"Hopefully, what I've done as clerk has helped the legislative process and helped the members do what they've been elected to do."

Bruce F. Jamerson, 50, has worked for the Virginia House of Delegates since he was 16 years old. The delegates have repeatedly elected him clerk of the House since 1992. He even chose his college by which grading system would allow him to work at the House during the session. Jamerson can barely walk five feet in the Capitol without noting historical significances, architecture and trivia both about the Capitol building itself and those who've worked in it and visited. He and his staff work tirelessly year round to make sure those elected to represent the people have what they need to get their jobs done.

How did you get started working for the House?
I was a junior in high school and I heard about the page program and wanted to be a page. So I applied and found out I was too old to be a page. It was suggested to me that I apply to work in the bill room. The bill room is where people can pick up copies of legislation. So I started working in the bill room while I was a junior and senior in high school.

Why did that interest you?
I remember vividly coming down here for a Sunday school class outing to the Capitol probably when I was in the fourth or fifth grade and took a tour on a Sunday afternoon after church. It was just exciting to be here and so it stuck in my brain and I realized I was sort of in the age range to be a page. So it stuck with me from being in the fourth or fifth grade.

How did you work your way up to becoming clerk of the House of Delegates?
After working in the bill room during my junior and senior years of high school, I was looking to go to college and applied to William and Mary and Virginia Tech. I got accepted to both. William and Mary at that time was on the semester system. Tech, however, was on the quarter system. So I opted for Tech because I could take the winter quarter off, work for the House and then go to summer school. So after four years at Virginia Tech, I came back to work for the session and serve as the House postmaster.

I have a degree in political science and history. I was taking a lot of history classes and said, "Let's go ahead and do a double major."

I graduated from Tech in 1979 and the clerk of the House at the time put on the staff as sort of full time/part time. (I was) still taking care of the post office and I started taking care of procurement and purchasing for the House. In July of 1980, he appointed me to the full time staff as the purchasing officer, which basically (meant) that I took care of all the procurement and logistics for the House and the Capitol and the General Assembly Building. I served in that position until 1986 when he made me his administrative assistant, which gave me some additional responsibilities, but I was still overseeing logistics, operations, support services for the House of Delegates.

In 1991, my predecessor, Joseph H. Holleman, retired in September. It was not during session. The rules of the House say that when a vacancy occurs in the office of the clerk, and the House is not sitting then the Privileges and Elections committee elects someone to fill the unexpired terms so Privileges and Elections committee met in October 1991 and elected me to serve the unexpired term of my predecessor. I was sworn in as clerk on Oct. 15, 1991. In 1992 when the session came in January, I was elected for my first full, two-year term as clerk by members of the House. Our terms coincide with the terms of the House. This session, I was elected to my ninth term as clerk.

What is it that has kept you here and interested through the years?
Public service. I feel like returning something back to the citizens. Being a part of the process, it gets in the blood. I enjoy it. It's exciting to see something new and different happening every day and to know that some small part, as a public servant, that you're helping to keep track of the actions of the House, the ideas that become bills, the resolutions that become laws. It's a unique environment.

What goes on here is not typical of any other type of business, for lack of a better term. The terminology we use here most people on the street would not understand the lingo of the General Assembly. So it's just a neat place to grow up.

This is my life, and I've enjoyed it very much.

What does this job mean to you?
Being clerk of the House, I'm definitely working in my major in political science and history. Being the clerk is an honor. To be elected by the members of the House and the 100 members of the House are my immediate constituents, but then I have seven million other people that are my constituents because they call Virginia their home.

One thing I said (when I was elected clerk this session) is appreciating the speaker giving me the responsibility on the part of the House of being involved and overseeing the restoration and renovation and expansion of Mr. Jefferson's Capitol. That's something that will happen only once in anybody's life time.

The renovation of the Capitol happens once every hundred years. That's something that I will always remember being involved in as being a great part of my professional career to say I was involved with the renovation of the Capitol

From 2004 to 2007, the state worked to renovate, restore and expand the Capitol building. How did that change things?
It hasn't changed things. We have 27,000 more square feet of building than we did three years ago. Of course, the same thing occurred when they added the wings in 1906 to make more space for the legislature.

It's a difference. You have more space. The people who come to see their Capitol who are visiting from other states, other nations, get to see Mr. Jefferson's Capitol from a different perspective. Before the extension, they came in through the back door, and they never really got to go out and stand in the front. If you haven't done that, I encourage you to go down to 10th and Bank streets where you come in now and just look up. It's just awesome and imagine that when Jefferson wanted this building to be on a hill as a temple of democracy. Just imagine 200 years ago, and there are no skyscrapers in front of the Capitol and you can stand across the river and look and all you can see would have been Mr. Jefferson's Capitol.

Now with the extension, people can now stand there and have that Kodak moment as I call it and look up and see the Capitol. It's beautiful.

To walk in this building every day and to know that that statue of George Washington has been there since 1796 … is pretty cool. Goosebumps come at all ages, and I still get goosebumps when I walk through that rotunda and realize that all my life has been here and, hopefully, what I've done as clerk has helped the legislative process and helped the members do what they've been elected to do.

What are your responsibilities as clerk?
I use this comparison. If you thought of the House of Delegates as a business, the speaker of the House is the CEO and the clerk of the House is the COO, chief operating officer. So it's my responsibility to oversee the daily operations of the House of Delegates, and I do. Looking at the House, I'm overseeing the operation. I'm making sure the members get paid, their staff gets paid, the light bill gets paid, hiring staff, taking care of staff.

I've got a great bunch of people that work with me taking care of all the different aspects, (like) HR, deciding how we're going to improve technology and the legislature working with the Senate clerk's office for technology issues, working with the page program. The speaker appoints the pages and once he appoints them, then I'm responsible for administrating the programs. You've got that aspect. Greeting visitors who may come from other states, other nations and want a tour of the Capitol, who want to learn about Virginia's legislative process. We do that a lot.

And then the other half with the legislation during this time of year is keeping track of all the legislation that's introduced, whether it be a bill or resolution. Keeping track of it from the time it gets dropped with me at the desk through the process, whether it fails or passes. Communicating with the Senate on what we're doing and they communicate with us.

Are there any responsibilities that are solely yours?
I do have one unique title that nobody else has in Virginia. I'm also the Keeper of the Rolls of the Commonwealth. What does that mean? That doesn't mean I'm running a bakery on the side. Let's go back to the 1700s, think about what people wrote on back then. They wrote on parchment. They used quill pens. Laws back then were written on the parchment. When the governor signed them into law, they were returned to the clerk of the House whether it was a House bill or a Senate bill and the clerk rolls the parchment and stored them.

So, we don't roll anymore, but for example, whether it's a House bill or a Senate bill, when it's prepared for the governor's actions, it's called enrolled and it goes back to the keeper of the rolls. I prepare that copy. The speaker signs it. The lieutenant governor signs it, telling the governor that, "Yes, the General Assembly has approved this bill." My office delivers it to the governor. Under the constitution, the governor has the various things he can do to the bill, but presuming he signs the bill into law, he returns it to me and I am responsible for keeping the laws. That bill then becomes an act of the General Assembly for that particular year. I publish those and I keep that actual parchment copy that the governor signs. And if someone says, "I need a true copy of that law or a true copy of a section of the code of Virginia," by statute, I'm the one who certifies that, "Yes, that's what the General Assembly did and this a true copy of the law or code section."

They are kept in a secure place for five years back and then they're turned over the Library of Virginia to be stored in their archives. The library has records going back to the 1700s.

What's the most challenging aspect of your job?
Probably making sure that everything that needs to get done gets done when it's supposed to. Looking at the legislative session, the members of both houses have adopted a procedural resolution which basically says, "This is our timeline." And making sure that all is done and done on time. Keeping the train running and keeping the train running on time is challenging and I see my role, and the staff I work with's role, as helping the members of the House keep that train on time. They have a lot to do in 60 calendar days, a whole lot to do.

Why the House and not the Senate?
I'm not sure. When I applied to be a page back in 1973 for the 1974 session, the House came to mind so I applied to be a page in the House.

What do you do when the General Assembly is not in session?
Get ready for the next session. This session, there will probably be a number of resolutions passed creating studies so during the interim, both clerks' offices are looking at supporting the different studies that are set up to look at different issues. The whole idea behind a study is to look at something that wasn't quite ready to be acted on during the regular session, get public input, get expert input and then usually those studies will generate legislation for the next session.

The last three years or so were different because of the renovation of the Capitol so that took a little bit of time that was not normal. But we're always getting ready for the next session.

What's an average work week like for you during the session?
Well, I have been here every day since before the first of the year. I would say probably that my average workday here on Capitol Square is probably at least 12 hours a day. And I have staff that work with me that are here much longer than I.

There's a lot of work, but we enjoy it. Out of session gives us a little bit of down time to rejuvenate ourselves and spend time with family and get back to a normal pace.

What have you learned from this job?
I've learned to manage responsibly taxpayers' funds because I have an operating budget of a little over $18 million so that's an important thing. Managing my time, managing the folks who work for me, not that I see myself as a person who delegates a lot because I have appointed good people to the staff that are intelligent and know what to do so they know they can run with the ball and when in doubt they can always check with me to see if they're on the right track and I can say yes, keep going, or not, have you thought about doing it this way?

Being patient. You have to be patient because sometimes you want things to happen quickly and they don't so you just sort of sit back and wait and it will happen.

I have 33 people that work with me full time and during the session, it probably goes up to 150 because the clerk's office provides all the secretaries that support the members of the General Assembly Building and then other legislative process staff that come in; working in the rolling room; our indexing staff who index everything we do. Our staff who are processing the bills, they come in to help staff the committees.

What's the most unusual thing you've ever seen during your time with the House?
I can't think of anything that's unusual. I do have one humorous thing and that's a story that's been told forever and ever, but … During the daily session, we have what's called a morning hour when members of the House stand up and say, "Mr. Speaker, we have a group of students visiting from James River High School today. We appreciate you giving them a warm welcome." Well, this has happened years ago and was very humorous. A member of the House stood up in the morning hour, and the group of visitors were in the gallery, and the member said, "Mr. Speaker and members of the House, I'd like to introduce a group of large women seated in the gallery," instead of saying a large group of women. That story is still told. I think the member was slightly embarrassed.

Another (story) is when we started putting laptop computers on the desks (on the House floor) to track the legislative process. Each member has a power cord that they can plug their laptop into. Well, on occasion, one member in particular, but there have been others, instead of reaching for their microphone to start talking, they would pull up their power cord and say, "Mr. Speaker, members of the House, my mic's not working." Then they'd look down and realize they were using their power cord.

How has being here and seeing this process first hand affected your politics or your view of politics and politicians?
As clerk of the House, myself and my staff are professionally nonpartisan so we don’t look at the politics, but politics are everywhere. Being a member of my Baptist church for all my life, politics even happen in church business meetings, so they're everywhere.

I think it's made me appreciate the fact that our General Assembly--even though members may feel like they're not part-time legislators--that having a part-time legislature is important to the people of Virginia because the people they elect come to the Capitol to do the people's business for 60 calendar days in an even year and for 46 days approximately in an odd year, and they consider lots of ideas, and decide some are good and some are not good.

The General Assembly adjourns and the members go back in their districts and our legislators are real people just like you or I are. They can see them in the grocery store, at the mall, at church, at a sporting event and say, "Hey delegate so and so. Hey senator so and so. I've got a problem with this. Can you help me with it?" So I think that's real important that our legislature goes back, as a part-time legislature, and is able to interact and be in touch with the people, which I think is important.

What are some of your hobbies?
I like to read. I like reading biographies, David Baldacci. One thing I enjoy reading a whole lot is Reader's Digest. I like that and I'm an avid reader of Guidepost. I love Guidepost. It's an inspirational magazine with real life stories. It's just a great magazine. I have trouble putting it down. It's not a huge publication, maybe 50 or 60 pages, but I've been known to sit there and read the entire thing, but I try to pace myself so that it'll last longer.

I like to work in the yard. I'm in to cutting grass. I guess I go back to my youth because one of my main sources of income from when I was 12 till when I went to Tech was mowing people's lawns. In fact, I took care of all the yard maintenance for my church growing up. I like cutting grass. It's a great time to think. Everything's quiet. I don't put earphones on. No music. Just think. My wife will ask me to vacuum because it's like cutting the grass. I grew up here in Richmond.

Do you have a favorite historical figure or quote?
No. Any Virginian of historical note is good with me, even Thomas Jefferson and I'm saying that as Tech graduate. I live in what I know is the most historical state in the Union. Just think of how many people that want to come and visit Virginia because of its history and I'm right here.

I could kick myself because I finally did this. The John Marshall House is how far from this building? Maybe two blocks? Three max, depending on how you get there, and I did not go visit the John Marshall House until probably the past five years. It was all because a member of the House called and said, "I've never been to the John Marshall House, have you?" I said, "No, sir. Would you like to go?" So we made the trip to the John Marshall House.

We've got so much history in Richmond itself and the commonwealth. My wife and I have started working on going to the plantations along the James on Sunday afternoons.

I really enjoyed going to Williamsburg (for the Jamestown 2007 celebration). And to be here and be in the building when the Queen (of England) was here and to be able to have sat beside her for 10 minutes while she addressed the General Assembly. How often does that happen?

What are your three favorite restaurants?
Bottega Bistro on Huguenot Road; River City Diner at Bellgrade; Crab Louie's Seafood Tavern in Midlothian

Even your family is connected to your long work here. How is that?
My wife is a former page. I met her here. She understands the long hours.

I also have a 14-year-old daughter who's a freshman at James River High School.

How would you describe the House of Delegates in three words? Why?
Serving the people. Because that's what they've been elected to do: serve the people that sent them here.

w LAST TIME OUT: John Wade, festival coordinator for The BIGGEST Picture.