One of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s peeves right now is unpaid internships in Congress. She has to come out swinging for the little guy.
It is unjust for Congress to budget a living wage for ourselves, yet rely on unpaid interns & underpaid overworked staff just bc Republicans want to make a statement about “fiscal responsibility.”
If that’s the case, they can cut down on staff to pay them well. Or raise the MRA.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 3, 2018
I guarantee this issue is going to die in a matter of days because someone is going to have a very severe talk with her.
Or… she’ll push it and the DNC will push her out.
Here’s why.
There are a lot of rules when it comes to Congressional staff. Congresspeople are limited to 18 full time and 4 part time staff. The money each congressional office gets is set by the state they represent and states get money in proportion to their population.
A Congressman in California will get more money than the Congressman from Wyoming. The Speaker of the House from California will get more money than a freshman Congressman from California.
Staff who perform official duties in general can’t work on campaigns. The big rule is any money spent on official Washington duties can’t be used to campaign and staff time is paid by duty money. This is one of the few rules that is strictly enforced. People go to jail for this.
Nothing stops a member of Congress from including intern salaries in their budgets and there are a few paid interns on the Hill.
Here is why most are not.
Unpaid internships are a gray area. If they don’t get paid, they are not bound by quite as many rules. They can blur the line between campaign staff and duty staff. They aren’t included in the limits on the number of staff members of Congress have.
There still are rules but the are far less strict and are much less enforced.
Just like with insider trading or pay-for-play, Congress has figured out how to establish a rule that make them seem honorable on paper, then they figure out how to bend themselves around the rule to make it useless.
Unpaid interns are one of those cheats.
Once AOC gets into the swing of her office and figures out how the unpaid intern rule is played, she’s going to get with the game, fast.
This is delightful. She’s going to create so much infighting, it’s going to be a hoot. The more press she gets, the bigger her ego gets, the more she’ll keep flying off the handle.
I think she’s had one lecture already when she reversed course and came out for Pelousy for Speaker.
That may have been a “one off” though.
We will have to wait until she’s actually in office to see if her actions confirm her current rhetoric and the party leadership are forced to spend time and energy – which they only have so much of – to control her, or if she actually did get her ears boxed and turns out to be just another drone & rubber stamp on a leash who is allowed to perform her socialist theater schtick for her constituency.