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Summer 2003

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The pages of this magazine have featured Villanovans in all sorts of places – even in space. However, Anne Fultz ’03 of Lock Haven, Pa., has secured herself a spot in University history by being the first of our students to intern in Britain’s House of Lords.

She certainly found it an eye opening experience and anyone who knows this bundle of energy will wager that Lords won’t soon forget Annie Fultz with her unmistakable Pennsylvania accent chirping into a phone: “Baroness Buscombe’s office. May I help you?” On the other hand, Fultz herself got a bit of shock her first day on the job at Parliament when Big Ben tolled the hour and its vibration shook the Parliament buildings.

Many factors combined to create this unique experience. Annie’s interest in British politics and life encouraged her to choose a semester abroad that included an internship. In addition, she had visited Britain after graduation from Lock Haven High School in 1999, and had fallen in love with the country and its people. However, what fascinated her most was that although Parliamentary democracy was a model for the American Congress, the American experiment developed differently. “I thought that to better understand why America opted for an elected leader instead of a monarch and see how our Senate and House of Representatives evolves, I should examine the source.”

Just as Annie was filing her applications for a semester in Britain through Boston University’s study abroad program, Baroness Peat Jane Buncombe, one of the new breed of peers in the House of Lords, decided that she could use an intern in the office she shared with Lord Astor of Hever and Baroness Hanham. She actively sought out an intern through B.U. Although Annie had initially been thinking of working in the House of Commons, she jumped at the opportunity to work in Lords,

As a result of reform legislation passed in 1999, hereditary peers (those who inherited their seats from their forebears) are being eliminated in favor of life peers (who do not pass on their title or privileges), who are appointed by the government, and hereditary peers elected by their fellow members.

The image most people (including many Britons) have of the House Lords is the State Opening of Parliament each year by Queen Elizabeth II. For that event the lords are decked out in their dazzling red and ermine robes. However, the day to day proceedings of this house go on without much panoply. Additionally, many of its members are a lively and well informed group of professionals in their fields, which range from politics to business to the arts and to technology. The stereotypical picture of an aristocratic old duffer snoozing on his red bench while more of his kind drone on in debate is far from the truth. Any chamber that boasts political lions such Margaret Thatcher, Edward Heath and Margaret Jay is anything but boring. Annie Fultz’s mentor, Baroness Buscombe, is a young working mother and barrister by profession.

The primary role of the House of Lords is to examine and pass legislation. It revises legislation sent over from the House of Commons as well as initiate legislation. It also acts as a check on the government by scrutinizing its activities and it is the highest court of appeal in the land.

Unlike members of the Commons, the peers do not represent territorial constituencies and they are not salaried. This allows them more independence.

A Yank at Westminster

When Fultz arrived from her pleasant South Kensington flat for the first day of her internship, she was shocked to discover that Lady Buscombe was sharing a small office with two other peers. The Villanovan had spent the previous summer interning in the Capitol Hill Office suite of Pennsylvania Congressman John Peterson and working with his sizable staff. Even though Lady Buscombe was a member of the Opposition front bench (only front benchers lead on debate) and was working on a number of major pieces of legislation, she had no personal staff assistant. Into this breach leaped Annie Fultz.

“I had been given many responsibilities when I worked on the Hill, but I had never multi-tasked the way I did in England,” Fultz recalled recently. “I answered the phone, took messages, scheduled meetings and did research, but I also went to meetings representing Lady Buscombe and even helped to write speeches.”

As with the American Congress, sessions in Parliament are not nine to five affairs. Debate begins after lunch and goes on late into the evening. Fultz had the opportunity to sit in the visitors’ galleries of both houses to witness historic events, such as an early debate on the hunting bill, which is an extremely contentious issue in Britain. One day, she sat on a bench in St. Stephen’s lobby and idly gazed at a women seated beside her. “I remember looking at her and her perfectly styled blonde hair. Then a man approached her and asked her to autograph a book. The minute heard her voice I realized it was Margaret Thatcher.” Fultz also became used to seeing Prime Minister Blair in the great hall that separates the two chambers. She enjoyed walking along the red carpeted hall, calling “Hello, how are you?” to the peers and still laughs at the memory of the tourists spinning around at the sound of her Pennsylvania voice.

As she was learning the ins and outs of the Mother of Parliaments, some of its members sought her out for questions on how issues are played out in Congress. “I felt like a sort of ambassador,” Fultz said. “I was quite proud to be asked.”

At the end of her internship, Fultz returned to the U.S., for a seminar and another summer internship with Congressman Peters. Only once did she grab a ringing phone in his office and announce, “Baroness Buscombe’s office. May I help you?”

With all this exposure to lawmaking, it’s not surprising that Annie Fultz wants to make politics her life. She’s already active in the Republican Party and wants work on the Hill after graduation this May to decide on her career path. Initially, she wants to go into lobbying or political consultant but doesn’t rule out a run for office in the future.

In a time when millions of college students and young adults find politics an unattractive, downright dirty career option and don’t even bother to vote, it’s refreshing to see this vivacious, Dean’s list Villanovan seeking that life.

Remember her name.