The Cupertino Courier

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Working in Congress was a memorable experience

By Erin Hussey

For the past 180 years, young adults have had the opportunity to get a first-hand look at how the U.S. House of Representatives operates by working as a congressional page.

Carson Ure, who will be a senior this fall at Cupertino High School, is one of them.

"When I first heard about the program, I thought to myself, 'I can't believe you get paid to do this.' I would do it for free or even pay to do it," Ure says.

Ure, who has always had an interest in politics, learned about the program from a friend at church. After some research, he decided it would be a great opportunity.

"When I found out that my district congressman wasn't nominating, I filled out a bunch of applications for different congressmen throughout the state," says Ure.

In order to become a page, students must be nominated by any representative, regardless of party affiliation or district, have a high grade point average, three letters of recommendation and an impressive list of activities.

The program is highly competitive and only accepts some 60 to 80 students each semester.

"I spent a lot of time after school every day calling different congressmen," Ure says.

In late August, U.S. Rep. Mary Bono nominated Ure. On Sept. 3, he was appointed by then Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert.

"I was born in D.C., but I only lived there for two years, so I didn't really remember anything," Ure says.

As a page, Ure's primary responsibility was providing supplemental administrative support to House operations.

"We're still primarily messengers," he explains.

Despite the introduction of e-mail and Blackberries, many important documents are still required to have original signatures. Pages help in this process by carrying documents between the offices of representatives and senators, committees and the Library of Congress.

''We have other duties as well, such as delivering flags, working in the cloakroom, serving as floor assistants and other special assignments."

In addition to their work, for which they get paid $18,817 annually, pages are required to attend the House Page School.

"We have two different kinds of days: an in-session day and an out-of-session day,'' Ure says.

On both days, the pages wake up around 5:30 a.m., eat breakfast in their dorm building and then walk to the Thomas Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress, where their classes start precisely at 6:45 a.m.

"If it's an in-session day, we go to school until an hour before Congress goes into session, so usually at 9 a.m. But on the non-session days, we go to school until 11:30 a.m.''

The pages take five honors courses, all of which are accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and meet the curriculum requirements for students in their junior year in high school.

"There are two mandatory classes: Government and Politics, which has kind of a unique perspective because of being here, and Washington Seminar, which is a chance for us to get out and get acquainted with all the cultural attractions of D.C.," says Ure.

Although extremely busy with work and studying, the pages do have some free time. Ure says he enjoyed playing Frisbee on the mall, visiting museums and eating at the various exotic restaurants on Du Pointe Circle.

"You really grow close to your roommates and the other pages," he says. "They are really like family because you spend all of your waking time with them."

The day before their Christmas break, Ure was asked to serve a second semester, a request that is somewhat uncommon.

"Especially because of the majority change, there were fewer spots to reappoint pages," he says.

The number of pages per semester is determined by at 2:1 ratio in favor of the majority party. "The Republican page staff got cut in half,'' Ure says.

He remembers that election night vividly.

"The pages on both sides had our own separate little election parties. We sat riveted to the TV screen as we watched each race result come in. When the Republicans lost, we were pretty sad; we had a couple of people who cried."

Looking back on his page experience, Ure says it was an enlightening learning experience that he would do again if he could.

"During the State of the Union we got to sit on the floor while the President gave his address," Ure remembers.

Ure says he hopes to one day run for Congress.

"When President Bush came in, we got to shake his hand, and that is something I definitely won't forget."