Wednesday, June 28th
Washington, DC

The wakeup call came early this morning. We were up and running at 6:30am. It is Capital Hill day. I went with SPS on this trip last year. It was enjoyable but exhausting. After getting dropped off at the Capital by the BYB (big yellow bus) we began the day’s activities. After going through security we assembled in the office of Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist (R) of Tennessee. Mr. Frist spent about 40 minutes with the kids. He spoke about how he came to be a Senator. How he left his job as a surgeon, assembled his team to run for office, how he came to be Senate Majority leader, etc. We then met with Senator Evan Bayh. He discussed how he came to run for office. The Senator also answered the questions from the students relating to campaign finance reform, the 95% success rate of incumbents running for reelection, and the every widening gap between Republicans and Democrats in Washington and how that affects the work of the Senate. The students then met with the individual representatives in the Congress and the Senate. They had to schedule these meeting themselves and 90% of them got time with their elected official beyond merely a photo shoot. They were all over the Capital area in the different office buildings of the Senate and House of Representatives. We easily walked over three miles today, in business attire. After the meetings we took a tour of the Library of Congress.

At dinner that evening the students dined with about six different young Capital Hill staffers and law clerks. They were nice enough to come and eat with the kids. All of them were in the middle twenties and had worked on a campaign or two and were no working their way up the political ladder in different offices of the our elected officials. Some of them were clerking for different levels of our court system. The students enjoyed their time with these people. I really believe that they got more applicable career and life advice form this activity than they did with the elected officials. They people were younger and much like the students themselves and their advice was more applicable.