Living and working on Capitol Hill has really transitioned over the last few years from something that was prestigious to something that has left a lot of the staffers I know not only uncertain but uneasy. Partisan politics on both sides of the aisle are by far the biggest drivers in this and while I do understand that these Members were elected by their citizens and I try to understand their stances sometimes it is extremely hard. Over the last few months, since the beginning of the 118th Congress, this has been something really brought to the forefront of staffers' minds. 

Uncertainty

For instance, I work on a Congressional Committee and even though the 118th Congress began we had to elect a Speaker of the House. The vote for Rep. Kevin McCarthy to become the Speaker of the House took a lot longer than normal. It actually took so long that we, Congress, were running up against a deadline to select a Speaker or everyone who worked on a Committee like myself would have been laid off. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that abruptly losing all of your Committee staff, those people who have expertise in a given field, would be detrimental to Congress as a whole.

Now with the U.S. facing default and thus being unable to pay our bills again staffers like myself are in this weird position of not knowing exactly what is going to happen if this happens. On the House side, we get paid at the end of the month so our next check is already good to go but after that there are questions. What is really wild about this is people are having to wonder if insurance will be good and the other things that are provided for by our jobs.

Unease

Much like the rest of the US crime has increasingly become an issue in Washington, D.C. While typically the Capitol Complex itself has been immune to this and the neighborhoods directly around it have had much lower rates of crimes this is no longer the case. This year alone we have already seen Members and staffers increasingly being attacked. Just a couple of years ago that would have been seen as some crazy story.

Already this year we have seen one Member, Congresswomen Angie Craig, being attacked in an elevator in her apartment building. At the end of March, a Senate staffer was attacked and stabbed in the head while walking home. Last week a district office of Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly, whose district covers the southwest suburbs of DC, was attacked by someone with a baseball bat injuring two staffers. This doesn't even take into account the U-Haul that was driven into the White House barricades on purpose this week. Security details to Members were a quick and easy fix however for staffers it is still a concern about what can be done. 

AI

By now I am sure many many people have either seen or heard about the AI image that was circulated online that depicted an explosion taking place at the Pentagon. This image was so good/believable that the stock market went down because people thought it had really happened displaying the impacts that can occur from this technology. I had friends and family blowing up my phone about it and I did not even know about the photo being circulated. While I am a huge fan of innovation and really seeing where AI can take us something like this really shows not only me but Members of Congress the issues within the current handling of the tech. Misinformation as we have already seen can have disastrous effects both mentally and physically as Jan. 6th has shown us. 

Final Thoughts

It is a really weird time to be in D.C. and work for Congress right now. After finally getting into the swing of things we have all of this crazy stuff flare up and at a minimum cause a distraction instead of letting us focus on getting important things done. I fully expect a deal to be made before the default but the House is now out of session until June 5th just creating further distractions. The whole situation across the board is just wild and not something that I ever imagined not only thinking about but dealing with!

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