Rebecca Amdur-Kass, a third-year student at Alfred University, grew up on Capitol Hill before her family moved to Maryland. During the past summer, she returned to the Hill as a legislative intern for Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, who represents the state’s Fifth Congressional District, and Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.
Rebecca Amdur-Kass, a third-year student at Alfred University, grew up on Capitol Hill before her family moved to Maryland. During the past summer, she returned to the Hill as a legislative intern for Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, who represents the state’s Fifth Congressional District, and Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.
With a double major in political science and environmental studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, "Becca" (her friends' name for her) calls the internship “a great introduction not just to politics and the Hill, but also to the field of working for the public good.”
She submitted her online applications including a cover letter and writing sample, and also visited Hoyer’s office in person to hand in her resume and talk with staff. She met an intern in Hoyer’s office whose roommate happened to work in Van Hollen’s office, and asked her to put in a word with the senator’s chief of staff. Looking back at the whole process, she credits the thoroughness of her application package, which included extensive writing samples and recommendations from friends familiar with U.S. government.
“I made sure both offices knew I really wanted this,” she says. “A lot of people just apply … A successful application requires organizing a full-blown package.”
During the six-week internship, Becca answered phone calls from constituents, logging different areas that concerned people and the directions in which they leaned relating to possible legislative responses.
Additionally, she helped individual constituents who contacted the offices for assistance involving problems with federal agencies. Three areas of federal governance appeared prominent in their concerns: veterans’ services, immigration, and housing.
In Van Hollen’s office, she also worked on “batching” letters from constituents writing about different topics. Her period on the Hill coincided with debate regarding H.R.1, known also as “The Big Beautiful Bill,” and Maryland constituents contacted her frequently with pleas to protect Medicaid and Medicare and funding for public media.
“It was a huge volume of letters,” she says. “We would write letters back to constituents thanking them for their concerns and let them know what the Senator was doing on that issue.”
Looking back on the experience, Becca says, “I found it fascinating. Talking to constituents was like being inside someone’s living room. You found out what they cared about. What are the issues that face real people? These are people who are influenced by something so strongly they reach out to their senators and representatives.”
The experience also gave her “a wide sense of how the Hill works and also an appreciation for how the work gets done. People who work there really do care about what they’re doing.”
Becca shared her Capitol Hill experiences recently with Alfred University’s Women’s and Gender Studies Roundtable, bringing her experience of the federal government back to the Alfred campus. “I was grateful for this opportunity,” she says, “as I look forward to a career that serves the public good.”
