Every Thursday, Amy Khlobuchar’s Senate office hosts “Minnesota Mornings” which are a chance for her constituents to come into the office and talk to her staffers and possibly meet her. We all know that Amy is super busy campaigning so we did not originally plan on going because we didn’t think she would be there. However, a St. Olaf alum who works in her office let us know that she would be there, so even though we had a pretty busy schedule, we made it work.
When we arrived at her office we were greeted by some staffers and brought into a room with coffee and pastries. The office flys in pastries from different Minnesota bakeries which I thought was a very nice touch. Everywhere throughout her office are connections to Minnesota, including artwork, photos, and magazine articles; I felt right at home. Amy is very busy so most of the morning was spent talking with her staffers. I found it super interesting to talk to people working for her and hear their stories and what they do on a daily basis. Being in her office and talking to her staffers made us feel very welcome because everyone was so kind and approachable. I like to follow politics but I’ve never been anywhere like this or talked to normal people working in politics so this was an awesome opportunity to see how government actually works.
After being in the front room with coffee for a while one of her staffers told us that Amy was ready and we were walked back to her real office. I had no clue how big senate offices are; there are so many people working for each Senator, it’s crazy! Once we got into the office we all got to shake Amy’s hand and say hello before taking a group photo. After we had taken the photo Amy started asking us about our class and our time in DC. It was so cool to talk to her because she was actually interested in what we were doing and seemed very kind and genuine. As soon as she heard we were studying the Arts she grabbed these little flyers that she had made about the art in her office. I’d never heard of this before but apparently Senators are able to get art from museums on loan to display in their offices. Amy had a lot of art from the Weismann, the art museum at the University of Minnesota. She also made a point to display art from Minnesota artists which was cool to see. Once she gave us the flyers her staffers started to try to move us along and out of her office so she could go back to work but Amy kept talking to us. She walked us around her personal office and talked to us about almost every piece of art there. It was really cool to see her prioritizing art in her office. She also had a lot of photos and for many of them, she told us the story behind them. It felt very special to have her take time out of her schedule not only to see us for a photo opt, which was all I was expecting but to genuinely care about and listen to us talk about our class and our interests so much so that she connected with us over the art she had on display. In total, I’m sure we only spent about 10 minutes talking with her but it was an amazing experience and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to meet her.