Ask a Hill Staffer returns this week with a needed break from immigration and the farm bill. We asked you to throw him curve ball questions, and you delivered.
Question: Future spouse wants to go from the private sector to the hill and thinks the huge pay cut will be do-able, but I’m worried about the stability of the job and time they will put in for the little they will get out. If our plans are to leave DC in the next 5 years, is hill experience worth it? Or is it better to get a great high ranking private sector job and getting the paycheck that comes with it? — Longing for Stability
This is the most irrational decision I have heard lately. Unless your future spouse plans on running for office immediately after leaving D.C., this decision is terrible.
It makes way more sense to get a job that will help transition him/her to your move out. The Hill doesn’t provide that. You are right — and tell them I said so.
I suggest you nix the “future” in “future spouse” and find somebody else. This isn’t the last terrible decision this person will make.
Question: I got a job on the Hill for a member who isn’t from my “home-state” and it throws me a bone. I come from one state and have always been a resident of that state, am I supposed to change my driver’s license and voter registration now that I don’t have a connection to my home-state? — Home-State Blues
Yes. Unless you work for a member of your home state and reside in the District, you have about two months to change your driver’s license to wherever you’re living.
People I know (nearly all Democrats who like voting illegally back home where it can count more) often tell me “residency is about intent.” Fuck that. I don’t want to go on a Clintonian mind meld over what the definition of “is” is. The same people who support the so-called “Marketplace Fairness Act” because — wait for it — it’s about fairness don’t even have the decency to pay state taxes in their new state.
How fair is that? It’s not, and they’re frauds and crooks.
Bottom line: Change your shit. It sucks to lose your old driver’s license, but I know enough people who have been caught and it’s not worth the time, money, hassle, or (potential) court appearance.
Sic Semper Tyrannis!
Question: Hi, So I want to intern for a relatively new Senator, but I have never really had much work experience. I am a mentor/academic adviser for first year students at my college during the fall, and besides minimal volunteer work thats about it, so my question is given the responsibilities of an intern, would the work eat me alive? From everything I’ve read, I gather it is a lot of phone answering, mailing, and errand running, so with proper training could I handle it or no? Thanks!!
Wow, no offense, but that’s all you’ve done? No paper route? Real minimum wage job? If so, you’re perfect for interning.
Will a triple major in International Studies, Finance, and Queer Studies qualify you to be an intern for a rookie Senator? No. Having a tongue and an ear will, though.
I am afraid you’ve watched too many episodes of the West Wing. Interns don’t do shit, and the shit they actually do isn’t very hard.
Good luck.
Question: Have you ever snuck a drum set up to the speakers balcony during a raging thunderstorm and performed a freaking ripping-ass free concert for the American people, while a chorus of silent kung fu monks who accompany you with triangles and other percussion instruments stand below on the capitol steps ready to drop what they’re doing and pounce on the first onlooker to utter a stupid joke about whether this was being funded by taxpayers? Have you ever done that? — B. Ferguson
You have put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you? I’d prefer to do this from the Dole balcony on the superior side of the building.
Plus, Mitch McConnell loves concerts.
So i have a serious question to ask, who is/was your favorite politician and why? Do you believe in bipartisanship. — Intern
Without giving away the identities of my former bosses, I’d have to say Jimmy T… The gentleman from Ohio, Jim Traficant.
Beam me up.
Jimmy T was corrupt, sure. He was also a little too hostile for my liking to Israel, and his views on the trade deficit suggest he never took any economics courses. But he was fun to watch.
These days we have Gohmert, Bachmann, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Hank Johnson to entertain us, but combine them and they still aren’t anything like the great Jimmy T.
Do I believe in bipartisanship? Well, it depends. People of different parties often have similar views on things. A midwest democrat might agree with a southern republican on guns. Or on farm subsidies. If that’s considered bipartisanship, then yes, I believe it exists and we have it.
If you mean “why won’t those obstructionist rethuglicans just agree with us on raising taxes on everyone except those who don’t pay them and regulate the banks and wall street out of existence so all we have left are credit unions” then no, we don’t have that. I don’t believe that is bipartisanship, and I don’t believe it will ever exist.
Seriously though, hilarious extremes aside, the parties have legitimate differences on policy, and sometimes compromise can happen. Other times, it can’t. It doesn’t mean one party or the other should be blamed for having legitimate differences and sticking to their principles. It’s proof the system is working.
People forget the system was designed for gridlock. Sadly, the 17th Amendment (what’s that you ask?) basically has erased from the minds of voters the design of Congress and turned the Senate into something more like a retirement home for House members.
In my years as a staffer, I have come to loathe the “do something” people. Do you really want Congress to continually “do something” to “fix” whatever thing you or some interest group thinks is a problem?
Beam me up.
I realize you’re an intern, and you haven’t been around long, but the more you pay attention, the sooner you’ll realize that it’s probably better when Congress doesn’t do something … because when they get together, go bi-partisan and all, we get something shitty.
Like the farm bill.
Are you single? Asking for a friend. — Anonymous
I am not, and never will be again. Sorry, ladies — I’m happily off the market forever.
Seriously though, tell your friend to go find a normal person far far removed from this terrible place. She’ll be happier that she did.
Dating within the incest pool of hill staffers is a bad idea. Marrying co-workers is an idea that is even worse. And yes, I’m looking at you, Grassley office. ಠ_ಠ
The post Ask a Hill Staffer – Future Spouse, DC License and More – June 20 appeared first on ClotureClub.com.
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