The duty of the U.S. House of Representatives

For this blog, I would like to explain a little about the United States House of Representatives and further explain what they do and what I did for them.

The United States House of Representatives has the responsibility of representing the citizens of the United States of America. Every two years, national elections occur in predetermined districts or boundaries to determine who will represent the individuals who live in the district that the candidates are seeking to represent. There are 435 members of the House and Arizona currently holds 9 seats. Of those nine, 5 are held by Democrats and 4 by Republicans. Representative Salmon is a member of the Republican Party and he serves the cities, in full and in partial, of Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler, Queen Creek, and Apache Junction.

As you can see by the amount of cities just listed, our Representatives have a lot on their plate. To best serve the people, the Representative receives a budget to carry out his or her duties. To assist in those duties, Representative Salmon hired a Chief of Staff who oversees all staff and political activity, a deputy Chief of Staff who oversees all public policy, a communications director who oversees all media inquiries, a legislative correspondent who oversees constituent representative, two legislative affairs coordinators who stay up to date on assigned political issues, an executive assistant who maintains the Congressman’s schedule, a staff assistant who oversees all front office procedures, and them clerical assistants like myself who do nothing more than assist everyone in the office. I know this seems like a lot of staff members but keep in mind that there are nearly 1 million people in each district and over 30 active political issues currently being discussed at the Capitol building.

As a clerical assistant, my responsibilities varied from assisting staff's response to constituent requests for information, providing staff with information at their request, assisting staff with meetings, providing assistance in communicating with the public and members of the media, researching and responding to constituents' requests for information, consistently and clearly explaining the Congressman's policies, carefully identifying whether and how the Congressman disagrees with a given policy, being prepared each day to be politically astute and sensitive to requests by staff members or constituents that have the potential for controversy; clerical work – receive, sort, and file correspondence mail and phone logs, update and process complex records, perform research, work on legislative House bills and resolutions in conjunction with the Chief of Staff, perform constituent case work, answer phones, and perform data entry on excel.