Utah State Legislature Reflection

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Working at the Utah State Legislature during its incredibly busy yet brief 45-day session was an experience unlike any other in my life, and likely unlike anything I will ever experience again. The interns began two weeks before the session officially started, attending a week-long orientation and then essentially working ‘on call’ for anything our assigned legislator needed us to do. The general legislative session began on January 22, and from that point onward the work schedule of each intern depended heavily on their legislator. The first week at the Capitol was spent on training and orientation. The interns met and mingled, which was essential as having a good working relationship with the other interns proved to make much of the work …show more content…

The first, and probably smallest, change was the fact that his office was moved the day before the session started. Most House members have offices in the 0 or 1 floor in the House building, but House leadership get offices on the 3rd floor of the Capitol itself, and Committee Chairs get offices on the 4th floor. This became a good thing for me as only a few yards separated Representative Barlow’s office from the House Gallery, and only a single flight of stairs separated it from the House Floor, which made running errands to and from the office rather …show more content…

Overall, it made for a very busy first half of the session. The internship experience varies widely depending on the intern and their legislator. There were some interns who seemed to spend the entire session down in the intern room, working on everything from mailing out letters to researching school districts. There were other interns who were not given much to do by their legislator, so they did what they could to stay busy by helping other interns who had maybe too much work. Then there were the interns who spent the bulk of their time with their legislator, this seemed to be the case for most of the senate interns, and this was also the case for

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