Antonia Lluberes ’16, seen on the bottom right, with Third Way’s group of summer interns.
For nearly 10 weeks, I have had the pleasure of working in Washington D.C. as an Outreach Intern at Third Way, a centrist think tank aiming to bring moderates on both sides of the aisle together and lead from the center. My first few weeks at Third Way were somewhat of a whirlwind as I tried to keep up with the fast paced work environment, get a handle on Third Way’s policies and positions, and navigate the D.C. transit system. Right off the bat I knew my experience at Third Way would be a very formative one and would provide a platform to learn and work with interesting people.
As an Outreach Intern my duties included researching political history, PAC donations, memberships of potential sponsors and writing corporate briefs for department heads for meetings with new clients. Additionally, I helped prepare for and run Third Way events by entering RSVPs, setting up venues, running check-in, greeting VIPs, and other logistical tasks. My roles and responsibilities were diverse, interesting, and oftentimes challenging as I tried to keep up with multiple projects or run around DC for various events, sometimes even attending two a day.
Now in my last week at Third Way, I can honestly say I have learned more than I ever could have imagined and have a more well-rounded view of what it takes to get work done in Washington. One of my proudest accomplishments from my summer internship experience, however, is the small role I played in researching and writing Third Way’s statement for the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
In the fall of my sophomore year I had my first taste of the Public Policy major in Professor Fulco’s PBPL 201 class. The topic of the semester was voting rights and I spent those four months reading, researching and writing about the VRA and voting rights. More specifically, my classmates and I learned about the struggle most black voters faced, particularly in the South, with disenfranchisement leading up to the VRA. We read Gary May’s Bending Toward Justice and testimony from Americans who were denied the right to vote simply because of the color of their skin. We also looked closely at the effects of the 2013 Supreme Court decision Shelby County v. Holder which struck down the VRA’s Section 4 formula used to determine which states and counties needed to have changes to their voting laws “pre-cleared” by the government. Since the decision, many states have passed measures like mandating citizens to provide photo ID to vote, cutting early voting periods, or eliminating same day registration.
In light of my knowledge of the Voting Rights Act and interest in the state legislators’ attempts to disenfranchise voters, I was pleased to find out Third Way’s Social Policy and Politics intern, Megan John, was writing Third Way’s statement on the 50th Anniversary of the VRA. I told Megan I had some background on the VRA and would be happy to help in any way I could. She took me up on that offer in a big way and informed Lanae, the Director of SP&P, of my work and asked if I could join the collaboration to write the piece.
A few days later I was in a brainstorming meeting with Megan and Lanae, rattling off ideas and discussing the VRA, the Shelby County decision, and the actions of states since the decision. In the meeting, Megan was able to pinpoint four things we would need to highlight in the piece, and then we got to work. I wrote up a summary of changes states have made to their voting laws since 2010, and even used my final paper for 201 which detailed the changes made in Virginia and North Carolina specifically. I sent what I came up with to Megan, who then combined it with what she wrote for a rough draft of the piece before sending it to Lanae for edits. Two days later Lanae forwarded me the final version before it went live, and thanked me for my help.
Although my name isn’t on the piece, it is exciting to know I was able to help Third Way and contribute to their work concerning something I am passionate about. I came into this internship knowing I would gain experience and hoped I would be able to use what I had learned in class as a Public Policy and Law major. My experience at Third Way this summer went above and beyond my expectations and having the opportunity to share what I knew about the VRA with an organization I am proud to be part of was icing on the cake.
To read Third Way’s piece that Antonia contributed to, please click here.