So my question has two parts - first of all, I am currently out in DC for the summer interning for a nonprofit that is falling apart. Like, laying off almost all of the staff, expecting interns to do everything, cutting back hours kind of falling apart. So I started looking at other options and I ended up getting an intern position at a Republican congressman’s office - problem is, I’m a Democrat.
First question is will it be terrible if I leave this first internship for the other one? Especially since I’ll have to do it via email since I am visiting home this week and am expected to start immediately at the other internship once I’m back?
Secondly, will it look bad on my resume if I have a Republican internship while applying for positions with Democrats in the future?
I’m probably overthinking everything, but advice would be appreciated!
I am a little familiar with what is referred to as party politics. It is generally considered okay to do many different jobs within a party. When you go over to the other party it does raise red flags for future work and appointments. It may not be fair but it is sort of the way it is. So my advice to you would be to be very careful. Party regulars tend to value loyalty very highly
However, be sure to consider how partisan the congressman is. If they are more moderate, or even a center left republican (yeah, they exist), you could get away with it. However, with the current state of bipartisanship, it may not be advised.
Can you support the views and policies endorsed by the person you are working for? If not, I think you might feel like you are selling your soul. I think the party is irrelevant.
I come from a political family and have a pretty solid understanding of how all this works.
First, regarding leaving your current internship, I wouldn’t worry about it. If the organization is falling apart, nobody will question your decision to jump ship, and your method of doing so is essentially irrelevant. Chances are that you wouldn’t list anybody from this internship as a reference, and you may not even put the internship on your resume at all since it’s been so short.
Second, regarding your congressional internship, you stated that you will be working in your congressman’s office. That indicates that you will NOT be on his re-election team. Now, is the office a district office or a D.C. office? If it is a district office, there should be no issues at all - interns in district offices work primarily with constituents. That work is completely non-partisan, and it is advantageous for the congressman to have people of all sorts of backgrounds. For example, let’s say that somebody is having a hard time navigating through the red tape of the Social Security Administration. That person can go to their congressman’s office to explain, and the office workers and interns can look into the matter and help break through that red tape. Nobody asks what party the constituent affiliates with… it’s just the kind of work that a congressman should do.
If you are in the D.C. office, you may get the opportunity to work on legislation, but it is unlikely - congressmen have full-time, paid office employees, whose jobs are to help draft legislation, and that type of job is not likely to be done by an intern. Even so, if you work on legislation, you will have an opportunity to influence the legislation by making it more balanced and palatable to the larger congressional body, which could be great for everybody. It is more likely, however, that you would do more office support tasks, which can also include constituent work, but in D.C. you will have some more administrative type work.
Long story short, I wouldn’t worry about this. If you were looking at a campaign job, that’s a different story; if you were looking at a party role, that’s a different story. But congressional office? No big deal.
@chrisw Thank you, this actually made me feel a lot better. However, I’ll be working in the DC office of a congressman who’s state I’m not from - in fact, I’ve never even been to his state! Would this make it more questionable?
I don’t think it would be questionable. Do you know what type of work you will be asked to do? If not, I suggest asking… if you plan to get involved with party politics down the line, you should know what you’re getting into. I assume that your political beliefs were a topic of at least one conversation during the interview process, so if you got the position, chances are that your beliefs don’t matter all that much, but it doesn’t hurt to double-check.
One other thing to consider… the political environment today is obviously viciously divisive, but it wasn’t always this way, and it won’t always be this way. The younger politicians in office today were in your shoes 20 years ago, and a lot can change in 20 years (think about it… 1996 is before Lewinsky, before 9/11, before the wars, and right in the middle of the dot-com boom). Predicting what the implications of a college internship might be twenty years down the line is a fool’s effort - maybe the climate will be highly receptive of people willing to work across party lines in 2036, but maybe it will be even more divisive than today. Nobody knows! If I were you and if I were interested in being some sort of civil servant, I’d take this opportunity.