Mizzou students learn about the inner workings of government through Congressional internships
When junior Maggie Funston was sitting on Kuhlman Court last spring, listening to the debate for a Missing and Murdered African American Women Task Force that her boss, state Sen. Angela Mosley, D-St. Louis, authored, she thought she prepared for every potential challenge. A part of her job was preparing the senator for any arguments against the bill. Yet, her extensive research couldn’t have prepared her for the response from Sen. Mike Moon who asked, “What defines a woman?”
Mosley’s bill did pass, and Funston played a role in its passage. Yet, an unexpected situation was not unique to that day of debate. Many monumental events happened in politics this year: An assassination attempt was made on former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. A handful of MU students witnessed history firsthand while working as interns in the Missouri General Assembly in Jefferson City and on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Most interns started their days answering phones and responding to emails. Junior Parker Ezell, who worked for U.S Rep. Mark Alford, R-MO and Rep. Jason Smith, R-MO, said he was surprised by how often constituents’ responses were taken into consideration.
“Congressman Alford would come to sit and ask if he could look at our computers and read through the constituents’ concerns,” Ezell said. “It’s not just thrown away in the trash or pushed to the side.”
State government interns had a similar role. First-year student Jacob Schelp has been a legislative assistant in Jefferson City for two years. He has received a wide variety of calls. Sometimes they aren’t so nice. He said that over the phone, there is a level of anonymity where anyone can say anything.
“I’ve gotten crazy calls that I never was expected to hear, and I get calls that are just people needing help,” Schelp said. “I think one time I was on the phone with someone for probably 45 minutes to an hour, trying to help them solve their dilemma.”. “Being a resource for your constituents … can be really impactful.”
Although most interns started their day with the same tasks, no day ever looked exactly alike. Senior Zeb Howell also worked for Smith who was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. When Paris Hilton testified to the committee in June, Howell was in the hearing and got to see her up close.
“Working in Ways and Means was a very unique experience,” Howell said. “It covered everything from tax policy to social care. “I got to see Paris Hilton actually when she came and spoke. So that was not every day you get to see Paris Hilton on Capitol Hill, but it really gave us more insight into policy, and how that committee works.”
Junior Caleb Simpson, who worked for Alford and U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-MO, said he had an unexpected experience when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Congress and the Capitol was shut down because of it.
“We actually got released from work as interns,” Simpson said. “We were told we couldn’t go onto the Hill, couldn’t take meetings, or be in the office. The Hill effectively shut down that day. You never think of your workplace becoming the site of a public demonstration. I never would have thought in a million years that that would have happened.”
Another unique part of working in the legislature is being aware of decisions before they are made public.
“It’s really cool to be able to see an article pop up and you’re like, oh yeah, that’s old news. I knew that yesterday,” Schelp said.
When the average voter turns on the news, they hear about gridlock and partisan fighting. However, Howell said that Congress doesn’t look exactly like how it does on the news.
“The government does a lot more than what we think and give them credit for,” Howell said.
“There’s good people in the government, and there are people that want to do good work, and I think they can get kind of outshined by everything on the news and from what people say.”
Senior Andrew Buxton, who interned for the House Ways and Means Committee majority staff, said that before his time in Washington, he thought that committee hearings were just what he saw on TV. As an intern, he spent a lot of time preparing for hearings.
“There’s weeks and months of planning that goes into every one of those, from gathering witnesses to forming the members’ questions to the hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents that all have to be at the all the members’ disposals,” Buxton said.
According to Simpson, even the party fighting seen on TV and social media is exaggerated. Lawmakers from both parties still work together on many issues. He saw bipartisan support for many different bills and said that the offices he worked for had good relationships with Republicans, Democrats and Independents.
“It was hard for me to imagine some of the news stories that I was seeing. It makes it out to be much more dramatic than it is in reality,” Simpson said. “With the way that our government is set up right now, you can’t pass a bill without bipartisan support. So of course, there’s going to be collaboration on nearly every issue.”
For Funston, the internship taught her how to work with politicians with different views and positions than her.
“Especially in a very red state like Missouri … being in a blue office you have to work with people across the aisle. So that was a really valuable skill set, to just be patient and to be able to compromise, but also to be firm in your beliefs,” Funston said.
Politicians on the Hill don’t just collaborate on legislation. Buxton witnessed many friendly bipartisan interactions.
“The members, no matter their political affiliation, have much better relations than you think,” Buxton said. “A lot of them from opposite sides of the aisle often send each other birthday presents, say hi to each other, and do bipartisan workout groups together. You’d be surprised at how friendly they are with each other when they’re not on TV.”
Although Congress sits in the heart of Washington, D.C., represents over 300 million people and decides important nationwide legislation, it’s also just a workplace. For Ezell, one of the most unexpected experiences of his job was how frequently he saw famous politicians.
“A lot of times in running errands I would walk past Congresswoman Maxine Waters from California, and Congresswoman Omar from Minnesota, just like it was a normal thing. They wouldn’t have security around them or anything,” Ezell said. “I saw Speaker Mike Johnson walking in the hall with a Diet Coke in his hand and he maybe had one aide with him. These people I’m used to seeing all over the news, they’re just normal people doing their jobs.”
In seeing so many important people and researching all kinds of bills, Howell said the job could be intimidating at times.
“You’re very excited because it’s your first internship and there’s very powerful people. It’s easy to get run over and steamrolled,” Howell said.
Simpson didn’t even consider working in Washington a year ago. He applied thinking he would work for the district office.
“I didn’t realize until I was actually in the interview that the gentleman interviewing me was from the D.C. office, and that’s where I was potentially going to be placed. That just opened up a whole new world for me,” Simpson said. “You don’t realize those opportunities are there. If I could give some encouragement to anyone else, it’d be to look into those opportunities and not discount yourself because I really didn’t even consider D.C. as an opportunity, because I didn’t know that I could survive it, and lo and behold, we made it.”
Although the interns worked long hours, kept up with crazy events and dealt with gridlock, they said they came out with a positive experience. Funston said she can apply it to her future career in government.
“There’s so much going on all the time, so many people involved, so many different issues that are brought up on the floor every day,” Funston said. “Being there forces you to be informed about all kinds of topics and understand where constituents are coming from, with different viewpoints on big-picture issues. That is really valuable to what I want to do in the future.”
As a political science and public administration and policy major, Howell is applying his Capitol Hill experience to his academics.
“Being here back at Mizzou, [the internship] kind of affected how I’m learning in some of my classes. Now I can think about the actual aspects of lawmaking,” Howell said.
Ezell loved his experience working in Congress so much that he hopes to return after graduation.
“I always had an idea when I graduated college, I wanted to work in D.C., on Capitol Hill,” Ezell said. “But I was kind of worried that I would get there, not enjoy it, and have to rethink my life. But it reinforced it more than I could have imagined. I still lay in bed and I just miss D.C.”
Edited by Maya Dawson | mdawson@themaneater.com
Copyedited by Emma Harper and Natalie Kientzy | nkientzy@themaneater.com
Edited by Emilia Hansen | ehansen@themaneater.com
Edited by Annie Goodykoontz | agoodykoontz@themaneater.com