Every Wednesday during her junior year of high school, Janelle Bynum made her way to the Capitol with a gaggle of her peers.
“First of all, you had to have your clothes picked out,” she says. “I think D.C. at the time was way more formal than it is now.”
Now a member of Congress herself, Bynum had just transferred from Banneker High School in Washington, D.C., to the elite all-girls Madeira School in McLean, Va. She and her classmates would come to the Hill once a week and scatter to various internships.
Bynum was assigned to Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a Republican senator at the time. She answered constituent mail, worked the autopen and roamed the Capitol grounds with her fellow interns.
“It’s why I’m such an advocate for internships and giving kids that ordinarily wouldn’t have a shot a shot — because when you’re in that space, you feel like you belong,” she said.
Bynum eventually landed in Oregon, where her husband has family, and served eight years in the state legislature before her election to the U.S. House in 2024. She ousted Republican incumbent and current Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer from the seat.
She has hosted a few Madeira School interns in her Capitol office so far, and she recently reached out to another alma mater, where more than half of students are eligible for public benefits or otherwise at risk.
“My mom last week was like, you haven’t done enough for the kids at your elementary school. You need to do something. So I called Brightwood Elementary School and I was like, ‘Hey, do you all want to come for a visit to the Capitol?’”
On her list of what she wanted those students to learn? “Understanding a map of the Capitol complex, understanding what representative democracy looks like and understanding that you belong here.”
Bynum sat down with Roll Call this month to talk about her first job, the importance of pantyhose and her early years in D.C.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Q: What is your first memory of politics?
A: Ronald Reagan getting shot. I was a little girl, and I remember the city going into panic, chaos.
And I remember Marion Barry. If you ask anybody that was born in the ’70s, Marion Barry, for all of his flaws, gave us our first jobs, and he made it very simple. All you had to do was go down to 500 C St. with your Social Security card and your parents’ pay stub.
My first job was at the National Zoo. It was summertime, and I worked for $3.35 an hour, and I bought myself a pair of pink Nikes, and I bought myself a bike that I still have to this day. I was an animal keeper at 14 years old, so I had sugar gliders, I had tamarin monkeys, I had all types of animals, and I fed them.
The next summer, I went to Japan with the Youth For Understanding organization.
Q: So growing up in D.C. gave you a taste of the government.
A: It certainly formed my view of what government can and should do. There’s so many young, bright kids, and all they need is a shot. Even though the time I was growing up in was very violent, juxtapose that with 1,000,001 opportunities.
Q: How did you get your internship with Specter?
A: I spent two years at Banneker High School, and then the second two years at Madeira, and part of their program was to do a Capitol Hill internship.
I wanted to work for a Republican because my parents were Democrats and I didn’t know much about Republicans. I wanted to see the kind of mail that they got. I wanted to see how they answered constituents, and I got to do that.
Q: Specter is remembered for how aggressively he questioned Anita Hill during her testimony on Clarence Thomas. Were you there for that?
A: That was after I left his office. But I remember watching the hearings with my parents, and my mom was like, “There’s your senator.” I recall being not so proud of his performance.
And I didn’t know him to be the way in which he acted during those hearings, but it was interesting because I was 16, and I could identify the players. When I talk with kids today who are 15, 16, 17, they’re starting to have more context, I think through social media. But if you were a kid that didn’t have access, you wouldn’t have understood what was happening.
Q: Comparing 1990s Capitol Hill to today, what’s different in your mind?
A: People don’t wear pantyhose. I mean, nine times out of 10, I’ll wear hose. This is the world’s most powerful complex, and we’re pretty formally dressed in my office at all times. Maybe that’s the metaphor for it in my mind, how I translate it. But growing up as a little girl here and seeing all of the decisions that were made, and who gets to participate and who doesn’t, I take it pretty seriously. And I get really upset when other people don’t.
Q: Your son was a running back for the Oregon Ducks. Did you grow up playing sports too?
A: I played one season of field hockey. I scored a goal at Sidwell Friends to save the game. I am competitive, not athletic, but I have my street cred as No. 17 on the JV field hockey team.
And later I coached youth soccer — I don’t know anything about soccer, but I coached for like five seasons, and I think I was the best coach out there.
Q: You helped lead a recent push in Congress trying to create a nationwide framework for name, image and likeness deals for student-athletes. Did that shape your support?
A: That’s very personal to me because I believe in young women playing sports, and I believe African American kids in particular suffer a lot of health issues. The playground down the street from my house — I grew up at 13th and Monroe — was never open to us. And so I believe in kids going outside to play, being able to create a life for themselves and having fun.
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