While legislative candidates across the state were coming down the stretch of their election campaigns last fall, Anthony Arellano was eyeing a post at the statehouse, too, from his vantage point practically right across the street at East High School, where he’s a senior.
Sure enough, when the 88th Iowa General Assembly convened on January 14, Anthony had been hired as the next in a growing line of East students to serve as a legislative page.
Pages are the couriers who hustle back and forth between the Iowa House and Senate, delivering bill drafts and other vital lubricants that keep the gears of state government from grinding to a halt.
Pages work out of each of the legislative chambers. Anthony is one of a handful assigned to the Legislative Services Agency, the nonpartisan support bureau that drafts legislation and compiles analyses and estimates of financial impacts of proposed legislation. He reports for duty to the Bill Room in the Ola Babcock Miller Building across the street from the statehouse. But most of his time is spent winding his way through the labyrinth of the underground tunnel system that connects all of the buildings in the capitol complex, running pedestrian errands.
“When I was a sophomore I noticed some upperclassmen coming to school in coats and ties and I was curious,” Anthony said while escorting a couple of visitors through the tunnel that runs beneath E. Grand Avenue Wednesday afternoon. “Our counselors (Natalie Madsen and Ashlee Duimstra) put out the word last semester that it was time to apply for page jobs and I thought it sounded interesting, so I decided to do it.”
Naturally, they’re looking for good students who come highly recommended. Anthony checked both of those boxes. Plus, besides majoring in math at either Iowa State University or Drake University, he plans to minor in political science on his way to law school.
There’s an old axiom that likens laws to sausages in the sense that neither look good in the making. But Anthony is enjoying his part-time job, a paying one by the way in addition to whatever bonuses of consideration might accrue from its inclusion on a high school resume.
“At first it’s hard not to be looking around at all of the marble and the rest of the cool designs at the Capitol,” he said. “And the tunnels can be kind of spooky if you’re in one alone at night when the steam pipes start making weird noises. But you get used to that stuff pretty quickly.”
One can imagine what he means about the tunnels. Even in the middle of the day, they give off a Phantom of the Opera catacomb vibe and are a stark, claustrophobic contrast to the vast grandeur beneath the golden dome.
Anthony’s fellow pages come from high schools all across the state. The out-of-towners generally work full-time and make temporary living arrangements in Des Moines for the duration of the legislative session, which annually adjourns sometime in the spring. But as a hometown member of the corps, Anthony is able to work a part-time schedule that’s less of an intrusion on his regular class schedules and routines.
Administrative staffers around the legislature say there’s talk about the whole lawmaking tug o’ war going paperless someday. That would drastically reduce, if not eliminate, the need for pages, the two-legged, teenaged pneumatic tubes who scurry about, mostly unseen and underground, conveying urgent documents in a fashion as old as the first democracies in ancient Greece and Rome.
Until such time, juniors and seniors from any of the DMPS high schools are encouraged to apply. It’s too late for this year’s session, but there’s another one every year, sure as winter. Click here for more information about the application process.
