Interest in politics leads to legislative page job for Mansfield sophomore

Mansfield High School sophomore Catherine Schroeder got really interested in the political process during the 2008 election; she attended the Douglas County caucuses, followed the primary and general elections, became a little bit of a political junkie.

"The primaries were more fun than the actual election," Catherine said.

And that got her thinking really hard about an offer passed on by her history teacher Jim Mickelson. Every year the Washington Legislature looks for high school students who want to work in the legislature as pages.

"I think the election kind of motivated me. I thought it would be fun," Catherine said, so she applied to 12th District Sen. Linda Evans Parlette. And when the legislative session began, there was Catherine Schroeder, working the floor as one of the pages. "I was lucky, because I got opening week," she said.

Pages get a look at how government works from the ground up. "We deliver mail to Senate offices, we work on the Senate floor delivering messages and we attend page school," she said.

A different set of pages works the House of Representatives side.

"We wear different colored jackets and there's kind of a rivalry between the two," Catherine said.

Pages start work at 7:30 a.m. and are on the job until 5 p.m.; "every day was different," Catherine said.

Some days she delivered mail, some days she was on message duty. Communication is restricted - no cell phones, for instance - while the Senate is in session, so the pages are tasked with delivering messages to the senators in the chamber. They sit on a row of chairs at one side of the room, and wait until they are needed.

And they can't go just anywhere on the Senate floor; they have to stay out of the center aisle and can't cross in front of the rostrum, Catherine said.

Every morning when the Senate convenes for the day, pages carry in the state and U.S. flags; Catherine was chosen for flag duty one day.

Because she was there during opening week Catherine saw Gov. Christine Gregoire rehearsing her inaugural ceremony, including her speech. She met Lt. Gov. Brad Owen and the president of the Senate. Parlette introduced Catherine as the page at the Senate Republican caucus.

Page school is two hours per day and was all about how government works - pages write a practice bill and bring it to a mock committee for debate.

Washington, of course, is in the throes of a revenue shortfall - a big one, if projections are right. That had a huge impact on the way the Legislature was doing business in 2009. Pages are required to attend committee hearings; Catherine went to three and "that was the topic of every single one," the economy, possible budget cuts and their impact.

She learned a lot about how the business of government actually is conducted, she said. "It's pretty formal."

Everybody around the process has to act and dress appropriately, including the pages. They were required to wear a white shirt and black dress pants along with the jacket during business hours, and the jacket never left the Capitol grounds. Pages even had to take the jacket off at lunchtime.

She got a better sense of how government actually works, she said, that there are third parties in the legislature and outside interests that have an impact on the business of government. She found out all the Senators pretty much know each other, she said, and try to conduct business in a polite and cordial manner, no matter how contentious the issue and even if they are from opposing parties.

"Everything is marble" in the Capitol and the Senate offices, Catherine said, and Senators usually decorates their offices to reflect their constituency. She got to know a lot of the personalities in the chamber. "There are some eccentric senators, that's for sure."

It was fun, Catherine said, and "definitely" a valuable experience; she would recommend it to other teens who want to try it. "Definitely." But the revenue shortfall may claim the page program as one of its victims. Catherine said she thinks it should survive if possible, because in her opinion it's a valuable program.