Paging

One day in February, my dad mentioned to me that if I wanted to become a page in Congress, I should look into it now. I did, and have since sent in my applications to three different congressional offices: both New Jersey Senators, and Rep. Jim Saxton.

There are basically four different programs, one for each party in each chamber. I applied to one GOP in the House, Saxton, and two Democratic Senators.

The House program, for either party, is really organized and straightforward. Congressmen are invited to nominate an applicant. The applications of their nominees are forwarded to either the Speaker's office or the Minority Leader's office. The Speaker/Minority Leader then decides which 72 of the 250+ nominees will get to serve as pages for each session.

In the Senate, each office can pick their most qualified candidates, but then they basically just push for their candidates in a free-for-all. One staffer I spoke to told me that's the reason that seniority is so important (yay Senator Lautenberg!).

There are four possible sessions to serve as a page: two semester-long school-year sessions, and two summer sessions, one in June and one in July.

My school is weird, and getting on my nerves. No transfer credits are accepted. So, if I went to one of the school-year sessions, I would have to go back to my town high school afterwards. That would suck. So, I only applied for the summer. Now, since I live in New Jersey, I don't actually get out of school until June 24-ish. So that left me with one session to apply to.

Granted, I didn't even know there were summer sessions, so I thought that there was no way I would be able to serve at all. But it still kind of sucks that I can't do the full semester program, which everyone online seems to agree is a better experience.

My applications were sent in on time (barely) for the April 1 deadline that most of the offices have. Rep. Saxton's office told me that the deadline for forwarding their nomination to the Minority Leader was April 14. I spoke to them after that date and was told that they had already forwarded the nomination but weren't going to tell me whether I had been nominated.

On Friday, I read on a message board for prospective and former pages that the Democrats in the House had already made their selections. Their deadline for nominations was April 9. So, in theory, I could know whether I was accepted into the house program THIS WEEK. Which, oddly, is actually what the staffer in Saxton's office told me.

The Senate staffer I spoke to said that the Senate would probably make their decisions by early to mid-May, since Summer I starts in early June.

All of a sudden, possible disappointment looms.