About the Job

Let’s have a frank conversation about the position you are hiring for. There will be many candidates in this race. We all have some degree of likeability, life experience, and a desire to participate in the way government works.

What A Member of Congress Does

• Reads Draft Laws
  A Member of Congress’s first and most important job is critically reading, evaluating, editing, creating and voting on proposed legislation. What does that actually mean? Bills are highly technical documents that usually require lots of cross-referencing with Federal Code, various agency policies, state laws and the benefit of constituents. This is a tedious job that requires attention to detail, long hours and mad highlighting skills. This part of the job should never be outsourced to staff (other than to have the staff pull the cross-references or if there is a bill book club to bounce ideas off of each other). You are hiring your representation to make laws on your behalf. This should be the most important skill set.
• Gains Information
  It is not realistic for a Member of Congress to be an expert on every topic. Internet neutrality, environmental protection, infrastructure development, healthcare policy and cyber-espionage are not generally related topics. Your representation will need to make sure they are reaching out to credible, diverse subject matter experts on a variety of topics. This will probably include constituents, lobbyists, scientists, librarians, industry experts, and a host of others. There needs to be a critical eye for bias and accuracy when considering information.
• Explains Things
  Your Members of Congress should also be able to explain to you why they did or did not vote for each bill and what the bill is about. Our hyper-partisan world has made the process of finding common ground challenging, but the best laws usually come with a healthy dose of perspectives. Your representation needs to be able to balance these perspectives and have a comprehensive understanding of the subject.
• Works in Committees
  Members of Congress serve on a variety of committees with a wide range of topics. This helps Congress divvy up the workload of working on all of the bills at once by topic. Check out the list of committees and what they do.
• Advocates for Constituents
  Members of Congress have a wide range of services to constituents including arranging tours of the capital, assisting in internships, helping troubleshoot immigration and visa issues, helping with federal agencies and issues for veterans.
• Promotes Maine
  This is more of an optional “duty” but part of representing Maine is sharing how wonderful our great state is with everyone.

When you vote, vote for who can do all of these things well. Let’s make 2022 the way politics should be.