Learning about policy, people and Puerto Rico on the House floor

Not many interns get a chance to share a casual one-on-one meal with their congressman.

Rising College sophomore Luis Ferre Sandurni did just that this summer with Puerto Rico’s Congressman Pedro Pierluisi, whose office he interned at in Washington D.C.

Thanks to the funding provided by the Wharton Public Policy Initiative, or PPI, Ferre was one of over 70 students that had an opportunity to participate in a public policy internship. PPI paid for students’ transportation, housing, and other job related costs.

While Ferre interacted mostly with the legislative staff, he explained, “It just gave us [a] different perspective on how politicians are,” he said. “The congressman I saw at dinner wasn’t the same one I see in Puerto Rican headlines or newspapers here. I saw a more humane congressman. We could actually naturally interact and have him tell us what his motivations were.”

Ferre used this summer to gage his career options. He worked closely with the congressman’s legislative staff and was a firsthand witness to drafting a bill . “This internship gave me a good overview of how the legislative process works.”

He was impressed by the congressman’s dedication to his constituents, especially in the face of Puerto Rico’s challenges as a U.S. territory.

“He has knack for answering ... the constituents directly,” Ferre said. “Just sympathizing with them and letting them know he’s going to do everything he can, and it’s just something [that is] very natural.”

Being Puerto Rican himself, he was able to relate with the country’s concerns. “We’re a territory, yet we’re not a state or a sovereign nation,” Ferre said. “So many times, we get unequal treatment.”

“For example,” he said, “we can’t vote for the president of the United States, we don’t have proportional representation in Congress, we only have one representative in Congress who can’t vote on the floor. And yet, we have to abide by the same U.S. laws. [The internship] was a first hand experience to all these challenges Puerto Ricans face — it was eye-opening to see.”

Going forward, Ferre seeks to keep the relational components of public policy — that these issues affect real people — in mind. “That’s the essence of it all. What has to be remembered is that it’s not just about the millions of dollars being allocated to a program ... We need to realize that all these issues that we talk about are real numbers that represent real people.”

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