Summer Employment?

[Kristina]

I'm interning for Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA) this summer on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Congresswoman Eshoo represents the 14th district, which is the Palo Alto area in Northern California and home to Cory from team 100. She sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Energy & Commerce Comittees. These are two very prestigious committees, especially with Iraq and Enron issues.

My responsibilities range greatly. I do the basic office work such as answer phones, sort A LOT of mail (she gets the most mail, excluding leadership offices), fax things, run errands, ordering flags, etc. Our office also gives tours to constituents who come to DC, so I lead those. I've also been starting to do more substanitive work like preparing news clips, going to committee meetings and hearings, researching and writing letters back to constituents on a vast array of issues.

Some big perks of the job include learning about so much legislation, especially since they're at the end of a session during an election year so they're trying to get through a lot. A big part of the commerce committee is doing telecommunication stuff, so be prepared to see a bill proposing an end to spyware soon. Also, they have free speakers for us all the time. Last week I saw many members of Congress and Michael Moore, this week I'm seeing George Stephanopoulos, and next week is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Needless to say it's a really cool job, even if I'm not getting paid.