Do You Want to Go to the Senate Floor?

It was a pretty quiet morning in the office today. One of the higher-level staff in the Senate office where I work came into "my" end of the long office and said, "Voigt..." (speaking to a law fellow near me) "and Douglas... Want to go to the Senate floor?"

The Senate floor?! "Yes! Of course!"

I turned around from my desk to look at him. He was putting on a suit jacket and had a tie, untied, draped around his neck. He seemed a little agitated; he was in a hurry. "Okay, then. The Senator is over there now getting ready to speak and he's going to give you floor privileges. Are you wearing a suit jacket?" He paused to look at me. "Yep, you are. Women  are required to wear a jacket on the Senate floor. You're all set. Let's go. I'll explain the rules on the way."

Then we were off! We followed him, as he tied his tie, down to the basement of the Senate office building, onto the Senate train to the Capitol and then up to the Senate chamber. As we walked, we learned the rules: what dress was required, procedures for signing in, how to enter the chamber (there's a Democrat side and a Republican side), when not to enter the chamber, where to sit and where not to sit, how to wear the visitor's badge, and rules for mobile devices -- you can carry it in your pocket, but you cannot look at it. You will be asked to leave the Chamber.

The law fellow and I waited quite a while outside the chamber, exchanging career-path stories and the like. We waited and waited, and waited some more.... Then the senior staffer came out of the entrance to the Senate chamber and said, "Okay, it's time. He's going to request that you have floor privileges now." We received our badges, fastened them on, and went down a hallway that was filled with young pages. We were instructed to never sit down in this hallway. It is for walking only.

We peeked into the Senate chamber, opened the doors, and walked onto the floor of the Senate, staying along the wall of the room as instructed, and found the other staffers from our office. We sat on red velvet-covered benches along the wall and listened to our Senator speak about Rule 41, which has to do with search and seizure. (The entire morning's testimony was captured here on C-SPAN.) Next up, the Senator asked that the law fellow and I be given "floor privileges," which essentially means that we now have permission to sit in the staff area on the Senate floor.

This is hardly a very compelling and well-crafted blog post, but there you have it. This was the highlight of my week. Oh...and I drafted my very first bill! Perhaps that will be the topic for my next post. For now, this video will have to do.