U.S. House of Representatives Page Program - Work

Work

The Page's work life revolves around the US Capitol in Washington, D.C.. Officially a division of the Office of the Clerk, the US House Page Program exists primarily to provide supplement support to various House offices. Two full-time, adult employees of the Office of the Clerk serve as "Chief Pages;" although some holders of this position self-titled themselves as "Page Supervisors" to avoid misidentification. These employees are not partisan, although there is one Republican Supervisor, and one Democratic Supervisor, to direct the day-to-day operations of the Page groups and provide front-line adult supervision. Additionally, the Office of the Clerk employs a Page Coordinator to coordinate all aspects of Page life, school, work, and dormitory and handle administrative responsibilities.

For work purposes, Pages are divided into two groups, Republican and Democratic, based upon the party affiliation of their sponsoring Member. On both sides of the aisle, the vast majority of Pages are based on the Floor of the House and serve as Runners. These runners are dispatched to various House offices, typically taking advantage of the United States Capitol subway system to transport various documents by Overseer or Desk Pages. The Overseer Pages are responsible for ensuring that all inbound call requests are met as quickly as possible and that the workload is distributed as even as possible among the runners. A fair number of dispatches involve the runners going to Congressional offices to bring proposed legislation to the cloakrooms. At the cloakrooms, a Cloakroom Page, or a Cloakroom Manager will sign that he has received the legislation. It is then brought to the Bill Hopper, or simply, the hopper (a repository box on the rostrum on the Floor) for official submission to the Clerk of the House. Often, much to the humor of the ofttimes more knowledgeable Pages, college-educated, yet naive Congressional aides will address the envelope containing the bill to Mr. William Hopper. Cloakroom Pages and Members of Congress are the sole people allowed to put anything into the Hopper, which is simply a small wooden box.

Other correspondence from offices may go to the respective Cloakrooms or other offices in the Capitol Complex. In addition, United States of America flags that are to be flown over the Capitol are often delivered by Pages to the Architect of the Capitol's Flag Office.

In the 110th Congress, Republican Overseers are assigned for the semester, while Democratic Pages rotate each day as Overseer or Desk. This is up to the personal preference of the Page Supervisor.

Flags of the United States of America that have been flown over the Capitol are sorted by party and House Office Building and put in closets by employees of the Architect of the Capitol. Each day two or three Pages sort their party's flags from building into sequential order by room and floor. After all the flags have been returned to the member's office from whence it came, Pages may leave work. Currently, Democratic Pages may leave after all of the "flag pages" are done with their deliveries. Republicans may leave only after 1:00 p.m. Popularly known as flag days, each runner is rotated to this duty regularly. These half days allow runners to go back to the PRH and sleep, do their laundry, do homework, socialise, and leave the dormitory unaccompanied—provided that they stay within about a mile radius and return by 4:30 p.m. Currently, Democratic Pages work as flag Pages once every two weeks, and Republican Pages once a week.

The runners also rotate as Floor Pages. Floor Pages deliver correspondence from the Clerk's Office staff seated at the Rostrum to their counterparts in the basement Office of Legislative Operations, to the Enrolling Clerks. They also respond to Page requests by members on the Floor who use the Page Call buttons that every two chairs share.

On a rotating basis, Majority Page runners serve as Voting Pages for a day. They go down to the Tally Clerk's section of the Office of the Legislative Operations in the basement. They print the final results of any vote or quorum call that uses the electronic recording devices and delivers copies of the results to several offices in the Capitol. There are two voting Pages to allow for one to make copies while the other prints the results for the next vote.

On a rotating basis, Majority Page runners serve as Statement Pages for a day. Two Pages do the job: one serves as Majority Statement Page, one serves as Minority Statement Page. Each Page sits on their respective side of the Floor about six rows back from the well. After a member speaks from the Leadership Tables or the Well on his/her side of the Chamber, a statement Page will pursue the member and recover any prepared remarks the member had written before he spoke. The Page then delivers it to the Congressional Record Clerks. While Congressional Record stenographers take down all proceedings, copies of prepared remarks aid the Congressional Record staff in increasing their accuracy.

On a rotating basis, Majority Page runners rotate as an Annex runner Page. Annex runners make deliveries to the Ford House Office Building (House Annex II), the Page School, the Page Residence Hall, and occasionally the Library of Congress buildings.

Typically, runner Pages are released from duty at 4:30 p.m. each week day that the House is not in session. However, should the House remain in session into the night for continued debate and/or votes, each Page Service typically retains three to four runner Pages until the House finishes legislative business. Statement Pages stay as long as deliberations continue and voting Pages serve until legislative business has concluded. Cloakroom Pages stay as long as Congress is in session, or until special orders begin. Runners that will not be working late are dismissed at 5:30 p.m. on late nights if they are Republican; Democrats are released at 5:15.