Carlos Mark Vera’s non-profit, Pay Our Interns, hit one of its major policy goals before its second birthday.
DC is populated in part by a rotating cast of interns, blazer-outfitted, ambitious, and all too often, unpaid. For Congressional interns, that changed Thursday, when the House followed the Senate and passed a “minibus” spending bill that allocated $13.8 million for interns’ salaries in both chambers. The bill should pass into law soon: The White House says “President Trump looks forward to signing this legislation.” One person you can thank for securing intern pay is former Capitol Hill intern Carlos Mark Vera, the 24-year-old founder of Pay Our Interns, a fledgling advocacy group that helped get this legislation from op-ed fodder to ready-to-sign law.