It's like studying about New Zealand; you can learn a great deal about a country—or Congress—from books, but you can't be sure what it's like until you've been there. —David R. Mayhew Springfield Union, March 10, 1967

On the morning of March 10, 1967, the Springfield Union reported that University of Massachusetts Assistant Professor David Mayhew had received a Congressional Fellowship from the American Political Science Association (APSA). The Union stated that the Fellowship was designed to give “outstanding young political scientists [and] journalists … practical knowledge of the legislative process.” In the story, Mayhew provided the above quotation about the New Zealand-like quality of Congress. For over half a century, APSA's Congressional Fellowship Program (CFP) has made it possible for political scientists to “be there,” thus enhancing our collective ability to “be sure what it's like.”

In 1967, the press materials provided by APSA to announce the fellowship indicated that the primary goal of the program was to give political scientists and others “practical knowledge of the legislative process”—an important, if modest-sounding, goal. Nonetheless, given the small size of congressional staff in 1967 and the lack of transparency about what went on inside the Capitol (closed committee hearings were the norm and C-SPAN did not exist), the goal of practical knowledge of any aspect of the U.S. Congress was actually quite ambitious. Somewhere along the way, APSA ratcheted up the rhetoric surrounding the goals of the program; today the organization's web site claims that through the Fellowship, “APSA seeks to enhance public understanding of policy-making and improve the quality of scholarship, teaching and reporting on American national politics.”¹

Nonetheless, the fundamental goal of both the 1967 and 2004 versions of the program's purpose has remained constant: to provide political scientists and journalists, both inside and outside the United States, with a realistic, first-hand understanding of Congress they can carry back to their respective careers.

In this essay I outline two broad conclusions I have drawn from my own experiences and those of my fellow members of the 51^st class of APSA Congressional Fellows.²

First, despite its long history, there is no “typical” Fellowship experience. The experiences of Fellows vary enormously from office to office and from year to year (and in rare instances, even within the same offices during the same year). Fellows come to the program from a range of backgrounds and with a variety of goals. As was the case with the members Fenno (1973) described, this variety causes fellows to seek out different assignments. Some are determined to work in leadership offices while others seek out more obscure members in the hopes of maximizing personal contact with the member. Some seek out strong partisans, while others, interested in the cross pressures brought to bear by party and constituency, are attracted to the institution's shrinking cadre of “mavericks.” Some only pursue positions in offices with which they have some sort of link to the state or district, while others hope to supplement their understanding of representation in the American political system by working for someone who represents an area of the country in which they have never lived. All agree that APSA's conscious effort to ensure that Fellows keep (at least part of) one foot in the academic realm during their year on the Hill—through colloquia, seminars, briefings, and, most notably, the Canadian Parliamentary Exchange Program—provides valuable opportunities for reflection and analysis.

Some fellows attempt to work at the edges of their office, preferring to keep a bit of analytical distance; some are immersed immediately. My Fellowship experience was of the “immersion” variety. I was hired under the assumption that I would play the role of “utility infielder” in the office—someone who could move from issue to issue depending on who needed help and what was on the agenda. I thought this would allow me to view the legislative process from several different angles and possibly give me some insights in the degree to which power is wielded differently in the legislative arena across different issue domains. That all changed almost immediately when the legislative assistant (LA) who handled tax and budget issues left the office about two weeks after I started. I was asked to step in and assume her job responsibilities. So, for the remainder of my Fellowship, I lived the life of a full-time, permanent LA, helping my boss prepare for hearings, floor debates, votes, speeches, and press events relating to tax and budget policy. This was not what I had intended to do, but it had plenty of benefits. The bottom line, however, is that the variety of goals held by Fellows as they enter the program results in their seeking out assignments that allow them—individually or collectively—to observe the institution from several vantage points.

Second, I've left Capitol Hill with a greater appreciation of how well the tag-team of political scientists and journalists have allowed those of us who study the institution to understand our subject from afar. Obviously, there is a level of nuance and detail I now have about the “look and feel” of the institution that I simply did not have prior to my Fellowship. Nothing will ever replace the feeling of walking onto the Senate floor during a debate for the first time. Even more memorable was walking off the Senate floor at 1:15am (after more than a dozen stacked votes), simultaneously starving and so pumped full of adrenaline that I came right back to my office to relay the experience to family and friends by email. I learned a lot about my boss's work ethic when I finally went to leave a half hour later only to see the Senator sitting there at his desk plowing through a stack of memos.

There is no doubt that these anecdotes and literally dozens like them will come in handy when I next teach a course on Congress. But, in terms of truly understanding how our national legislature—arguably the most independent and, due to the United States' place on the world stage, significant in the entire world—works, I remain impressed at how strong our understanding really is. During the extensive orientation for new Fellows in the fall, one of our speakers said that when he got to Washington to work as a Fellow, he was pleased to find the Congress he had been reading, writing, and teaching about during his academic career. I share that sentiment; by and large. Despite the New Zealand-like qualities to which Mayhew alluded in 1967, I came away convinced that political scientists and journalists have generally gotten it right. Over its 51 years, the Congressional Fellowship Program has been integral in fostering the types of close ties between political scientists, the institution we study, and the members that make up that institution, that have made that possible.