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Jobs in politics are inherently difficult. How to do that when you also might lose your job because of a red/blue wave? And what does it mean to have a career where staff is underpaid or not paid at all and yet there is still an oversupply of talent.

Today, we’re speaking with Chris Jones, founder of PoliTemps and CapitolWorks, staffing and recruitment agencies for the political world. He we discuss his own career, as well as what he thinks needs to happen to make this a more representative and sustainable industry that works for the country.

You can listen to the episode above and read a lightly edited transcript below.

Chris Jones

Thank you so much, Chris. My name is Chris Jones. I work in Washington DC and beautiful Dupont Circle, and grew up originally in Texas.

Chris Oates

And how did you first get involved in the political world?

Chris Jones

Well, I grew up in a political family. My dad was an elected judge for 30 years. So I grew up literally knocking on doors and putting up yard signs. I love politics. I love the issues. You know, I love the personalities. The people are human, they're flawed. And that always is amazing how that comes into. Sometimes conflict or agreement with these issues of the day, whether it's healthcare, democracy, life, liberty, international affairs, plus, we again, we have these very frail and human people that are involved in it.

I did a year or two of college, and then I decided to get out of Austin. Back in the 80s. Austin was not the cool place it is now it was very different. It was like that movie Dazed and Confused. Lot of driving around in Camaros with bad haircuts, and big bell jeans. I joined the Navy for four years, traveled two years in Puerto Rico, two years stationed in Japan on a ship and worked in naval intelligence. Tracked Russians, North Korea, Chinese, and that was exciting. And then I finished that up. And then I got my degree from Texas Tech University. And then after that, I decided to come to Washington do an internship on Capitol Hill.

Chris Oates

Who was that internship with?

Chris Jones

That was with Congressman Jack Brooks, he was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He was a well known cigar smoking chairman of the full committee. And for me, coming to Washington, even though I was probably the oldest intern at 28, it was like coming to Hollywood. It was like being on the soundstage of Paramount, you know, there's Barney Frank. There's Pat Schroeder. There's Nancy Pelosi, there's Chuck Schumer before they were famous. And, you know, it was just an amazing experience.

Chris Oates

Interning is something that in the political world, a lot of folks get into it in that way, that you intern for your local state representative or with a nonprofit, I interned for the International Crisis Group, the one summer I spent in Washington, but I think it definitely varies based on on where it is. So when you're for a committee chairman, who's powerful, does that mean that you as an intern, get to see more things than, you know, if you were an intern for the most junior freshman and member of Congress?

Chris Jones

That's exactly right. I mean, you're on a full committee. So you're not on a subcommittee, you're not working for a member, you're on the committee. And you're exposed to the staff director, the chief counsel, who I've kept in touch with for many, many years, you're also keeping in touch with the members who are on the committee. One thing I do want to say, you know, I was very fortunate to have gotten the opportunity because of a network and connections. But a lot of people, especially people of color, don't have a pathway to those internships, and there's a great organization called Pay Our Interns that has recently come into its own. Many people of color, many people of low income don't have the ways and means to come to Washington, right? I was able to live on rice and beans for a little bit of money. But a lot of people can’t. And you need those internships as a pipeline to politics, and Pay Our Interns and similar organizations have pushed for the payment of White House interns and of Capitol Hill interns. Without that young leadership, you don't get the pipeline of people of a diverse talent group coming into Capitol Hill, coming into the White House, coming into these organizations. So I just wanted to mention that briefly.

Chris Oates

I think that's a great point. I can definitely say, absolutely anyone listening please pay your interns because they're doing work for you. What we often forget is that when we look at the internships, and that's the way to your career on Capitol Hill, it's not just that not everyone gets those internships, but that some people choose different paths when they're 20. And that should not mean they're locked out of a career in politics thereafter.

The same way that you see a lot of lawyers, they think they have to clerk at the Supreme Court or in a circuit court because your career is over at 30 if you don't have that on your on your CV, right? That's it's absolutely crucial for like the well functioning political staff, industry wide staff to have those other paths into the job.

Chris Jones

Right. And there's a big complaint for a while on Capitol Hill about how come the Chief of Staffs and the legislative directors weren't more diverse, right? So you had a population that was diverse, you had districts that were diverse, but you had people at a senior level, the managerial level that was were not diverse. How do you get them? You have to start at a younger level to be able to bring them in as a talent pipeline, and to give them an opportunity. And I'm quite aware of my fortunate ability to do an internship in Washington. But kind of the next part of that story is when I was interning, I was going through Roll Call magazine, and I saw that somebody named David Bonner from Michigan had been elected Majority Whip. So I saw that David Bonnier was strong on veterans issues, and I was a veteran, I saw that he probably was going to have more staff, and more responsibility. So in my little small political brain, I made a lobbying effort within my inner circle to get a position working for David Bonner. And so I was successful. I went on to work for David for two years, and got to see, again, Gephardt, Foley, just the inner workings of a leadership office, which was fascinating.

Chris Oates

I mean, how easy is it to do that? So you know, you get, let's say, you get to Washington, and you work for your, your local congressperson, as an intern or whatever? Is it common that, you know, you get there, and then you're in the club, and it's easy to transfer from one member of Congress's office to another, even if it's a different state? You don't know anything about that state? But you might know about an issue that they care about?

Chris Jones

No, that's a great question. I would say that it's you can you can get in the door, but to get the job, you have to be able to do the work. There's a lot of people that have relationships and contacts and my cousin and my friend and the Congressman's nephew, there's tons of these people that are constantly coming to Washington.

But we like to think it's a little bit of a meritocracy, where your hard work and your ability to understand and think fast on your feet will get you further up the food chain. So you can get in the door but actually to stay on Capitol Hill and work, you need to be of a certain certain type of personality, smart, hardworking, and many ways willing to give up a certain part of your personal life. Because your life is around, you know, a Congress that's constantly in doing issues managing crisis, January 6, 9/11, a war, a change of administration, the major election, so you need to be able to come up to a higher level to be able to stay in Capitol Hill.

Chris Oates

Would you say that this transfer of folks on Capitol Hill from one office to another leads to a kind of more national or partisan outlook on the on behalf of the staff? And I'm actually thinking kind of back to the American Revolution, where Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, they fought in the Continental Army, and they had a more continental national outlook than a lot of the state leaders who became the anti-Federalists. Do you think that that changes the way politics works when you have a group of people who - I don't want to say they're disconnected from their their local roots, by any means - but their professional circles are within a party or within a faction within a party or an ideology or an issue group? And does that changes how they work a little bit?

Chris Jones

Um, you know, I don't know if that's true, because many people, you know, tend to spin out, they work on Capitol Hill, and then they go to law school, or they decide that Washington is not for them, and they go back to Massachusetts or Texas or Iowa and run for local office, or they decide to go to graduate school or that they decide to go leave