Some Represent Lawmaker Bosses, Others Simply Crash : ‘Drinks and Dinner Circuit’ Is Capital Interns’ Bread and Butter

When Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) was invited to an address by Vice President George Bush in honor of National Afghanistan Day, he was unable to attend; in his place went his “foreign affairs specialist,” Dr. Susan Vella. Similarly, Dr. Vella represented Lantos at a black-tie affair at the Organization of American States, mingling with financiers and legislators.

But, Dr. Vella was no doctor at all--not an MD, not a Ph.D. Twenty-year-old Susie Vella, an unpaid intern working for Lantos during the summer, had been given the title by someone in Lantos’ office when adding her name to a guest list.

Vella is now a stockbroker in Seattle, but the saga of Dr. Susan Vella lives on in Washington lore as an extreme example of the “drinks and dinner circuit”--the nightly round of congressional receptions given mostly by special-interest groups and attended not so often by congressmen themselves as by low-paid and unpaid staff members.

Their Bread and Butter

At an average reception, one-fourth of the 150 guests might be uninvited interns and legislative assistants, some of them representing their bosses, others simply crashing. For many of these college students and recent graduates, finger food is their bread and butter--accounting for as much as $75 to $150 worth of their weekly intake.

For the sponsors, it is an expensive way to win friends and influence people--if not the congressmen themselves, at least the people who answer their phones, open their mail and draft their legislation.

“I thought they’d be disappointed,” said Steve Provost, a former intern and legislative assistant and now press secretary to Rep. Claudine Schneider (R-R.I.). “Instead of “Tip” (House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr.), they get 22-year-old legislative assistants.”

But Peter Blocklin, assistant legislative director of the American Bankers Assn., said he knows who is coming to his dinners. “I don’t think anyone has any problems with that,” he said. The purpose of the receptions, Blocklin said, is “purely social”--to “build access,” even if the access isn’t always directly to the congressmen themselves.

Interns by Bushelbasket

Each year, Washington soaks up almost 7,000 congressional interns and an equal number of young and inexperienced legislative assistants. They arrive by the bushel-basket, dumped into Washington like overripe fruit on a glutted market.

They are eager, idealistic, willing to do almost anything for nothing and not too proud to take a handout. They are single, clustered in dormitories and group houses. Interns, if they are paid at all, may receive enough to rent a room, and legislative assistants start at Spartan salaries of $10,000 to $15,000.

To ride the “cocktail party merry-go-round,” staff members raid their bosses’ mail, circulate reception calendars and query building security officers and even caterers. “We had an intern hot line, and every night at 4:30 we’d start networking,” said Peggy Duxbury, 25, a veteran of more than 100 receptions as an intern and now a legislative assistant to Rep. Bill Frenzel (R-Minn.).

Special-Interest Groups

The network extends beyond congressional offices to the myriad special-interest groups that employ interns. Brenda Fraser, a former intern for a group that she doesn’t want to embarrass by identifying, was part of it.

“Some of the affairs were hard to get into--you needed invitations,” she says. “But friends on congressional staffs could easily get handfuls of invitations. If you just go up to the desk and say, ‘I’m from Congressman So-and-so’s office,’ they’ll say, ‘Oh, OK,’ and give you a name tag. There’s no control, no monitoring of who can come and who can’t.”

And, if adventuresome staff members don’t find a reception behind Door No. 1, they can always go down the hall. “After a while, you get a little arrogant,” Duxbury said. “If you see a group of people with finger sandwiches, you think it’s a reception.”

Crashed Bar Mitzvah

Such brazenness kept one group of interns in a Washington hotel room for 20 minutes before they realized they were uninvited guests at a bar mitzvah.

And Provost remembers spending more than an hour at a reception talking with a lobbyist about decontrolling the price of natural gas. As he left, he told his hosts, “Gulf is great,” only to have them respond, “We’re Getty.”

Spread on the reception tables is everything from lobster and smoked salmon to dry meatballs and Cheez Whiz.

“Our first week in Washington we were awed,” Duxbury recalled. “This is free? We can eat it? We stuffed our purses with beer. We couldn’t believe something like this exists.”

‘Grazing’ the Table

Interns who practice the slow walk up and down the buffet table call it “grazing.” The buffet table is their trough.

“You can always recognize the interns; they’re the ones by the food,” Vella said. They cluster in small groups, she said, trying not to be seen, heard or recognized.

“You have to sit there and listen to 200 people tell you what they would do if they were your age,” Provost said. Another former intern recalled that, if one crony became cornered in conversation, another would cut in after a few minutes and take over the discussion: “Tag team,” they call it.

“It’s a meal, if you have enough audacity to stand next to a table for 20 minutes and gobble down 20 meatballs,” Provost said.

A ‘Tremendous Waste’

But, without the interns and assistants, it is unlikely that much of the food would be eaten at all. Vella said the receptions are a “tremendous waste” at which “money is thrown away.”

The city’s caterers do not see it that way. Mary Puglisi of B & B Caterers, one of five in Washington capable of serving large parties, said B & B charges $25 to $30 a person for a cocktail party and $90 to $125 for a formal dinner with “white-glove” service.

“Most people don’t eat,” Puglisi acknowledged. “They have a driver waiting downstairs to take them to their next scheduled reception.” But every host wants to be prepared, and subsequently a lot of food winds up in the garbage at the end of the night.

Extremely Large Galas

The National Assn. of Realtors is known for extremely large galas, costing as much as $50,000 for 3,000 guests, according to the association’s Al Abrahams. The money comes from the $40 in annual dues paid by the association’s 650,000 members.

Other lobbying organizations are cheaper--and daffier. The National Education Assn. once threw an extravaganza complete with hats lettered “Education.” One young legislative assistant in attendance, Diane Oberhelman of Rep. Frenzel’s office, said, “You’d walk in and see some of the newer members of Congress looking like fools.”

Most lobbying groups sponsor stand-up buffets or sit-down dinners once or twice a year, giving their dues-paying members from Peoria a chance to rub shoulders with the power brokers of Washington. It is a social environment for close encounters of a congressional kind.

For the hosts, the idea is to meet people. “We rarely talk business,” said the bankers’ association’s Blocklin. “If you know people, you can call them up. It’s easier to lobby a friend then an enemy.”