Winding Down

There is not much time remaining in my internship. Tomorrow (Friday) will be my last day and I'm having an odd sensation of almost being at the end. Today (again) was pretty slow. Most of the mail was covered for the time being and the phones were for the large part not ringing. While we did have a few phone calls, it was nothing like it has been.

With all of the attention now focused outside of Washington, back in Member's Districts, I'm seeing a much different side of the office's function. For instance today we learned that the Congressman has not scheduled any town hall meetings. This does not mean that he is 'hiding' or anything like that, it just means that he has no town hall meetings scheduled, something that is completely natural. Of late there has been a lot of attention in the media about Member's holding town hall meetings during this August recess. So rather than quickly try to schedule a town hall meeting, the Congressman is going to invite Constituents, with a wide range of perspectives, to come meet with him in his offices back in the 3rd District.

I was also working on background research for some constituent letters that aren't among the front line issues of this session. It reminded me about my first couple of weeks at the internship where I was just starting to get to know the ropes and learn how to access some of the resources exclusively for Congressional members and staffers. I also recalled the different periods of time where new or out of the ordinary issues would arise throughout my internship that I had to go and read up on. It's funny how I'm still using the same tools, and realize that I probably will be utilizing tools like CRS and LIS throughout my college years and maybe in my future profession (who knows what profession though =)).

I now realize that I have really started to enjoy following different pieces of legislation. I've found it sort of odd to see the number of Co-signers of H.R. 1207 grow continuously, the one piece of legislation that seems positioned to have long-term longevity. All I can say is that I hope I can continue to be an active contributor and participant in public service to my government, and I want to try to stay as well as informed on the issues as I possibly can.