Mary Thomas Hart from Mayo came away from an interesting summer with a career goal and a wealth of information she learned in Washington, D.C. while interning for Congressman Ted Yoho (R-Fla,)

Last year Hart spent time at Centrikid, wearing athletic shorts, sandals and T-shirts all summer, as she ran around with about 16,000 5th graders. This past summer, however, she found herself in an entirely different environment.

“This summer I did two really cool things,” said Hart.

Pre law at FSU

The first was a pre-law program she was able to participate in at Florida State University’s law school. It was a four-week program and Hart was able to take two law classes while there, as well as visit several law firms in the area. This was an effort to help her decide if she was interested in pursuing a career in law and getting her juris doctorate degree.

“In the end, I made a decision to go to law school,” she said. “So, now I’m up to my eyeballs in LSAT (Law School Admission Test) prep and I’ll take the LSAT in October.”

Yoho’s intern

When that four-week program ended, Hart departed for Washington, D.C. to intern for Congressman Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) for seven weeks.

“That was a very exciting experience,” she said. “I was able to learn a lot about the U.S. government, the federal government and sadly, how truly inefficient it is.”

Hart said she came away from that experience with the knowledge that our region has a great representative in Congress after electing Ted Yoho to represent the third district. She said he’s working hard in Washington, unlike a lot of other districts in the U.S.

“When I got there, they said, “Okay Mary Thomas, you answer the phones,”” she said. “I was like, great…I’m an intern, so, I started answering the phones,” she added with a heavy sigh.

Hart said she was the only person in Yoho’s office who was actually from the third district.

“Being the only person from north Florida, I was the only person who really understood the issues that people in our district face, such as the importance of agriculture in our district,” said Hart.

During the summer, Hart said President Obama had addressed some changes in his climate plan that would affect electric co-op member pricing.

“That would definitely affect people in our district,” she said.

The phones, she said, went crazy with people calling in after the climate plan changes were announced. Another intern happened to pick up the phone when one such call came in and didn’t know how to answer the caller’s question, basically just taking a message and hanging up. Hart said she gave the intern a quick 10-minute explanation about electric cooperatives.

“It was really good,” she said. “I felt valued to be the person from the district who was able to help other interns know how to talk to constituents, and help the legislative assistants know how to talk to constituents, as well. That also helped me gain some momentum with the Congressman.”

During the summer, Yoho held a tele-town hall, basically holding a town hall meeting from Washington, she explained.

Hart said, “They needed a moderator for the tele-town hall and they said, “Mary Thomas, you can be the moderator.” I was like, oh, my gosh, I’ve only been here two weeks. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

She wound up moderating the town hall meeting with Yoho and the 450 people who called that day. She said it was fun, especially afterward when some of those same callers called again and recognized her voice on the phone.

One day she got to speak with Carlton Black, Lafayette County’s Veterans Service Officer and member of the Rotary Club of Mayo.

“My Aunt Ada from Hatchbend called and didn’t realize that I was working there,” said Hart.

Her aunt was calling to thank Yoho for legislation he was sponsoring to not send weapons to the rebels in Syria. After asking the caller for her name and contact information, Hart said she was shocked to learn it was her aunt.

“She said, “My name’s Ada Hill,” and I was like, is this Aunt Ada? When I said that, I think there were 10 people who came into the front office and listened to me have this conversation,” Hart said. “When I hung up with her, they said, “You have an Aunt Ada?”

Farm Bill

The other people in Yoho’s office, she said, went through a huge culture shock getting used to her and learning about life in a rural county and what’s important to those people.

“They also got to know Rep. Yoho better because they understood where he came from, his values and his beliefs,” Hart said. “Rep. Yoho has some really strong opinions on legislation and I was really happy to see that while I was interning for him.”

The Farm Bill, Hart said, was a definite priority when she first arrived in Washington and she was sorry she missed all the work that led up to it.

“When I got there, we voted on it the first week,” she said. “I definitely got to see an action-packed Farm Bill vote. The first time they voted on it in June, it actually failed and that’s the first time that’s happened in a really long time.”

Hart said when the bill went back to the drawing board, Yoho was upset because he knows how important agriculture is in the third district, as he is a large animal veterinarian. The phones, she said, were ringing off the hook from constituents calling with complaints and wondering why Yoho was backing the original Farm Bill.

“It was definitely an uphill battle,” said Hart.

The best part, she said, was hearing the callers thank her for explaining Yoho’s reasons for backing the Farm Bill, and that now they understood why he backed it when other Republicans didn’t. After the second yes vote on Yoho’s part when the bill passed, Hart said there weren’t nearly as many angry constituents calling to complain.

Healthcare bill

The healthcare bill, Hart said, is still a big deal in Washington, even though it’s already been passed. Yoho, she explained, doesn’t really support the Affordable Care Act, but he is constantly working toward alternative solutions, instead of just trying to repeal or de-fund it.

A current legislative bill, HR 2300, on the healthcare issue, has a large group behind it now, Hart said. She even got to help do some of the research behind it.

“After the August recess, I would say there could definitely be some action on that legislation and I’ll be really interested to see where that goes,” said Hart.

Immigration bill

Another key piece of legislation was the immigration bill that was ongoing while Hart was in Washington.

“It passed in the Senate while I was there and I got calls every single day,” Hart said. “They wanted me to tell Marco Rubio that so and so said…,”

Hart told the callers Rubio didn’t work on the same side of the Capitol as she did, but she would certainly tell him if she saw him. Then, she would simply transfer the caller to Rubio’s office.

Yoho, Hart said, thinks securing our borders should be our country’s first priority.

“Once the border is secured, and the laws that are already on the books have been implemented, then we can move forward with other legislation,” Hart said. “Until then, no new immigration legislation, including amnesty, should be passed. That was kind of our main message to constituents who called about that.”

In summary

Hart said her summer was very educational and very eye-opening to learn the good and bad things about federal government.

“In the end, I decided, as much as I love Washington D.C., I could never work for the federal government as long as they don’t have a balanced budget,” said Hart. “It’s a constant struggle of ‘we don’t have money’, ‘how are we going to get money’, ‘are we going to raise taxes or cut the budget?’ and it’s such a tough question to ask.”

There are so many people in Washington, including the large staffs of all the congressmen, she said.

“It’s gi-normous,” said Hart. “So, you have all these people to work with and nothing ever gets done.”

Hart said she would rather work at the state level because they are more efficient, and because it is on a much smaller scale than the federal government, much more is able to be accomplished because there are less people to please, plus there is a balanced budget in Tallahassee.

“Instead of what are we going to do with no money, we have all of this money,” Hart said. “Who are we going to give it to? That’s such a fun question to ask.”