United States House of Representatives Page
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The United States House of Representatives Page Program is a program run by the United States House of Representatives in which appointed high school juniors act as partisan federal employees in the House of Representatives, providing supplemental administrative support to House operations in varying capacities in Washington, D.C. at the United States Capitol. Some page responsibilities in the House include transporting legislative documents between Congressional offices, delivering new bills and amendments to the House floor and performing non-specialized clerical duties for various House offices, both partisan and non-partisan. Pages are nominated by representatives based on a highly-competitive application process.
Selection
Pages serve in one of four terms: a five-month fall semester (September-January), a five-month spring semester (February-June), or one of two three-to-four week summer sessions. Those selected to serve during the summer period may serve either the summer directly before or directly after their junior year of high school. After completing one session, pages may be eligible for the subsequent session, based upon merit and space. Prospective House pages are nominated by a representative or delegate (pages have come from all 50 U.S. states as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.)A page may be nominated by any representative, regardless of party affiliation or district; there are minimum GPA requirements for appointment. Candidates serve must be at least 16 years of age at the time of service and must serve during either their junior year or during the summer immediately before or after the junior year. Candidates are required to submit high school transcripts as well as information about extracurricular activities and other criteria, as well as an essay and three letters of recommendation. (Individual representatives may require a candidate to provide more information). Final selections are made by the Speaker of the House (for applicants to representatives of the majority party) and the House Minority Leader (for applicants to representatives of the minority party). Both the Speaker and the Minority Leader appoint a handful of the nominated pages themselves.
It is a general rule that only one nominee is permitted per representative, except for party leadership (although during the 104th Congress, Duke Cunningham successfully lobbied for their joint appointment of twin sisters from Encinitas, California and Gene Taylor successfully lobbied for the appointment of three pages from the Gulf Coast during the 109th Congress after Hurricane Katrina).
Under current guidelines, each grouping of pages, typically referred to as a "class," consist of between 60 and 80 students (the current number is 66). Fall and spring classes tend to have between 60 and 70 pages, while summer session classes are larger, being between 70 and 80 pages. Thus, not every representative can nominate a page.
Distribution of pages slots are 2:1 in the favor of the majority party in the House. However, each party rarely fills all their slots for the school year terms, leaving the minority page service more shorthanded. During the school year, in rare cases, the parties have allowed "cross-aisle" assignments, whereby a small number of majority appointees are allowed to drift across to the minority side for several week stints to better balance the distribution of pages.
Service
House Pages wear uniforms during school and while at work in the Capitol. Appointees are required to provide their own uniform, which consists of a navy blazers, white dress shirts, gray slacks for males and gray skirts for females and black shoes. The Office of the Clerk provides a tie for both males and females.The Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms provides each page with a standard-issue U.S. Capitol identification card, which allows the pages access to secure areas of the Capitol complex, including the floor of the House chamber and H-401, the House Intelligence Committee.
House Pages currently reside at the Page Residence Hall (PRH), a recently purchased and renovated convent on Capitol Hill at 501 First Street Southeast. (Before its construction, pages lived at the now-demolished O'Neill House Office Building (also known as House Annex One, and before that, at the homes of their sponsors). The residence hall resembles a university dormitory, with shared sleeping accommodations (separate floors for males and females) and common areas for social activities.
There are four proctors and an assistant director and a director. A part-time tutor is made available to assist pages with their studies in the evening. Study hall is open Monday through Friday, typically from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. Grades for each subject are reaccessed weekly and if a page is below an 80 percent in a course, he is required to attend study hall for one hour Monday through Thursday. If a page is deficient in two courses, they must stay two hours. (The third hour is optional.)
When not at school or at work, Pages are given great liberty with their free time. Pages are subject to a curfew (10:00 p.m. during the week and 12:00 midnight during the weekend), must travel with at least one fellow page, and are expected to maintain high moral bearings. However, given their ages, relative independence and minimal supervision, infractions do occur and often may result in dismissal from the program. Regarding transit, while Pages are not permitted to bring personal vehicles with them to the District of Columbia, Pages have access to the Washington Area Metropolitan Transit Authority's modes of public transportation, including the Washington Metro system. Additionally, pages are permitted to hire taxicabs (at their own cost) for transportation (although for reasons of safety, this practice is unofficially discouraged by the PRH staff).
Almost every other Saturday and all Sundays, Pages are free from school or work obligations, unless emergency situations arise. Most spend their time working on school assignments, touring the many attractions in the DC area or simply relaxing from a long week's work. For holidays, Pages return home for Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Year and spring breaks; the dormitory is closed during these periods.
A student representative body takes form in the Page Activity Committee (PAC). PAC is responsible for organizing various social functions and fundraising events. However, the Committee has no governing authority (in terms of regulatory or disciplinary matters), and despite attempts from numerous Page classes to quasi-unionize, it does not serve as a petitioning body for the Page group to redress grievances with the Office of the Clerk or its subordinate groups.
House pages serving during the school year attend the House Page School, located on the fourth floor of the Jefferson Building in the Library of Congress. The school is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Pages attend five 40-minute classes:
Each week day, Pages take breakfast in the Page Residence Hall and proceed to the House Page School, with classes beginning at precisely 6:45AM. Class length varies from 25 to 50 minutes, depending upon the daily schedule of the House of Representatives. Pages are usually dismissed from school an hour prior to when the House convenes. If the House does not convene, or not before noon, school ends at 11:30. Pages attend all classes for 50 minutes with five minutes passing time and a 15 minute break. If the House convenes at 10:00 am, Pages are dismissed at 9:00 from school. They still attend all five classes, but for only 25 minutes with no passing time. If the House convenes at 9:00 am, Pages are dismissed from school at 8:00. Such a school day is generally spent on a school-wide activity, though all five classes may be attended for roughly 12 minutes with no passing time.
Pages are also required to participate in Washington Seminars. This program, run by the House Page School, is usually every other Saturday and the Pages visit to sites in or around Washington. Trips are followed by an activity or reflective journal entry. Occasionally, quizzes may be administered or extra credit offered. An exam is given at the end of the semester for course credit.
Additionally, Pages are graded for a course called Washington Work/Study. The curriculum is based around research projects, outings around Washington during school hours, and performance at work. This is also subject to quizzes and exams for course credit.
Clubs and groups may be formed if a Page has the imagination to found one. Examples of previous clubs have included the "Pennsylvania Club" founded by all of the pages hailing from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the 2003-2004 school year Page Class, and the Literary-Magazine club which is formed some school years to produce a magazine of the class's literary works.
Work
Officially termed the "Washington Work Study" or "WWS" (formerly known as the Washington Interdisciplinary Studies Program, or "WISP"), the page's work life revolves around the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Officially a division of the Office of the Clerk, the US House Page Program exists primarily to provide supplement support to various House offices. Two full-time, adult employees of the Office of the Clerk serve as "Chief Pages;" although some holders of this position self-titled themselves as "Page Supervisors" to avoid misidentification. Partisan employees, there is one Republican and one Democrat, to direct the day-to-day operations of the page groups and provide front-line adult supervision. Additionally, the Office of the Clerk employs a Page Coordinator to coordinate all aspects of page life, school, work, and dormitory and handle administrative responsibilities.For work purposes, pages are divided into two groups, Republican and Democratic, based upon the party affiliation of their sponsoring Member (rarely, as mentioned above, some majority appointees may volunteer to the minority side). On both sides of the aisle, the vast majority of pages are based on the Floor of the House and serve as "Runners." These runners are dispatched to various House offices to transport various documents by "Overseer" Pages. The Overseer Pages are responsible for ensuring that all inbound call requests are met as quickly as possible and that the workload is distributed as even as possible among the runners. A fair number of dispatches involve the runners going to Congressional offices to bring proposed legislation (termed a "bill") to the "Hopper" (a repository box on the rostrum on the Floor) for official submission to the Clerk of the House. Often, much to the humor of the oftime more knowledgeable pages, college-educated, yet naive Congressional aides will address the envelope containing the bill to "Mr. William Hopper." Other correspondence may go to the respective Cloakrooms or other offices in the Capitol Complex. In addition, United States of America flags that are to be flown over the Capitol are often delivered by Pages to the Architect of the Capitol's Flag Office.
Currently, Republican Overseers are assigned for the semester, while Democratic Pages rotate each day as Overseer or "Desk." Since the Republicans are currently in the majority, rotating overseers each day would be impractical. However, the Democrats currently have a small enough group that everyone has a turn every week or so.
Flags of the United States of America that have been flown over the Capitol are sorted by party and House Office Building and put in closets by employees of the Architect of the Capitol. Each day three Pages (occasionally four) sort their party's flags from building into sequential order by room and floor. After all the flags have been returned to the member's office from whence it came, pages may leave work. Currently, Democratic Pages may leave after all of the "flag pages" are done with their deliveries. Republicans may leave only after 1:00 p.m. AND all of the "flag pages" must be finished with their duties. Popularly known as flag days, each runner is rotated to this duty regularly. These half days allow runners to go back to the PRH and sleep, do their laundry, do homework, hangout, and leave the dorm without a buddy--provided that they stay within about a mile radius and return by 4:30 p.m.. Currently, Democratic Pages work as a flag page once a week and Republican pages once every two weeks.
Majority Page runners also rotate as "Floor Pages." There are three Floor pages each day and currently, they receive a flags on the following day. Floor Pages deliver copies of the Congressional Record around the Capitol and deliver other correspondence within the Capitol. They also deliver correspondence from the Clerk's Office staff seated at the Rostrum to their counterparts in the basement Office of Legislative Operations. They also respond to page requests by members on the Floor who use the Page Call buttons that every two chairs share. The Minority Pages currently use their rotating overseer or "Desk" pages as Floor pages, since the Clerk's staff like to occasionally use the Democratic Pages in order to give the Republicans a rest.
On a voluntary basis, Majority Page runners may serve as Voting Pages for a day. They go down to the Tally Clerk's section of the Office of the Legislative Operations in the basement. They print the final results of any vote or quorum call that uses the electronic recording devices and delivers copies of the results to several offices in the Capitol. There are two voting pages to allow for one to make copies while the other prints the results for the next vote.
On a voluntary basis, Majority Page runners may serve as Statement Pages for a day. Two pages do the job: one serves as Majority Statement Page, one serves as Minority Statement Page. Each Page sits on their respective side of the Floor about six rows back from the well. After a member speaks from the Leadership Tables or the Well on his/her side of the Chamber, a statement page will pursue the member and recover any prepared remarks the member had written before he spoke. The Page then delivers it to the Congressional Record Clerks. While Congressional Record stenographers take down all proceedings, copies of prepared remarks aid the Congressional Record staff in increasing their accuracy.
On a voluntary basis, Majority Page runners rotate as an Annex II Page for one day in the Ford House Office Building (Annex II). While there are enough pages that every Page would only have to go once a month, many go more often than that. Assigned in same-sex pairs, females and males switch off each day. They serve in the House Document Room, where many copies of each bill filed by a member that session is kept on file. Annex II Pages typically go together for a lunch at a local food joint (McDonald's is quite popular) and spend the day stuffing envelopes with three copies of a bill. Each member that sponsors or co-sponsors a bill receive three copies. After stuffing is done, many Annex II Pages sleep or find other ways to amuse themselves. Annex II Pages typically leave at 4:15 p.m. and arrive on the Floor to go home by 4:30 p.m..
Typically, runner pages are released from duty at 4:30 p.m. each week day that the House is not in session. However, should the House remain in session into the night for continued debate and/or votes, each Page Service typically retains three runner pages until the House finishes legislative business. Statement Pages stay as long as deliberations continue and voting pages serve until legislative business has concluded. Runners hat will not be working late are dismissed at 5:30 p.m. on late nights if they are Republican; Democrats are released at 5:15.
Long-term Page jobs
Additionally, there exists several long-term posts to which noteworthy pages may be assigned.
Speaker's Pages
Speaker's Pages are two majority party pages which serve solely the Office of the Speaker. Based at the Speaker's Office on the second floor of the Capitol, Speaker's Pages act to supplement the Speaker's staff. From preparing beverages and snacks for the Speaker and his official guests to helping to compose internal memoranda, Speaker's Pages have direct access to the highest echelons of the House leadership. These pages fall under the de facto supervision of the Administrative Office of the Office of the Speaker. In the current Speaker's Office (under J. Dennis Hastert), one Speaker's Page serves on the second floor, answering the more private telphone line that typically is dialed for the Speaker and his senior staff. That page also stocks the fridges in the offices on the second floor, keeps the community kitchen clean, and otherwise does miscellaneous tasks for the senior staff. His/her counterpart works on the fourth or Attic floor in the Administrative Office. He/she helps answer the more public line and deal with member staff inquiries. The Page also sends faxes and sorts any that the office receives. He/she delivers the mail and newspapers (traditional newspapers and internet news services) to the entire office. This Page usually works in concert with an intern. He/she also stocks the Attic and third floor fridges and cares for the attic kitchen. The pages are responsible for the storage room and making sure there is an adequate supply of soft drinks, coffee, tea, assorted coffee accessories, and office supplies. There is typically one male and female Speaker's page and they switch their duites each week. Speaker Pages stay as long as the staff requires them to do so. Typically, the page working in the attic leaves between 5 and 6 p.m.. The page working downstairs typically leaves between 6 and 7 p.m..
Documentarian Pages
Documentarians (or Documentarian Pages, "Docs") are perhaps the two most visible pages. Seated to the stage-left of the rostrum, these Pages have several important responsibilities. When the House gavels into session, the Documentarians are responsible for raising the US flag on the roof of the south wing of the Capitol, officially notifying the public that the House is in session. At the close of the day, when the House adjourns, they return to the roof and lower the flag. Additionally, they are responsible for activating the bell system which rings throughout the House-side of the Capitol complex, notifying Representatives that the House is in session or that there is a vote. Also, they provide assistance to the various clerks and congressional parliamentarians seated at the rostrum, as well as the Speaker Pro Tempore. Although highly independent, these Pages fall under the de facto supervision of the Timekeeper (Clerk to the Parliamentarian). There are typically four "Docs," two males and two females, that work in pairs. Docs work the longest hours of any pages. They work until the House adjourns, which is usually at midnight. They must be present during Special Orders, a time when a member may speak for one hour on any subject. Special Orders are conducted after the day's legislative business has ended and typically last until midnight. During Special Orders, one Doc helps cover the Majority Cloakroom phones while the other provides water to the rostrum and helps set up posters.
Cloakroom Pages
Each Page service has Cloakroom Pages (or "cloakies") that provide direct assistance to Congressmen when on the floor and assist the cloakroom staff. The most important requirement for serving in one of the cloakrooms is the memorizing of all Members of that political party. Cloakroom Pages go on the Floor to notify Members of phone calls awaiting them in cloakroom phonebooths and to convey messages between Congressmen. Additionally, Cloakroom Pages help maintain official cloakroom records of daily proceedings, including bills before the House for debate and votes. These pages fall under the de facto supervision of the managers of the respective cloakrooms. Currently, the majority Republican Cloakroom has six cloakroom pages and the minority Democrats have four or five. The Republican Cloakies generally serve for an entire semester, though it has been known to swtich out half its complement about halfway through the semester. The Democratic Cloakies generally serve shorter stints in the cloakroom: usuually two or three serve as the long-term backbone and the others serve shorter terms. Cloakroom pages are dismissed when legislative business concludes, although two minority Cloakies typically stay to man the phones for the first hour or so of Special Orders.
Compensation
For their average of 40 hours of work per week, Pages are compensated $17,600 per annum, from which are deducted federal and local (based upon the individual page's permanent residence) taxes and room and board fees.
Notable Pages
- William B. Cushing, naval hero of the American Civil War
- Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.)
External links
See also
- United States Senate Page
- Canadian House of Commons Page Program
- Congressional Page sex scandal
- Boys/Girls State
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