The slow pace which characterized the office the past week appears as if it will continue this week. The Illinois State legislature is in the final scheduled week of session. However, the budget process may delay the adjournment date of the legislature. Or, perhaps the Illinois legislature will adjourn as scheduled and decide to call a special session in the near future to work out a feasible State budget.
However, as all of us are aware the wheels of government tend to turn at a slow pace. The office has a few constituent letters which address a variety of issues which still need to see substantial action before a proper response can be authored. Or perhaps these various pieces of legislation will ultimately be held in either the House or the Senate and die. The pace of which the legislation conducts business basically decides the pace of business in district offices etc. The emails in the inbox which continue to mount with respect to these issues too cannot be responded too.
A few email topics which we were waiting a proper response for could be cleared this week: Emergency Budget Act, Education Funding related issues (SB2494), and HB4673
Therefore, all the work that remains in the office currently is the Saw You in the News newspaper clippings. Each morning this week I first clipped all the photos which were related to constituents of the 52nd District and processed them (laminated, sought address, placed in envelope). However, mailing of these is too delayed as our office has now run out of 2 and 4 cent stamps. The weight of mail dictates cost of mailing and in this fiscal crisis it would certainly be reckless to place an additional full stamp on an envelope when only a small fraction of that cost is necessary; therefore these mailings will once again continue to stack up until these stamps arrive.
Other than that, I worked diligently on a few constituent issues throughout the week. Unfortunately for the sake of the constituents are office could be of little to no assistance. An individual called in about standing water at the edge of her property (husband has a disease due to standing water) The property is in fact state property; however, due to a clause it is the duty of the residential property owner to conduct the proper repairs as it allows access to the highway (DOT).
Too, I worked on a series of constituent requests which involve incarcerated individuals around the state. Unfortunately, many of these requests need to be redirected to their counselor.
The week ended early as I had to leave Thursday after work to attend the funeral of my fiance's grandfather who resided in Michigan.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
State Intern Continued
I really can't believe that it is already May. I have seen other interns in my bureau come and go and I am still here. A lot has been going on, meetings with State and USAID, attending hearings for House Foreign Affairs, Senate Foreign Relations etc. It has been a great experience and since my last post I have done a lot, much of which I can't really discuss in detail, explaining the frequency of my posts. There was a nuclear summit here, causing panic on the metro system, and there was also a volcano in Iceland that grounded a lot of diplomatic flights that had been planned. I finally got to see Lizzy and Sara too!
At State, I have been doing lots of research as usual, I helped my bureaus Green Team organize a park clean-up to improve the neighborhood, and make their offices more green. Also as an intern you pretty much get volunteered for everything..so I helped with a Model UN Conference that was being held at State. It was really interesting, there were high schoolers, and even middle schoolers pretending to represent countries in UNGA. They even had remarks from the A/S of my bureau which covers all the international organizations. I realize how great it is to have the government immediately around, I wish that I would have been introduced to diplomacy at such a young age. I did meet some students though, that had lived in Washington their whole lives and have never been the U.S. Capitol building which is hard to believe.
Speaking of the Capitol, I am going to add a new chapter to my residency starting next week, I'll be working for a Senator on the hill. Hopefully I will be working with her senior foreign affairs staffer, but I am interested in seeing how politics works on that side of town. State doesn't report to any sort of constituency, so the actions of the employees are much different in a personal office of a senator. I also do not know my way around the Capitol building, and the Senate office buildings, so that will be interesting to learn. I was told there will be up to 30 interns in the office which is a little weird to me who has been in this office with two interns. But we will see how it goes, I will report back on that later.
At State, I have been doing lots of research as usual, I helped my bureaus Green Team organize a park clean-up to improve the neighborhood, and make their offices more green. Also as an intern you pretty much get volunteered for everything..so I helped with a Model UN Conference that was being held at State. It was really interesting, there were high schoolers, and even middle schoolers pretending to represent countries in UNGA. They even had remarks from the A/S of my bureau which covers all the international organizations. I realize how great it is to have the government immediately around, I wish that I would have been introduced to diplomacy at such a young age. I did meet some students though, that had lived in Washington their whole lives and have never been the U.S. Capitol building which is hard to believe.
Speaking of the Capitol, I am going to add a new chapter to my residency starting next week, I'll be working for a Senator on the hill. Hopefully I will be working with her senior foreign affairs staffer, but I am interested in seeing how politics works on that side of town. State doesn't report to any sort of constituency, so the actions of the employees are much different in a personal office of a senator. I also do not know my way around the Capitol building, and the Senate office buildings, so that will be interesting to learn. I was told there will be up to 30 interns in the office which is a little weird to me who has been in this office with two interns. But we will see how it goes, I will report back on that later.
Friday, May 7, 2010
State Senator Michael Frerichs Week 15
Although I had anticipated a busy week in the office it appears once again it will be a slow week in the district office. This week has been another short week in the office as I had to travel to Chicago Wednesday evening in order to attend a doctor's appointment on Thursday afternoon in downtown Chicago. As expected, I will have a repeat of a surgery which I had at the age of 10 which will help to correct the effects CP has had with my walking stride. Ultimately, it is best as it will prevent any major issues later in life. Therefore, expect a two week sabbatical from all blog posts June 3rd-June 21st as I recover and rehabilitate.
The week in the district office has been absolutely dead. Many of our interns finished their open projects. Our Chief of Staff Laurie was out of the office most of the week ill. Therefore, I made the executive decision to send many of the interns home early to allow them further time to prepare for finals as our office was in great shape with no constituent letters which we could respond to in the box, emails were down, and newspapers clippings were complete.
The week in the district office has been absolutely dead. Many of our interns finished their open projects. Our Chief of Staff Laurie was out of the office most of the week ill. Therefore, I made the executive decision to send many of the interns home early to allow them further time to prepare for finals as our office was in great shape with no constituent letters which we could respond to in the box, emails were down, and newspapers clippings were complete.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Brady in Brussels
These couple weeks were exceptionally stressful. It was suddenly decided that we needed to make and distribute brochures for two of our biggest upcoming events and with little background in marketing, this proved to be a very difficult task. Not only was it painstakingly difficult to create a proper brochure layout on Microsoft Word (the only accessible program on my computer), but I had to constantly corresponded with the lecturers of our training courses to make sure their pictures and bios met their “professionally expectations,” so to speak. This meant I had to constantly revise the slightest of issues at a moment’s notice. Needless to say, the environment in the office was chaotic. Luckily we managed to piece it all together on time and are very happy with the results. I have emerged from the experience with a new threshold of patience.
Other than the brochures I have begun editing the texts we are receiving from the speakers at our upcoming conference. I am a bit worried because we do not have has many registered attendees as we would like at the moment, but my boss seems fairly confident that many people will register in the final two weeks when they are certain of their availability, which is understandable (you cannot imagine how busy some of these international lawyers are). I have also had the opportunity to read several books on mediation and negotiation that were sent to us by a major international law publisher. I wrote several reviews for our newsletter.
I was very happy to hear that we were nominated for international firm of the year by Corp. International, the UK based business magazine that I wrote an article and bio for. I submitted our nomination form and am hoping to receive some very good news in the next month. Having been responsible for this project myself it will feel great if we win. The magazine has indeed taken quite a liking to our organization, and will include an interview with our President in the upcoming edition as well.
Finally, I have been working on putting together our grant proposal for the EU Commission. We have received confirmed acceptances from two partners (one of which is coincidentally an NGO I applied to for my residency) and will begin working with them to come up with a project outline and financial breakdown. This will be very time consuming and technical. However, after the conference in the beginning of June we will have several other interns at the office that may assist us.
As for this week, my parents are using me as an excuse for vacation and are staying in Belgium for ten days which means I am temporarily changing jobs from intern to tour guide.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Sara Cline- May 4, 2010
Hi Everyone. Sorry this post is coming a few days late.. I finished at Patton Boggs last week- so didn't have time to post with all the packing (woof), tying up loose ends, and traveling. Anyway, I finished up last week doing wrap up on the Greek visits. There are currently 210 co-sponsors for CHIA in the house, which is extremely close to our goal of 218 (to achieve a majority).
Although I have left PB, I'm going to try to stay involved as much as possible. I'm currently back in Champaign and will be through graduation. This summer I'll be continuing my residency with a public policy internship at Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council- a group that represents all of Chicago's hospitals. I don't start until June, so won't have any posts until then. Hope everyone else is enjoying their internships.
Although I have left PB, I'm going to try to stay involved as much as possible. I'm currently back in Champaign and will be through graduation. This summer I'll be continuing my residency with a public policy internship at Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council- a group that represents all of Chicago's hospitals. I don't start until June, so won't have any posts until then. Hope everyone else is enjoying their internships.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Treasurer's Office- April 12-23
April 12th was the first day back from the General Assembly spring break, but as it was a Monday, it was relatively uneventful. I had Thursday and Friday of the previous week off, but seeing as it was still spring break I didn't think I would miss much. I proved to be incorrect in my assumption, as I remained very busy Monday morning catching up on anything I had missed while I was off. Also, John (our legislative analyst in the office- can't remember if I've mentioned him before) asked me to deliver one page summaries of two pieces of legislation that would be heard in committee that week to all of the members of the committees. Certainly not hard and I like getting out of the office, but it did involve a lot of running around to all the different offices. After I returned from delivering summaries I continued to sort through emails from the previous week. That afternoon the staff divided up committee members to lobby on pieces of legislation.
Tuesday involved more running around to legislators' offices in an attempt to speak with them about one of our bills. Fortunately, the two bills I was lobbying were non-controversial and all the legislators I met were very supportive of the legislation. I also met with the legislator of my home district to ask him to sign on as a sponsor of one of our bills. He is not a member of the committee it will be in, but the bill stemmed from a sitution in his district so it seemed fitting to have him as a sponsor. He readily agreed, and because I had previously spoke with a Senator about signing onto the bill I successfully added both a House and Senate sponsor to the bill. I spoke with Representatives right up until 11 o'clock when they went into session. The House was in Senate almost all afternoon so the rest of my day was spent listening to debate.
I had two more legislators left to speak with Wednesday about bills but they successfully eluded me again. Both their secretaries informed me however that they had taken a look at the sheet I dropped off on Monday and neither had a problem with their respective bill. Again, the House was in session so I listened to that for several hours. The first of our two bills was heard in committee after session was over and it passed out extremely easily.
Thursday morning started early with a committee hearing for the other bill I was lobbying. It passed out of the committee very easily as well and was sent to the floor. I attended another committee hearing as well and then the House went into session at 12. The House was only in session until 1:30 though, something that seemed to upset some of the legislators who felt that they had wasted their time by staying in Springfield for Thursday while not accomplishing much while they were in session. I understand that legislators want to head home but they are nearing the end of session and there is still so much to do. I spent the rest of the day going through committee hearings for the next week and determining what hearings would be of interest to the office. Friday was another quiet day in the Capitol.
Monday the 19th started off with a staff meeting to discuss what the week would look like for the office. Our debt settlement legislation that passed out of the House several weeks ago had now moved into the Senate and the committee hearing for the bill was on Thursday morning. Also, the Treasurer was going to be in Springfield to testify on Wednesday in front of the Senate appropriations committee. After the staff meeting, John met with Brittany and myself about lobbying members of the appropriations committee prior to Wednesday's hearing. It probably shouldn't be called lobbying, as we were not asking the legislators to vote for something but rather we wanted to see if legislators had any questions we could answer prior to the hearing and to make sure that some really unexpected question would come up during the hearing. Brittany and I divided up the members of the committee to speak with.
Tuesday started with me running by all of the Senators' offices who were on my list to speak with about the appropriations hearing. I dropped off a fact sheet with all of the secretaries and left instructions for them to get a hold of me should the legislator want to meet with questions. Some of the secretaries told me up front that the Senator does not hold meetings prior to appropriations hearings, which was something I was expecting. Appropriations hearings are significantly different that regular committee hearings. The House and Senate both went into session around noon, but the House did not stay in long and began committees at 2. I went to the House agriculture committee and then chose to attend a Senate education hearing later that afternoon because it had multiple controversial bills scheduled to be heard. After hearing debate on several bills I left the office around 5:30.
Wednesday was a very busy day in the Capitol. All employees within the building had recieved emails earlier in the week warning of the expected delays/road closures that would accompany a lobby day being held. 12,00-15,000 union workers were expected to be in and around the Capitol to encourage lawmakers to institute a tax increase. I planned for the worse, getting to work over 30 minutes early to avoid any road closures, but the whole day wasn't as crazy as I had expected. While there was a definite increase in the number of people around the area, inside the Capitol only became congested for about half and hour around 1:00. Protesters marched around the building and then as many as could fit came inside the building, but left after a brief time. If I had really needed to get somewhere in the building during that time it would have been extremely difficult, but the House was in session so I was in my office listening anyway. It became extremely noisy during that time as well, but it wasn't anything that wasn't manageable for a short period of time. Wednesday also happened to be Cheesecake Day in the Treasurer's office. From what I am told, this is a much anticipated yearly tradition that started while Judy Baar Topinka held the office and the current treasurer carried it over as well. All legislators and staff members are invited to come get a piece of cake in the Treasurer's main office. The 1,200 pieces of cheesecake are donated (though I'm not sure from where) and served by the Treasurer's office staff. Because the legislative division has it's own separate office, we did not see how many people came to get cheesecake in the main office, but there was very little left after the day was over. After all of the excitement of cheesecake day (and people really do get excited about it- I've heard people saying they always look forward to this day of the year) the Treasurer still had to testify in front of the appropriations committee. Because I did not get to hear his testimony in front of the House committee, I wanted to attend the Senate hearing. Besides it starting 30 minutes late, it went very smoothly. One Senator asked a lot of questions about one particular program but the Treasurer finished everything in 20 minutes.
Thursday morning was spent in the Senate Financial Institutions committee, which would hear the Debt Settlement bill. The committee started before 10 and lasted until 11:30. The Senators had a lot of questions about the tricky issue to both the propents and the lobbyists against the bill. A citizen also testified about her horrible experience while using a debt settlement company. Fortunately, it passed out by a vote of 9-1-1. It will likely be coming back to the committee with an amendment to change a few minor things, but it is a good sign that it came out of the committee by such a wide margin. The House started at 12 so then it was time to listen to debate again. Both the Senate and the House worked until about 5:30 and then it was time to quit for the night.
The Senate and the House were back on Friday for session at 10. The House stayed until about 1:30 and passed a lot of bills, but most of them were non-controversial. After the House left I went through committees scheduled for the following week, my normal Friday chore.
Tuesday involved more running around to legislators' offices in an attempt to speak with them about one of our bills. Fortunately, the two bills I was lobbying were non-controversial and all the legislators I met were very supportive of the legislation. I also met with the legislator of my home district to ask him to sign on as a sponsor of one of our bills. He is not a member of the committee it will be in, but the bill stemmed from a sitution in his district so it seemed fitting to have him as a sponsor. He readily agreed, and because I had previously spoke with a Senator about signing onto the bill I successfully added both a House and Senate sponsor to the bill. I spoke with Representatives right up until 11 o'clock when they went into session. The House was in Senate almost all afternoon so the rest of my day was spent listening to debate.
I had two more legislators left to speak with Wednesday about bills but they successfully eluded me again. Both their secretaries informed me however that they had taken a look at the sheet I dropped off on Monday and neither had a problem with their respective bill. Again, the House was in session so I listened to that for several hours. The first of our two bills was heard in committee after session was over and it passed out extremely easily.
Thursday morning started early with a committee hearing for the other bill I was lobbying. It passed out of the committee very easily as well and was sent to the floor. I attended another committee hearing as well and then the House went into session at 12. The House was only in session until 1:30 though, something that seemed to upset some of the legislators who felt that they had wasted their time by staying in Springfield for Thursday while not accomplishing much while they were in session. I understand that legislators want to head home but they are nearing the end of session and there is still so much to do. I spent the rest of the day going through committee hearings for the next week and determining what hearings would be of interest to the office. Friday was another quiet day in the Capitol.
Monday the 19th started off with a staff meeting to discuss what the week would look like for the office. Our debt settlement legislation that passed out of the House several weeks ago had now moved into the Senate and the committee hearing for the bill was on Thursday morning. Also, the Treasurer was going to be in Springfield to testify on Wednesday in front of the Senate appropriations committee. After the staff meeting, John met with Brittany and myself about lobbying members of the appropriations committee prior to Wednesday's hearing. It probably shouldn't be called lobbying, as we were not asking the legislators to vote for something but rather we wanted to see if legislators had any questions we could answer prior to the hearing and to make sure that some really unexpected question would come up during the hearing. Brittany and I divided up the members of the committee to speak with.
Tuesday started with me running by all of the Senators' offices who were on my list to speak with about the appropriations hearing. I dropped off a fact sheet with all of the secretaries and left instructions for them to get a hold of me should the legislator want to meet with questions. Some of the secretaries told me up front that the Senator does not hold meetings prior to appropriations hearings, which was something I was expecting. Appropriations hearings are significantly different that regular committee hearings. The House and Senate both went into session around noon, but the House did not stay in long and began committees at 2. I went to the House agriculture committee and then chose to attend a Senate education hearing later that afternoon because it had multiple controversial bills scheduled to be heard. After hearing debate on several bills I left the office around 5:30.
Wednesday was a very busy day in the Capitol. All employees within the building had recieved emails earlier in the week warning of the expected delays/road closures that would accompany a lobby day being held. 12,00-15,000 union workers were expected to be in and around the Capitol to encourage lawmakers to institute a tax increase. I planned for the worse, getting to work over 30 minutes early to avoid any road closures, but the whole day wasn't as crazy as I had expected. While there was a definite increase in the number of people around the area, inside the Capitol only became congested for about half and hour around 1:00. Protesters marched around the building and then as many as could fit came inside the building, but left after a brief time. If I had really needed to get somewhere in the building during that time it would have been extremely difficult, but the House was in session so I was in my office listening anyway. It became extremely noisy during that time as well, but it wasn't anything that wasn't manageable for a short period of time. Wednesday also happened to be Cheesecake Day in the Treasurer's office. From what I am told, this is a much anticipated yearly tradition that started while Judy Baar Topinka held the office and the current treasurer carried it over as well. All legislators and staff members are invited to come get a piece of cake in the Treasurer's main office. The 1,200 pieces of cheesecake are donated (though I'm not sure from where) and served by the Treasurer's office staff. Because the legislative division has it's own separate office, we did not see how many people came to get cheesecake in the main office, but there was very little left after the day was over. After all of the excitement of cheesecake day (and people really do get excited about it- I've heard people saying they always look forward to this day of the year) the Treasurer still had to testify in front of the appropriations committee. Because I did not get to hear his testimony in front of the House committee, I wanted to attend the Senate hearing. Besides it starting 30 minutes late, it went very smoothly. One Senator asked a lot of questions about one particular program but the Treasurer finished everything in 20 minutes.
Thursday morning was spent in the Senate Financial Institutions committee, which would hear the Debt Settlement bill. The committee started before 10 and lasted until 11:30. The Senators had a lot of questions about the tricky issue to both the propents and the lobbyists against the bill. A citizen also testified about her horrible experience while using a debt settlement company. Fortunately, it passed out by a vote of 9-1-1. It will likely be coming back to the committee with an amendment to change a few minor things, but it is a good sign that it came out of the committee by such a wide margin. The House started at 12 so then it was time to listen to debate again. Both the Senate and the House worked until about 5:30 and then it was time to quit for the night.
The Senate and the House were back on Friday for session at 10. The House stayed until about 1:30 and passed a lot of bills, but most of them were non-controversial. After the House left I went through committees scheduled for the following week, my normal Friday chore.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Sara Cline- April 24, 2010
I forgot to blog last week, so sorry this update is coming late. I don't have much to report on from the last week, however, because I was only in the office Monday-Wednesday (I went back to Champaign for one last undergraduate moms' weekend!) During that time, I worked a lot on the schedule for the Greek visits.. we ended up getting about 430+ meetings, which is great!
I got back into town on Sunday evening, and started working bright and early on Monday. I started Monday at a hotel in VA (the hotel the 100 Greek students were staying at) where I helped with the student training. In case you haven't read my previous posts, I'll briefly describe the purpose of the Greek visits before going into the details from this past week. My boss represents the NIC and NPC (umbrella organizations for many fraternities and sororities), and organizes a Greek lobbying day each spring where Greek students as well as members of fraternity and sorority executive boards come to DC to lobby Congress on Greek issues. Apparently Greeks have needed representation in DC for awhile- starting with making sure that they were able to stay single-sex organizations (something that was threatened Title IX). The main concern of Greeks right now is trying to get Congress to pass the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act, legislation which would make donations to not-for-profit non-University housing (fraternities, sororities, Hillel, Newman, Evans Scholars, etc.) tax-deductible (which it isn't now because of a tax code glitch).
Going back to the activities of this week, the Greeks came to DC on Saturday and started training on Sunday. Since I was out of town, I was not there, but know they spent the majority of the day learning about the legislation and how to lobby effectively. When I met up with the group on Monday, we continued with training and I worked on scheduling more meetings for the group.
On Tuesday, the students went around to Congressional offices to speak with members and staff about the issue, and try to gain co-sponsors. Before the visits started, we were at 185 co-sponsors in the House and 29 in the Senate. On Tuesday I went to ten different offices to discuss CHIA (and was lucky enough to talk to a few actual members- Jesse Jackson Jr, Danny Davis and Kathy Castor). In the meeting with Congressman Jackson, we talked about the legislation, and he saw our point of view immediately and said he would be on the bill by the end of the day. We had a meeting with a number of former sponsors (the bill has been around since 2003, and each time a new session of Congress begins, the bill has to be reintroduced and everything starts from scratch with 0 co-sponsors). Based on my meetings, I think that two or three former members I met with will sign back on. As of today, we unofficially have (not all of these have been reported on the Thomas website yet) 205 co-sponsors in the house. We are trying to get up to 218 in the House, so that we have a majority of the members as co-sponsors.
After the meetings on Tuesday, we had a reception for all of the students and alums who participated in the visits, followed by a dinner event for the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee. The PAC funds a bipartisan slate of candidates who are either Greek, support Greek legislation, or have influential positions on the House Ways and Means Committee or the Senate Finance Committee (the bill sits in those two committees in the respective chambers). The PAC dinner was amazing! There were 28 members of Congress (14 Republicans, 14 Democrats) at the dinner. From talking with other people in DC I have found out that this is one of the only times so many members from both parties are at a fundraising event together. Almost all of the members who attended spoke to the group on their positions in Congress as well as their Greek experiences. Unlike meeting with members in their offices, things were very relaxed at this event. At one point the Sigma Chi members of Congress (accompanied by their undergraduate brothers) got up on stage to sing the Sigma Chi sweetheart song. I am so lucky that I was able to help organize and attend this event. Kevin, my boss, was the man who came up with the idea for the Fraternity and Sorority PAC (which is as large as many Fortune 500 PACs) and the reason that so many members of Congress attend the dinner. He is an amazing boss who has accomplished so much, and someone I am very lucky to be working for and learning from.
On Wednesday, I attended the PAC board meeting, where the members of the board decided which candidates they would fund for this election cycle (based on a memo I wrote for the group, but largely orchestrated by Kevin). The group talked about each candidate listed, and decided how much to authorize Kevin to give (on behalf of the group) for the various candidates. They discussed how much support candidates had given to the Greek cause in the past, as well as other factors including which committees they are on and whether or not they would have a "real race." It was extremely fascinating to watch because Kevin seems to know everything about every single candidate and can give important information on most members at the blink of an eye. I feel that without his leadership, the group would be picking candidates "willy-nilly" based on "well I like him or I like her" but without any real guidelines.
Wednesday afternoon I attended a meeting that was supposed to by with my member, Pete Roskam, but he had to go to a meeting so I met with staff. Pete is already a co-sponsor of CHIA, so I talked with his staffer (fellow U of I grad) about options for moving the bill forward and how the Congressman can become a "champion".
Thursday and Friday were spent doing follow up on the visits, and catching up on all of the emails I had missed because I was out of the office for so long. An interesting project I am working on right now is showing how CHIA will stimulate the economy. Senator Landreiu is one of our CHIA champions, and she suggested coming up with a way to demonstrate the jobs that will be created. We already have a list of projects at universities that are ready to go once the funding is there (which we are assuming will come once CHIA is passed), so I am in the process of making a map of the United States that marks off each city (about 140 cities total) where jobs will be created once the projects begin.
Next Wednesday will be my last day, and I have very mixed feelings about leaving. I am getting a little home-sick and want to see my family and friends, however am having a hard time with the idea of leaving. I think CHIA will have 218 co-sponsors in the House very soon, but most likely not while I am in DC (in the last Congress CHIA got to 210 co-sponsors). I feel weird about leaving with work that seems unfinished. However, a new group of interns are about to come in, and I know will do a great job following up with offices and getting CHIA to 218 in the House. Clearly I want CHIA to get to 218, become attached to another piece of legislation and get through the House and Senate and become law, but I wish it were going to happen while I were still in DC actively working on the project.
Next week will be a whirlwind of trying to get as much accomplished as possible before I leave. Hopefully I'll be able to report even more co-sponsors for CHIA, and what will be happening with the project after I leave as well as give everyone a general summary of this internship experience.
After that point, I'll be taking a month off of blogging. I'm going back to campus and will stay there until graduation (unlike the rest of the CLPers, I have yet to graduate). I won't start my next internship (with the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council- a group that represents the hospitals of Chicago) until June, so will not be blogging until then. Hope everyone else is enjoying their internship as much as I am!
I got back into town on Sunday evening, and started working bright and early on Monday. I started Monday at a hotel in VA (the hotel the 100 Greek students were staying at) where I helped with the student training. In case you haven't read my previous posts, I'll briefly describe the purpose of the Greek visits before going into the details from this past week. My boss represents the NIC and NPC (umbrella organizations for many fraternities and sororities), and organizes a Greek lobbying day each spring where Greek students as well as members of fraternity and sorority executive boards come to DC to lobby Congress on Greek issues. Apparently Greeks have needed representation in DC for awhile- starting with making sure that they were able to stay single-sex organizations (something that was threatened Title IX). The main concern of Greeks right now is trying to get Congress to pass the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act, legislation which would make donations to not-for-profit non-University housing (fraternities, sororities, Hillel, Newman, Evans Scholars, etc.) tax-deductible (which it isn't now because of a tax code glitch).
Going back to the activities of this week, the Greeks came to DC on Saturday and started training on Sunday. Since I was out of town, I was not there, but know they spent the majority of the day learning about the legislation and how to lobby effectively. When I met up with the group on Monday, we continued with training and I worked on scheduling more meetings for the group.
On Tuesday, the students went around to Congressional offices to speak with members and staff about the issue, and try to gain co-sponsors. Before the visits started, we were at 185 co-sponsors in the House and 29 in the Senate. On Tuesday I went to ten different offices to discuss CHIA (and was lucky enough to talk to a few actual members- Jesse Jackson Jr, Danny Davis and Kathy Castor). In the meeting with Congressman Jackson, we talked about the legislation, and he saw our point of view immediately and said he would be on the bill by the end of the day. We had a meeting with a number of former sponsors (the bill has been around since 2003, and each time a new session of Congress begins, the bill has to be reintroduced and everything starts from scratch with 0 co-sponsors). Based on my meetings, I think that two or three former members I met with will sign back on. As of today, we unofficially have (not all of these have been reported on the Thomas website yet) 205 co-sponsors in the house. We are trying to get up to 218 in the House, so that we have a majority of the members as co-sponsors.
After the meetings on Tuesday, we had a reception for all of the students and alums who participated in the visits, followed by a dinner event for the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee. The PAC funds a bipartisan slate of candidates who are either Greek, support Greek legislation, or have influential positions on the House Ways and Means Committee or the Senate Finance Committee (the bill sits in those two committees in the respective chambers). The PAC dinner was amazing! There were 28 members of Congress (14 Republicans, 14 Democrats) at the dinner. From talking with other people in DC I have found out that this is one of the only times so many members from both parties are at a fundraising event together. Almost all of the members who attended spoke to the group on their positions in Congress as well as their Greek experiences. Unlike meeting with members in their offices, things were very relaxed at this event. At one point the Sigma Chi members of Congress (accompanied by their undergraduate brothers) got up on stage to sing the Sigma Chi sweetheart song. I am so lucky that I was able to help organize and attend this event. Kevin, my boss, was the man who came up with the idea for the Fraternity and Sorority PAC (which is as large as many Fortune 500 PACs) and the reason that so many members of Congress attend the dinner. He is an amazing boss who has accomplished so much, and someone I am very lucky to be working for and learning from.
On Wednesday, I attended the PAC board meeting, where the members of the board decided which candidates they would fund for this election cycle (based on a memo I wrote for the group, but largely orchestrated by Kevin). The group talked about each candidate listed, and decided how much to authorize Kevin to give (on behalf of the group) for the various candidates. They discussed how much support candidates had given to the Greek cause in the past, as well as other factors including which committees they are on and whether or not they would have a "real race." It was extremely fascinating to watch because Kevin seems to know everything about every single candidate and can give important information on most members at the blink of an eye. I feel that without his leadership, the group would be picking candidates "willy-nilly" based on "well I like him or I like her" but without any real guidelines.
Wednesday afternoon I attended a meeting that was supposed to by with my member, Pete Roskam, but he had to go to a meeting so I met with staff. Pete is already a co-sponsor of CHIA, so I talked with his staffer (fellow U of I grad) about options for moving the bill forward and how the Congressman can become a "champion".
Thursday and Friday were spent doing follow up on the visits, and catching up on all of the emails I had missed because I was out of the office for so long. An interesting project I am working on right now is showing how CHIA will stimulate the economy. Senator Landreiu is one of our CHIA champions, and she suggested coming up with a way to demonstrate the jobs that will be created. We already have a list of projects at universities that are ready to go once the funding is there (which we are assuming will come once CHIA is passed), so I am in the process of making a map of the United States that marks off each city (about 140 cities total) where jobs will be created once the projects begin.
Next Wednesday will be my last day, and I have very mixed feelings about leaving. I am getting a little home-sick and want to see my family and friends, however am having a hard time with the idea of leaving. I think CHIA will have 218 co-sponsors in the House very soon, but most likely not while I am in DC (in the last Congress CHIA got to 210 co-sponsors). I feel weird about leaving with work that seems unfinished. However, a new group of interns are about to come in, and I know will do a great job following up with offices and getting CHIA to 218 in the House. Clearly I want CHIA to get to 218, become attached to another piece of legislation and get through the House and Senate and become law, but I wish it were going to happen while I were still in DC actively working on the project.
Next week will be a whirlwind of trying to get as much accomplished as possible before I leave. Hopefully I'll be able to report even more co-sponsors for CHIA, and what will be happening with the project after I leave as well as give everyone a general summary of this internship experience.
After that point, I'll be taking a month off of blogging. I'm going back to campus and will stay there until graduation (unlike the rest of the CLPers, I have yet to graduate). I won't start my next internship (with the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council- a group that represents the hospitals of Chicago) until June, so will not be blogging until then. Hope everyone else is enjoying their internship as much as I am!
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