Answering For Steve

Working in Representative Cohen’s office has been an adventure. It has been an interesting experience to see what happens in the office of a Congressman. I did not know before what types of issues they were actually supposed to deal with outside of legislation in the House. The goal is to serve as a representative or advocate for the citizens in his district with other branches of the government, such as the Department of Defense and the Social Security Administration. The people in the office are directly responsible to constituents and are in charge of different areas.

There is no money making objective with regards to the office as a whole. The most obvious pay off of good work for constituents is the reelection of the Congressman. However, he does not do most of the leg work. Randy Wade is the District Director and essentially serves in the place of the Congressman when he is in Washington. This includes appearances at ceremonies and events as well as meeting with other District Directors and local officials to help resolve any issues that arise. The other representatives in the office also sometimes directly interact with the constituent base outside of the office in their specific areas of expertise.

The office runs fairly smoothly, however there are certainly road blocks to the effectiveness of our office. There are lots of hoops that need to be jumped through and only specific areas that we can help with. Often times we are referring people to their state legislator or another representative member of the government. Another issue is the volume of calls. Once people realize that their congressman is there to help with issues closer to home, lots of people call in with issues of all types and levels of importance looking for assistance. This makes it harder for some of the representatives to get to all of the people looking for their help. The inability to help everyone for whatever reason puts some pressure on the interns but certainly teaches us to deal with a variety of different people on several levels. Overall, it has been a beneficial experience so far and I look forward to continuing this semester.