We all know that School House Rock’s version of how a bill becomes a law is no longer the whole truth. Now, policies often pass because they’re tacked on to a must-pass piece of legislation, a budget, or a reconciliation bill.
So what does that mean for staffers? How do they do their jobs effectively if they now need to work a different process than what they learned in elementary school?
For that, I spoke with Jason Smith, a veteran Senate staffer who has worked for Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington State, and Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
We talked before he took a job with Sen. Fetterman, so when he talks in the interview about how much he loved working in the Senate, know that he was a few weeks away from returning to it.
An edited transcript of the interview is below.
Jason Smith
Chris, it's a it's a real pleasure. I appreciate you having me. And I'm happy to be here.
Chris Oates
Well, let's just start off, how did you get involved in the political world?
Jason Smith
It was a little bit of a strange story. So I'm originally from New Jersey, and my parents were not political people. But I was always interested in politics and policy, even at the local level. So you know, in, in high school, I was volunteering with my local Democratic Party to do poll watching. In college, I was on the local planning board because I thought land use policy was really interesting. And after I graduated from law school, that while in college, I interned in the Senate office of John Corzine, who would later become governor of New Jersey.
But following law school, I was already to start my career as a real lawyer and my best friend who we actually went to college with called me and said, hey, there is a Senate campaign going on in Alaska. Do you want to go on an adventure? We need a lawyer. We need someone who can do research. And I said, Sure. And I took a break. I told the firm that I was going to go work for that. I needed to push back and they said, Sure. And I went up to Alaska, and I started working for the Democrat in a three way race.
And I knew we were going to lose the whole time. But we got to experience firsthand what a real Senate campaign is, and there, I met Senator Begich he was a Democrat from Alaska, at the time, and it was not his race, but I met him and a bunch of his staff and said, Wow, I really like these people. They're not what you might think of a stereotypical political people. They have heart, they have a soul, and they care about actual Alaskans. I think I want to do this. For real I, you know, I think I want to go work in the Senate.
And, you know, we lost the race to Senator Murkowski. But I told Senator Begich and his people, Hey, if you ever have an opportunity, if you ever have an opening that might be suitable for me, let me know.
Two years later, his chief of staff called me and he said, you know, we have this job on the steering committee that I think you might be interested in. I said, Great, I'll take it. And he said to me, well, don't you want to know what it is? Or how much money it is? And I said, well, I need to get my foot in the door. I like you people. I trust you. out, you know, I'm sure I can figure it out.
Chris Oates
2010 was not a good year for Democrats, and also Murkowski got a lot of Democratic votes. What is it like to work on a campaign where you know there's almost no chance of victory? Or is that just in hindsight at the time, you always think there's a, there's a fighter's chance?
Jason Smith
So this, this campaign was actually very bespoke, in the sense that I'm not sure there's anything really comparable. And here's the reason why, when I agreed to do the campaign, it was going to be we thought, my candidate Scott McAdams, great guy, Scott McAdams, and really somebody who became a great candidate who has an incredible skills and knowledge. But he had never run statewide. And, you know, he was sort of put up there as the Democrat who would take on Senator Murkowski. But, you know, she's very popular and is an institution in the state. And so when I signed on, I said, Okay, this guy probably doesn't have a chance against Lisa Murkowski. But, you know, I, let's, let's have this experience.
After I accepted Senator Murkowski lost her primary to Tea Party Joe Miller.
When she lost to him immediately, we said, oh wait, we could win this race. Because even though Alaska is in many ways a conservative state, this is extremism. You know, there was involvement with Militia and separatists and all sorts of strange things.
Now, maybe it was a week after she lost her primary, Senator Murkowski said that she was getting into back into the race, running third party running as a write in. And she was able to do that with the backing of this is the first election first federal election after the Citizens United decision. And she was able to run her write in candidacy because there was a group of corporations that came together to create a group called Alaskan Standing Together, and they funded it for several million dollars.
And she had by far the best resourced campaign in the field. I've never seen a campaign. She was everywhere, she was on the air on the billboards, they had handouts with her name on it, they had bracelets, they had all sorts of stuff, they were paying for snow machines to take people to the polling places out in the villages.
So when that started, you know, the hope died? Because I said, Wow, but the X factor was this is a write in campaign, how could you win this as a right and somebody has to bubble in and write in Lisa or Lisa Murkowski or something like that. So we actually had litigation that went up to the Alaska State Supreme Court, it was the whole thing was wild. But in the end, we did come in third in a three way race.
In terms of one part of your question about, on was this a try out was this sort of like a, an interview, you know, one of the the important parts in politics, whether it's on what we call the official side, so actually in a senator House office, or on the campaign side, is that you need to see people operate under pressure to really understand who they are and what their capabilities are. And, and, you know, for any given job that is open, like we had a job, we had jobs in Senator Murray's office that were lower level jobs, that you get 400 resumes for single openings. And how do you? How do you possibly come to good decision making with that sort of volume of people? Right, it's, it's, the odds are worse than getting into Yale Law School, or Harvard.
And so actually, being in the trenches with someone goes a long way toward letting you know about their real performance. And that is, that is part of politics that I think it's important that people don't the people don't get confused about, which is, yeah, there are there's a certain style of politics and a certain part of national politics, where it's the same people moving around, sort of, you see this, you see the same names over and over again, and you say, oh, no, like, this is the same old, same old, but, and I can't get it doing what a lot of you know, something that a lot of people think is I can't get a job unless I know somebody or less, I'm important. And I didn't know anybody, and I'm not important.
But what you have to do is you have to find ways to show people that hey, I'm not just another one of these people who thinks they want to be on the West Wing or they want to be on some, you know, fictional political show, I want to do the work. And that's that's the importance of performance. So that's a way of distinguishing, like, hey, it's it's not always about pull, you know, or, or things like that.
Chris Oates
I don't have nearly the experience that you have on a campaign, but the one campaign I was on, it was amazing how you get into the office nd within a few days, you're seeing people do stuff that wasn't on the job description, but needed to be done. You just see the people who are happy to do it and happy to pitch in and do what's needed for the campaign for the team. And those who, let's say, are less, less amenable to it.
Jason Smith
Yeah, it's as if you can have a campaign, you know, there's glamorous work, oh, you know, I get to help write a speech for a senator or a candidate. You know, that's, that's glamorous. That's cool.
I'll never forget one day. I was in campaign office for Senator Begich in 2014. And I was writing, I don't know, it's like writing our fish policy or something. And they were about to cut a television ad. And the ad maker decided, Oh, I really want a picnic bench that looks this certain way in this ad, because it looks like this other ad and whatever. And everybody's saying, how do we get this bench?
I said, I'll go find it. You know, we got we have to get this done. I'll go figure it out. You know, give me a truck and two guys, and we'll go figure it out. And we did. There can be no task too small. You know, if, if Senator so and so it was running to a hearing and is like, oh, boy, I could really use a coffee. I'll go get your coffee. You know, that's there's there's no task that has beneath anyone who's really on the job.
Chris Oates
So you're working a legal job, and then you get the call, and you start working for him? And then what was that like when you you first show up in the Senate? Obviously you know a lot about politics. You're a smart person about policy. I'm sure you've read the news, you had your campaign experience. But what was that like, you know, the first week of you now work in the United States Senate.
Jason Smith
It was incredible. It was total sea change. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. I'll never forget my first day was the day after Labor Day, in 2012. And I showed up 830, I walked into the building the Hart Senate building, got my suit on, and I was so excited. I gotta go find out, you know, where my cubicle was. And I went up to the, the seventh floor where the steering committee office was, and the lights were out and the doors were locked.
And I said, Okay, well, it's 830. I guess I'm a little early, but okay. Yeah. So I stood outside the office. 15 minutes goes by 20 minutes goes by half an hour goes by nine 915. I say to myself. Did I screw this up? What am I not understanding here? And at about 930, one of our tech guys walks up and he's wearing jeans and, you know, polo shirt. And he looks at me and he says, so you must be the new guy. Yeah. And he said, Nobody told you it's recess, did they? And I was like, I What? What is that? I don't even know what that means. And he looks at me and he says, so you've never worked on the Hill before, have you? And they said no. And he said, Okay. Recess is when the senators are not here to vote. And we don't wear suits and we certainly are not in the office at 9am.
So I knew that this was a place of where work humility would be very important because there are a lot of things I didn't know.
Chris Oates
And how long before you felt kind of confident in your, your ability to do the job?
Jason Smith
Everybody's different in this, but for me, you know, being a mediocre cisgender, heterosexual white guy, I had a great deal of confidence that I probably shouldn't have that I would be able to do whatever duties that were assigned to me. On the hill, it is truly the case that you are going to use muscles and have to do things that you never really anticipated in a very dynamic environment, with some very unusual personalities, and some unexpected and unpredictable requirements.
So the most important thing is to understand that you will screw things up, you will not know how to do things. And you will have to ask other people who have that experience and who have been through unusual situations for advice. And to take that with humility, and to actually do things about it.
But personally, you know, in the jobs that I've done on the Hill, I would say usually, the first three months are a whirlwind, an absolute feels like you're drinking from the firehose, your head is spinning, there's a never ending list of things to do. And it's madness. And at about the six month mark, you hit your stride. And then, you know, after, you know, after you've been through an entire year, you get used to the cycles and the rhythms, how the appropriations cycle works, how the budget cycle works, when the recesses are, when the the moments in the calendar that are right before the recess where something's going to get jammed in there to make sure that it gets done, how you anticipate whether those are going to be things that you have to work on or somebody else's problem. You pick that up after about a year.
Chris Oates
You mentioned something that I've wanted to get into. And this is something that I find I find fascinating from the outside is that DC is obviously full of smart people. And yet, it seemed in my previous career as an analyst from the outside, you'd see them doing things or acclimatized them think to themselves, these things that are just inherently stupid.
The debt ceiling is the best example. If you're not familiar with the debt ceiling, basically, the US Congress and the President signs the legislation to determine the federal government's revenue in spending, and any greater spending than revenue has to be financed by debt.
But then there's this separate piece of legislation that authorized the Treasury to issue the debt, and it's from 100 years ago, and it was basically an expedient, and there's no reason to have it, it doesn't really affect our spending or our revenue. It's almost like there's this big grenade at the heart of the US economy, that every two years Congress has to vote not to pull the pin out.
And it's the sort of thing where I remember hearing, it was like the plot of a West Wing episode. And you think, oh, that's like something obscure that Aaron Sorkin's researchers found and it's kind of makes a good thing. But there's no reason to have it. It doesn't actually affect policy. It’s not a conservative or a liberal agenda. It's just this weird, like legislative quirk that has hung around for the last 100 years and no one's gotten rid of it.
And yet, I don't see other than recently, one New York Times opinion columnist, and some other academics, people saying like, Hey, this is doesn't accomplish anything other than cause a lot of mess and waste our time? Why don't we just get rid of it?
And I'm thinking of this more from, like an ethnographic perspective of working on the Hill? How was it that you get in there, and something would appear to you. And if it’s your first time you see it or hear it, you’d be like, well, that's a that's a dumb thing to do, we shouldn't do that. It's not a good way of running our government. And yet, it just so quickly becomes an assumption, baked into the system.
Jason Smith
Yeah, no, I, that's a great question. And what I would say is that maybe you've experienced this in academia. Certainly, this is a phenomenon that I witnessed, just as an observer of the financial crisis and the legislative response in terms of Dodd Frank, and other regulatory actions after the financial crisis, which is a lot of people, particularly in, in politics, or in like high level journalism, you know, the New York Times Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, your big institutional journalism, their minds become sort of acclimated to a discourse that is set in a very narrow frame.
It's an echo chamber of talking about a problem all in the same way. And that is cyclical, and it's, it's, you know, an ouroboros, it's just you, it's a chicken or egg, we don't know if we are mired in this problem because of we are only comfortable talking about it in this way. Or, you know, vice versa.
And so, I think in most places, and, you know, on most issues, like the debt ceiling, there's no one person, there's no one committee, there's no one chamber that can determine or lead, or get anything done without the, you know, without the acquiescence of everyone else with respect to the debt ceiling.
So even if you were to come out and say the debt ceiling is unconstitutional, we should get rid of it, the debt ceiling doesn't make sense, we should get rid of it the debt ceiling and XYZ, which, you know, personally, I think that it's true, most politicians aren't going to want to go engage in that part of the debate, because the the mainstream of the conversation is not out there. And you can be too easily tarred as, oh, this person wants to get rid of the debt limit, because they're a reckless spender, or because they believe we should just put it on the quote unquote, credit card, which is the worst metaphor for, you know, the debt limit and the national debt that there is.
So it becomes a question of, is the juice worth the squeeze? Is it worth being prominently out there, saying we should get rid of the debt ceiling when the President has certainly not engaged in any of the more - I don't want to say, the more academic in a pejorative way - but the more academic discussions about does the 14th Amendment make this make the debt limit unconstitutional? Can you mint the platinum coin? If the President is not going to engage on that level, what is the point in house member X or Senator Y engaging on that? You're just really poking your head up to get smacked in the media or on Twitter, for being out there. So it's not really worth it.
Chris Oates
In academia, and I think in the media, but certainly in academia, the incentive structure is to be the leader on a new idea. Every single paper an academic writes, there's usually one term or piece of jargon that they're trying to coin because they will want to be known as like, oh, he was the first person, she was the first person to think of that idea. And I think in probably the media, you want to be counter programming, you want to be standing outside of everyone else. Because that gets you the attention.
I guess what you're saying is that, that is the complete incentive reversal for members of Congress or anyone else. Because if you almost it's almost like you only have so much reputational capital, and you don't want to spend it on something unless it's going to immediately deliver policy, when you could save that for something else.
Jason Smith
That's right. And I think that the concept of reputational capital is a very important one, in terms of both what issues politicians decide to engage on publicly, but more importantly, at least, for the work that I do, what they do legislatively, and how they are able to be or not be successful at a legislative level because it is about gaining capital and spending capital and and helping your colleagues and asking for help and how that process works to ultimately achieve real legislative change that that impacts people's lives.
Chris Oates
People are skipping past the distraction because they really want to pass legislation. How do you do that? Like, let's say you have a policy you really believe would make the country better? How do you that? How do you start strategizing to go from it's in your head, maybe a lot of people agree with you to it is the law of the land
Jason Smith
There's there's not one way to do it. There's not one way it happens. But the there are a couple sort of hallmarks of how to go about the process that position you better for success.
I'll give you an example. In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision which is, in my opinion, one of their historically worst decisions. Democrats came up with the Voting Rights Advancement Act, which was meant to fix the problems identified in the Supreme Court case and restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act.
Now, that bill was written in a way to try to get some bipartisanship out of a hope, by leaders that there were still some Republicans who actually believed in voting rights, because just in 2006, there was an overwhelming vote to reauthorize that bill that almost all the Republicans voted for.
But in the course of writing that Democratic bill, unfortunately, the way that they structured it left out Alaska, which had been covered by the Voting Rights Act, because many Alaska Native communities have limited English proficiency, and they have every right to be able to vote in their own language and understand the choices made for them.
So my boss saw that his state was going to be left out of these important protections, and that his constituents who faced historic discrimination were going to be left out. So we worked with litigators in that community, members of the Alaskan Native community, national voting rights lawyers to figure out how do we write a bill that restores the protections that apply to Native people, not only in Alaska, but across the country. And we came up with the Native Voting Rights Act of 2014, which we introduced, and it's the thing I'm most proud of, during my entire time in the Senate.
And, honestly, we got a lot of pushback, even from within the Democratic Party, even from within the civil rights community. Because, you know, I was told by DC based civil rights leaders that this would distract from the main Democratic bill. And our response was, this isn't about the Democratic bill, or helping it or hurting it, this is about protecting people who need protection. And your bill didn't do it. So ours well. And this was not a pleasing thought to the DC based civil rights community. And we took a lot of flack for it.
But after that Congress after they have realized that there were no Republicans who were going to sign on to help them restore the Voting Rights Act, and they rewrote the Voting Rights Advancement Act into the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Now, the provisions of our bill are in that bill. So now, when we get to the point, that we pass the Voting Rights Act, and it is the John Lewis Act, we will get in those protections for Alaska Native and Indigenous people across the country.
So we haven't gotten success on those measures yet. But we have set up a situation in which it is hard to see that problem being addressed with out the specific solutions that we came up for indigenous people being in it.
Now, to sort of talk differently about most things, you have to attach it to appropriations bills. Because, as we've seen, the legislative process well, I will say the last Congress achieved an incredible amount of bipartisan major, major legislation that I never would have predicted, you know, I never would have thought that they would be able to pull over the line all those major bills from the inflation Reduction Act to the bipartisan infrastructure law, but in the prior years, the legislative process has broken down so badly that essentially the only major bills you're going to pass are appropriations bills.
And in that context, you come up with your idea for what you need what your state needs. And then you have to start going and educating people about it, and talking about it. And that is not only talking to staff about it, but more importantly, you figure out who's writing these bills.
So an appropriations bill is written by the appropriations committee. Certain parts are written by different subcommittees. You need to figure out where the thing you want goes. And then you need to go to whoever runs that subcommittee and explain it to them, and show them why it is meritorious, and explain to them why it's not a waste of time or money and how it fits with the principles that their boss has. And so in that way, you're really not only the idea creator, but then you have to be the hype person for it.
Chris Oates
You're framing this because both when you talk about the voting, indigenous and native voting rights, as well as getting things in appropriations bill, it's not the typical process where we would introduce legislation, it would have a committee hearing, people would ask questions to advocates about it, then there'll be a vote in the committee, and then it would go to the floor, and then would have a vote, which is a very public process. You lobby individual senators or representatives on it, to support it one way or the other. We assume that every legislator is almost an individual unit, where they either say or yes or no, for and against. What you're describing is that you are the advocate for the policy. And the real decision maker, in a sense, is the Appropriations Committee Chairman, who's writing the bill.
I'm not saying that your boss has no power, because obviously you can vote for it. But given that these bills are generally must pass bills, it seems like as soon as it is written and said, it's basically an all or nothing. Let's face it, you're in the majority, this is what your leadership has decided, along with the White House and the House. You're voting for it.
So the real, the real question is, does it get into that appropriations bill in the first place? And that's either yourself or yourself and your boss lobbying that member? So do you think that it's, you know, in a sense, the really the power of in the Senate these days, and I'm sure in the House as well, the power really lies in who gets to decide what is in and out of those must pass bills?
Jason Smith
Yeah, and I think like the normal legislative process, as we conceive of it, as you just mentioned, with a committee markup, hearing markup, and passage in and out to the floor for consideration. I mean, that does still exist, it does happen. And in fact, like there are many bills that have really productive markups. And then they go to the floor, and oftentimes they just pass by unanimous consent at some point, because they're not going to get days on the floor to be considered and amended and so forth.
But ultimately, yes, I mean, when when we're talking about appropriations bills, what I always say is you want to bake the cake early, and then have them have somebody have to decide whether to eat cake or not. Right, rather than haggle over what type of cake we're baking. What also has changed? I mean, as as a structural matter, right. And this is something I think you and I probably had the same history of Congress class in college, right. And they talk about, it was certainly in the House, it's it was, you know, is there a weak speaker or a strong speaker, or the committee chairs really running the show and the speaker is, is trying to stay on top of the committee chairs or to the committee chairs not really matter. And the speaker is making all these decisions, him or herself.
And, you know, with history that has sort of fluctuated in the Senate, I think the Senate has historically been much more defensive, or protective, rather, of the power of the individual senator, right to demand things because of the nature of the institution, requiring unanimous consent to get through so many work items. But, you know, as you see now, with these big omnibus bills that we've seen for the last 10 years, it's sort of like there's, there's a major policy discussion and question over the funding in the bills, you know, did we get more money for for school nutrition? Did we get more money for housing? You know, all those are important things that Democrats want that that, like we have to have to address real problems in our communities.
But then you say, oh, along with that appropriations bill, you know, they tacked on a bill to do X a bill to do you know, the Promesa bill to deal with Puerto Rico, an FAA reauthorization bill, all sorts of things that are not appropriations, but that are bills that must be passed. And so you attach them to the appropriations bill, because that has to pass those those sorts of discussions about which bills are getting in there, which bills are riding along with your appropriations bill?
That certainly is a question for the leadership for the leader. And in that way, there certainly has been, no more power or greater influence attached to the leadership office. If you if you're a member who said, Oh, yeah, you know, I'm in favor of this appropriations bill. But, boy, I really don't like some of the provisions in the FAA authorization bill that you're attaching to this. Are you going to vote against funding the government, because you don't like a provision in the FAA bill? No, I have a hard time believing that anyone could do that. So it really makes it so important. The judgments that the leader is making about what goes in there. And we should also be very clear that with how things have been working over the past several Congresses, where the Leader also has to have a discussion with the Speaker, before those decisions can be made. So you've got bicameral issues, you've got intra caucus issues, you've got bipartisan issues, and it's it's an incredibly difficult, difficult job to do.
Chris Oates
What’s the physical feeling of working in those days leading up to it, when, when you are trying to get all this in?
Jason Smith
It is brutal, it can be it can be brutal, and I will say that the hardest working people and this is not just me kissing up to my the my friends and colleagues who are or were appropriation staffers, but I have never experienced anything like the workload of an appropriation staffer.
In those last days, they will work 20 hours a day. They will be at the Capitol until 2am, sitting in a room with their colleagues from the minority or the majority, Republican, Democrat, House, Senate, haggling, trying to find their way out of thorny problems trying to come to numbers that they can agree on. And truly it is it is physical and mental exhaustion.
They just because also appropriation staffers have to run through and be prepared for any number of scenarios. If, you know, if leader Schumer and Mitch McConnell decide, oh, yeah, we can agree on spending x as our top line number, this is the number that we're going to spend in total on the bill that has to filter down to all the provisions in the bill so that the math works and adds up.
Where are the cuts coming from? Where are the pluses going. And it it truly is a brutal task. I worked on the Russia investigation, Supreme Court nominees and the impeachment for my my boss, and there were days that I would work 18 hours. And I was physically and mentally exhausted, and was absolutely brutal. But at the same time, at least for me, I was in a place doing things that I could never imagine that I would be able to do growing up in Jersey. And I cared about what I was doing, and it mattered.
And so the jobs exhaustion or the frustration, the highs and lows. I felt were some sort of like an honor. At the same time, one of the good things is there is an ebb and flow to the work. And the way to maintain yourself as a staffer, probably even as a member is knowing when you have the time to say, Okay, I'm going to take a half day Friday, right. Or I'm going to work from home. Take a long weekend. I'm going to figure out how to pace myself so that the work is still done as effectively. But I'm not literally burned out to the ground.
Chris Oates
Yeah, yeah. You don't want like, you know, an NFL team to be doing wind sprints every single day. 10 times. You want to you want an offseason. But you're no longer in the Senate. So what does that mean? First of all, what was the decision like to leave a place you clearly loved to work? And what is it like not being there anymore? Is it exciting to do something new? Or do you still miss it? Is it both?
Jason Smith
Oh, I think I'll always miss it. But so after, you know, I've been in the center for about seven and a half years. After the first impeachment, I was truly at a place of exhaustion. I mean, it was a grueling several months. And I also knew that the Senate didn't have much on its calendar for the rest of the year. There was not a lot the Senate had to do. But, and I still believe this to be true. I felt very clearly that the country was in threat under threat, and that Donald Trump and the racism, misogyny, the bigotry that he represents, poses an existential threat to the to the democracy and I thought, okay, I can sit here and keep doing this. Or I can sign up and try to help make sure he doesn't win. So I said, you know, this is probably a good time to step back. Tell, you know, try to get in touch with the Biden campaign and say, Hey, I'm ready to really help however I can to make sure that we don't lose this thing.
I've also done some consulting. The money that is appropriated in these bills in the the large appropriations bills, goes into a million different accounts for different purposes for different programs. And so many of these programs are targeted and written to address real needs out there: poverty, lack of infrastructure, lack of social investment, in some of the most difficult and far flung places to reach in the country, but no one who actually lives there has any idea how to access the money.
So you might say, Oh, we've we've set out $100 million for tribal broadband connectivity programs. But if tribes don't know about the money, or how to get the money to their own community to their own land. Well, we have another problem, right? We, we've, we've won the big fight of getting the resource. But we haven't followed through with getting that resource to the ground. And so part of my work has been telling people and telling organizations, setting up systems for realizing all the investments that they might be eligible for, and how to get that out onto the ground. Which has been a lot of fun and very eye opening, but certainly a very different beast than than working up there in the buildings.
Chris Oates
That’s an amazing, amazing career. I'm jealous, because we went to college together. And I remember I was finishing up my PhD, and I was just here like, oh, Jason works in the Senate now. And then and then you had like seven years, you get to witness all this stuff. It's amazing.
But before you go, I got three questions I we ask at the end of every episode. First, what are the what is politics really like? Is it the West Wing, House of Cards, Veep or Parks and Rec?
Jason Smith
So I confess that I haven't watched a lot of Parks and Rec and my girlfriend has given me a lot of grief for that.
I would say usually it's like Veep. Truly some of the behavior by members and staff you're like, this is a TV show. But most importantly for what I imagined the demographic of your audience is, is I want to very clearly state that none of it is like the West Wing. I think you probably watched the West Wing cover to cover two or three times. Right? Me too. I've watched a lot. And it broke a generation of brains.
That show made people think bad things about one how one should behave in politics, and to what politics actually looks like. I love a Toby rant. I love a Josh rant. Don't get me wrong. But no, not not at all like reality.
Chris Oates
Okay, and what was the one of the best or proudest days you had working in politics?
Jason Smith
I think that so the proudest day of my time in politics was I had spent a couple of months working on this issue that was kind of highly kind of technical.
Long story short, it was a housing program, that allowed some flexibility for local housing authorities to use their money in ways to make sure that folks who were in affordable housing programs got the supports that they needed, so that they could get job development, job training, access to child care, all the sorts of wraparound supports that you need to thrive as a family, and it was a program that was under threat. And we were able to save it.
And one of our constituents came in, who was the head of a housing authority. And he brought with him a hand painted mug, and hand painted little flower vase, and said, and he had his picture in this note, and it was a picture of a mom and her I think she was six or seven year old daughter painting this mug and this vase, and it said, Thank you for saving this program, because it means that we won't have to leave our home. I really like the community that I live in.
And I remember like tearing up and my boss is very touched by this as well. I always think about that day when when there are hard times because it was proof that even the things that you didn't think anybody would ever notice that you worked on. It saved a little girl’s home. What, what is more important than that? What could be more valuable than that? So I always look for those opportunities.
Chris Oates
It's it's the kind of corny story that would be parodied in a show like Veep. But like it’s parodiable because it does happen. And it is real. Ultimately, I think that's why all of us, I assume everyone listening to this, most of us are interested in politics, because it matters. We can watch soap operas, and have it be much more interesting and better looking people on it. We care about politics and the news, because ultimately it's about governing, and it's about people like that.
Final question, What is something you wish you had known that someone had told you when you got started in this
Jason Smith
That's a really good question. You know, I'm Irish Catholic, right? So I was raised to be a little bit jaded and skeptical.
And certainly, I think that outlook served me well, in detecting skullduggery and things like that. But what I would say is, is actually the advice that I give to people who asked me questions about should I go work on the Hill? If you go on work on the Hill, you will be surrounded by extremely hardworking, intelligent people, many of whom are there for the same reason that you are there, which is to help people to solve problems to change lives.
And if you are good to them, they will be good to you. And if you show them respect, and you keep your word to them, they will do that for you. And that is how you can achieve things. You know, the stuff that we read about politics is ugly. It's either horse race, or it's just over the top, partisanship and nastiness and whatever.
But if you actually want to make a difference, if you want to make change in this country, particularly if you are someone who isn't like me, just a white guy, put yourself out there. Go get into the fight, because it matters. It matters who's in the room doing the fighting, it matters that you are there. And a single voice in any room can absolutely change the outcome of what happens in that room and the laws that flow from it. So like it's a tough business. It can be brutal, it can be thankless and unforgiving. But if you care about people, and you get into it, and you do your best, you will never regret having done it.
Chris Oates
Well, that is I think an excellent way to end thank you so much for this and good luck getting money to the people who need it.
Jason Smith 1:06:53
You know, we try and thank you for the opportunity and thank you everybody for listening. Please keep up the fight faith. Courage. Yeah.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
