An Ode to Capitol Tours From a Former Hill Intern

To the dismay of many on the left, Capitol tours are officially back this week!

Politico has reported extensively on new practices that will be in place as tours resume – and has also noted the concerns of a few stakeholders in the process – including professional tour guides and the Capitol Police.

On the flip side, I wanted to approach this issue from a more personal and not-so “doom and gloom” perspective on whole thing.

I can't believe that it's been almost a whole five years since I spent the summer of 2017 – the one between my sophomore and junior years of college – interning on Capitol Hill.

I see the Capitol tour as something that should be a staple of every intern's experience – and something that almost two years of intern classes have missed out on.

They are as relevant to the lifelong art and history buffs as they are to the first-generation immigrants like me – those who wandered around the Hill every day of their internship taking in how surreal it was to walk those gilded halls with a bright green intern badge on your hip for a lucky few months.

The tours helped bring some welcome structure to variable days on the Hill that were thrilling at times but monotonous at others.

The hours spent giving tours were also a great chance to really get a true understanding of the needs that your district's constituents have because you had the chance to talk to real everyday people – not necessarily just those that come up to Capitol Hill with a firm agenda like lobbyists and special interest groups.

Heck, I even met my now-husband on a Capitol tour in the fall of 2017. During his own Hill internship, I took an intern-led tour from him as part of a group visiting from my home state. A few whirlwind years later – he and I even got engaged outside of the Capitol last summer.

Due to Nancy's nonsense of shutting down tours for the last two years, at first because of the pandemic – then later as an aftermath of January 6th – we, unfortunately, weren't able to get engaged on the very spot that we met in the entrance to the Congressional Visitors Center.

However, the outside of the Capitol set the perfect backdrop on a muggy July evening to start the journey of the rest of our lives with my best friend – and now husband as of a month ago.

So to all the current and future Hill interns – make sure that you go for comfort over style when picking a pair of shoes out for your internship – then volunteer to lead that next Capitol tour.

It might change your life in more ways than one.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.