again.
Although I feel that the halls of Congress are probably not for me—I think I would not do very well to be under such rending scrutiny at all times, nor would I necessarily feel comfortable wielding such vast power—this experience has absolutely convinced me to work in the realm of policy and advocacy instead. It’s what feels truly important to me, above all else. And there is certainly no shortage of problems to tackle in this day and age: saving our environment, for one, and restructuring our economy to account for renewable energy resources (not to mention achieving more jobs in doing so!); extending healthcare and job security to all (a distinct possibility in the world’s richest country); dissembling the role of big money in politics, and reforming our voting system to dismantle gerrymandering and encourage true democratic participation; remedying the U.S.’s broken foreign policy, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as extending olive branches to traditional adversaries such as China in order to usher in lasting peace, in all senses of the word; and so on. My grandiose and idealistic desire to tackle each and every one of these dilemmas has only been reaffirmed by this experience, even if tempered by the realities of our oft-laggard partisan Congress. There is lots of work to do, and I would like to get started—now it’s time for me to hone in on a place to begin.
Without the generous funding provided by the Estate of George J. Mead, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the inner workings of our government would not have been possible. For that, I am most grateful, and would like to thank the ’68 Center for Career Exploration for providing these similarly wonderful and career-orienting endeavors for students.