The chief of staff is in charge of the running of the office; managing staff, budgets, strategizing with the Member, and (on their own time, of course) assisting with campaign fundraising. A letter of recommendation from a chief of staff is very, very valuable, but not if you didn't actually do anything that she noticed. So if you want to cash in, you need to be sure to make a good impression.
On the legislative side, most offices have a legislative director (known as the LD), who manages the legislative staff, tracks legislative floor and committee activity, and may do some long-term strategizing with the Member of Congress to define and achieve legislative priorities. When I was a legislative director I also supervised interns and gave them assignments. Other staff include legislative assistants, who are assigned to particular committees or issues, and a press secretary, whose job is to keep her boss in the news (particularly the local news), so long as the news is good. Press secretaries field lots of calls from the media, schedule press conferences, and write press releases. If your particular interest is media, getting assigned to a press secretary would be a great introduction.
In addition to the people in the office, you never know who you may meet as you staff the front desk or carry out your other duties. Lobbyists, activists, analysts—they all spend lots of time in the front offices of Members of Congress. You never know where a little friendly conversation may lead.
What You'll Get
While interns are not likely to spend a great deal of time directly with the Member of Congress (this came as a surprise to some of the interns I supervised when I was an LD), it is possible in this sort of position to be very close to the day-to-day action. Interns will gain a thorough understanding of the legislative process, the roles of each member of the staff, and the work of a Member of Congress. Internships are also now the first rung in the ladder of congressional employment; having had a congressional internship makes you a strong candidate for an entry-level position in a congressional office.
INTERNING IN THE SENATE
GOOD BOOKS AND WEBSITES
The Most Exclusive Club: A History of the Modern United States Senate by Lewis L. Gould (2006)
Where You'll Be
The Capitol Complex is kind of like a sandwich; on one side you have the House buildings, in the middle is the Capitol itself, and on the other side, running along Constitution Avenue (and a bit to the north), are the Senate Office Buildings. The Russell building, completed in 1908, is nearest the Capitol. The Dirksen Senate Office Building was the second of three office buildings constructed for the United States Senate. Located northeast of the Capitol on a site bounded by Constitution Avenue, C Street, First Street, and Second Street N.E., it adjoins the more modern looking Hart Senate Office Building. Like most things about the Senate, the buildings on the Senate side are more glamorous and grand than the House buildings. Remember that in the House, each of the 435 Members represents a little over 600,000 people; in the Senate, most of the 100 Senators represent millions each. While there are states with populations the size of a congressional district (North Dakota, Vermont, Delaware), think of states the size of California (population 36 million) or Texas (23 million). As a result, offices in the Senate are larger than in the House, with staffs of as many as forty, depending on the size of their staffing budget, which is based on the population of the state the Senator represents.
During the summer, a Senate office will generally have three to seven interns, though some offices find room for as many as ten, and often they run two six-week sessions to give more students the opportunity to intern. The physical size of the office, which dictates how many staff and interns a Senator can house, depends somewhat on the Senator's seniority, which building she is in, and the population of the State they represent. Offices in Russell are smaller than those in Hart or Dirksen and may be divided among several floors.
As in the House, you are most likely to find an internship with one of the two Senators from your home state, though committee offices are always worth a try. Also look at the websites for the leadership offices; there are very few internship positions available in these but it can't hurt to ask.
What You'll Do
All interns will be expected to help the staff assistants in answering phones, sorting and sometimes responding to constituent mail, and conducting tours of the Capitol for constituents. As an example of the funny things interns are sometimes asked to do, you might be asked to save a field on the National Mall (the national park area that runs from the Congress, past the White House, up to the Lincoln Memorial) for office softball games. If an intern is particularly interested in press issues, he may become the special intern of the press office. This person will be expected to arrive around 7:30 A.M. to search for articles that mention the Senator and send out a staff email. Occasionally, a legislative assistant might ask an intern to conduct research on a new or developing issue area, draft talking points, or attend hearings. Depending on the office, there may be special projects that interns work on over the course of the internship. Liz Conroy describes the intern project in Senator Bob Casey's office:
Interns who get to know and really work well with their legislative mentors can bring new ideas to the table. We ask our interns over the course of their internship to come up with a bill and what we really said was, this is not just a chance for you to come out of this internship with a writing sample, which is always good, but if there's a great idea you come up with we will work with you to see if that's something our office can do. As a freshman office we are constantly looking to define ourselves and figure out unique ways for the Senator to get involved in issues and prioritize his agenda and sometimes unique ideas from interns get the ball rolling.
The People You'll Meet
Like the House, there are pretty clear divisions between people who keep the office running smoothly and handle the more political end of things (the chief of staff, schedulers, front office staff) and legislative staff (i.e., legislative assistants and the director). You'll also have staff handling constituent concerns (i.e., legislative correspondents) and the press office. What these people do is mostly similar to what people do on the House side, just bigger. There are more staff doing these jobs, there are more constituents, more issues, more visitors—you get the idea. Also, probably because there are more staff to go around, staff on the Senate side are more likely to be specialists. On the House side, you'll typically have three legislative assistants; Members typically get two committee assignments, so two of those LAs will get a committee each, plus a few other issues to cover when they come to the full House for votes. The third LA covers everything that's left. On the Senate side, you'll have multiple staff assigned to each committee, and because of the more demanding schedule a Senator has, staff tend to do much more of the legwork before the Senator gets involved.
What You'll Get
As in the House, interns will likely gain a thorough understanding of the roles of each member of the staff and the busy life of a Senator. Liz Conroy in Senator Casey's office describes the ebb and flow of a summer internship on the Senate side: “Summer is great because there's a mix of recess time and heavy in-session time so they get to see everything from the drive and subsequent release when we finally get to recess. They'll see heavy mail and call in campaigns from interest groups and so they get to see how advocacy works from inside a Senate office and then in recess