Congressional Staffers Aren’t Underpaid
In some corners of elite opinion, working on Capitol Hill means one is laboring in the political equivalent of Wal–Mart. Hill workers have their pity while toiling in a crowded ideology shop for chump change.
Yet, just like Wal–Mart, each time an election or retirement causes a new congressional store to open, the line of applicants typically extends around the corner.
How do you explain it? Don’t these serfs know they’re being exploited?
You expect this reasoning in the Washington Post, but surprisingly enough, this expose was in the Washington Times. The premise is that Capitol Hill staffers are grossly underpaid and, as a result, the nation is being run by penniless Facebook addicts who are subject to an employment revolving door.
The pitiful few newbies that do manage to cling to their position are utterly at the mercy of rapacious lobbyists up to no good.
I am indebted to the author of the story, Luke Rosiak, for sharing his employee turnover numbers with me for comparison purposes. Frankly, if the situation had been reversed, I don’t know that I would have been so gracious. Still, Rosiak’s generosity does not prevent me from disagreeing with his conclusions.
He begins by painting a picture of ignorant amateurs: “High turnover and lack of experience in congressional offices are leaving staffs increasingly without policy and institutional knowledge … leaving a vacuum that is usually filled by lobbyists.”
As a result: “When Americans wonder why Congress can’t seem to get anything done, this could be a clue.”
Once we get past the irony that after finally identifying jobs where federal salaries are equal to or less than the private sector the Washington Times sees fit to complain, a comparison shows the analysis is flawed.
First a reality check: although located in august structures and surrounded by the echoes of history, congressional offices are basically 535 mom and pop operations with the elected official serving the role of mom or pop, as the case may be. None of these offices are governed by the rules and regulations that pamper civil service employees. Officeholders are political entrepreneurs building a brand on the taxpayer dime.
Some congressional offices are well-run organizations that rival an Apple Genius Bar for motivation and expertise. Others limp along like a poorly managed dollar store where are all the toys are from China and contain extra lead.
But regardless of how the office is managed, the jobs are an example of an efficiently functioning employment marketplace. If the salaries for congressional office jobs were too low, there would not be enough qualified applicants to fill the positions. It would be necessary to follow in the footsteps of agribusiness and hire illegal aliens. Yet that’s not happening.
So congressional staffers are at the mercy of the market, to the benefit of the Congressperson paying them, but those same congress people use and abuse those staffers to make law that interferes with same market in other business? I wonder if congressional staffers are allowed to unionize.
Congressional staffers, though most but not all, are inexperienced young people, is a stepping stone to something else, like clerking for a judge or apprenticeship at a newspaper You’re learning about a process and making connections. It’s not a long-term career and shouldn’t be because you then create a new class of permanent Congressional apparatchiks if it becomes lucrative.
There is a class of Congressional aparatchiks, quite invisible to most people. They are the Committee staffers who are employed by each Senate and House committee to staff the work of the committee as opposed to the individual Senator/Representative. Appointments are usually divided proportionally by the Chairman and Minority Leader of the individual committee.
I’ve known a couple of such committee staffers who have been in place for 20 years or more. The office staffers do rotate, but there is definitely a seasoned cadre making a career out of this. If Congress were term-limited, there would have to be more of them to keep the place running.
“Some even leave to become lobbyists, although that’s seen as a bad thing in the context of the article: “It means that young workers have proximity to enormous power while surviving on a meager budget — dual forces that come together to push congressional staffers through the ‘revolving door’ to highly paid K Street lobbyists.” But again, statistics point to a much smaller “problem.” Between the years 2005 and 2011, a total of 161 staffers became registered lobbyists.”
Sure, and how many move on to bigger corporations that have ex-government workers as their own in-house lobbyists and who know how the government lobbying system works? Apple computers doesn’t need lobbyists because they have their own in-house staff working for them. The same is probably true for almost every major corporation out there, not to mention trade associations like the Chamber of Commerce. And let’s not forget unions. NEVER forget unions who are their own lobbyists. They’ve undoubtedly hired thousands of people who used to work in government and now are at the slop sink fighting for benefits just like everybody else in Washington. You don’t have to be a licensed lobbyist to lobby in Washington. All you have to be is a byproduct of that sewer.
Term limits and smaller staffs, that’s what we need. Too many people like Pelosi and Reid hold on to their jobs like popes and they can’t help but be corrupted by it. And, as befits a corrupt official with tenure, they have large staffs of toadies to do their dirty work for them. I’d have term limits to reduce the time people are allowed to hold office and learn how to manipulate the system for their own benefit. If the president can only have two terms in office, so can everybody else.
But, you say, this will make it impossible to create lots of new laws and regulations because you’ll have a high turnover in Congress? Good. It would be about time to stop Congress from writing even more laws that nobody knows about or new regulations nobody can afford to follow. We need a smaller government with a lot less spending, not more. If you have a large government that employs a lot of people, then these people will have to justify their existance by passing even more laws and regulations, even if we don’t need them. I think the Founding Fathers had it right. They wanted to make it hard to actually pass laws so that we wouldn’t pass too many of them. Pity we didn’t take their advice. Now we have a huge bureaucracy that employs way too many people with excellent salaries and outrageous benefits (I’d LOVE to have the health insurance policy of a person working on Capital Hill). This is what out-of-control government looks like and I’m sick and tired of both parties feeding into it. Hope somebody makes an issue of this in November. Not just lest spending, but a much smaller government as well.
You nailed it. Another reason it keeps growing stems from a withering of morality. Once at the trough, the pigs forget (or don’t care) that spending money coerced from others is wrong. Once it is OK to spend other people’s money, everything else is justifiable, incuding more laws.
Most people don’t realize that when a law is passed, it can and often does lead to death, injury or imprisonment. Look at it this way – if a person doesn’t heed a law, or if he refuses to cooperate with any law, a “peace” officer can arrest that person. If that person refuses to cooperate in the process, then he could be killed or injured while being detained. This happens on a daily basis in this country and I noticed this more after seeing a woman who was beaten and arrested by a police officer, in front of her children, for refusing to wear a seatbelt that “pinched” her because of her diminutive size.
Yep, all we need is more guv’ment to make more lethal laws and raise taxes.
First, most newbie Congressmen will tell you that they are most influenced by lobbyist when they are new, not established. I’m not completely against term limits, but they will lead to more lobbying influence, not less.
Secondly, my panties are not in a wad about lobbying. If there are bribes, prosecute, hold accountable etc. But, it will be rare that a Congressman takes money from a company or organization that he disagrees with. I.e. a Liberal will take money from Greenpeace or Planned Parenthood or Unions.
Nothing will replace voters holding people accountable with their voting and electing people of character.
Favorite quote from the article:
“With the shuttering of the Office of Technology Assessment, a 200-member congressional support agency that closed in 1995 under House Speaker Newt Gingrich, members who are largely lawyers and rhetorical masters are asked to differentiate between competing proposals that only scientists might be able to evaluate effectively.”
Because it’s not like we live in a high-tech economy where potentially game-changing, lucrative new technologies need to be evaluated or anything. Because that would mean we would have to spend money on things. Thanks, Republicans.
So you agree with the bloated government types that people unqualified to make a decision in a certain area should be allowed to continue to make decisions in that area?
The quote you put up specifically states that the vast majority of the 200-member agency (actually 143, but still) were unable to make competent decisions between proposals because they weren’t scientists.
And why should the government be evaluating technologies. An agency JUST for assessment? It funded studies about things like acid rain, global warming and health care, all things the private and academic sectors have been doing. Didn’t we already have the EPA, the CDC and other government agencies doing the EXACT SAME THING????
So yes, I’d rather get rid of a bloated, unqualified agency rather than keep all of them and also hire scientists who would be explaining things to the attorneys who would then make decisions.
The OTA was doomed from the beginning. They were the IT nazis of the early tech era. They were barely one step ahead of their users but they had read today’s PC Leak so they knew best. LOL One would think a government agency would actually have a clue about politics.
The flaw in the author’s (Mr. Shannon) thesis is that he discounts various intangibles that make a young college or law graduate willing to work extremely long hours for relatively little pay. First, the author seems to think that a substantive Capitol Hill job (we’re not concerned here with receptionists, etc. — though many of them eventually move up — yet the author highlights that class of worker) is of the 9-to-5 variety. It is not, as for example with most federal civil service jobs. As I like to say, Capitol Hill is the worst of both worlds — government pay but private sector time and other demands. If the long hours are included, the pay is less than meets the eye, bolstering the case of the Washington Times article to which Mr. Shannon responds.
Second, these young people are willing to sacrifice their time and perhaps slightly higher private sector pay in order to be “where the action is.” Working at the heart of the “sausage factory” is a high for many of the A-type personalities that are attracted to employment on the Hill, and I’m not referring to Members of Congress.
Third, Mr. Shannon refers dismissively to the “revolving door” and citing the red herring concerning the official “registered lobbyist” numbers, i.e., 161 over a seven-year period. That equals 23 per year. Only one ignorant about how Washington and Capitol Hill work would believe this canard. As one commenter has stated in so many words, official lobbying is but the tip of the iceberg with regard to Washington influence. In fact, many avoid being registered lobbyists because that classification is restrictive. Lawyers provide lobbying firms the guidance they need to avoid the traps in the law while remaining an official “non-lobbyist.” But that hardly means that one can’t have influence. Many folks work for lobbying shops, law firms, PR agencies, and in-house corporate/union, etc., advisers providing counsel on laws, regulations, and the political or policy process without being an official lobbyist.
Fourth, the author discounts the fact that these young people know that they have a tremendous three-pronged career track ahead of them that will reward them with substantially greater pay and even influence in the years ahead: a) they can remain on Capitol Hill, making a career out of it. The top salaries on the Hill available to staffers are right below those of Members of Congress, i.e., $170,000. Many personal office chiefs of staff and committee counsels or staff directors make a salary approximating this figure. Of course, this requires generally either high-end substantive knowledge or a close relationship to the Member or committee chairman; moreover, Mr. Shannon ignores the lucrative pensions available to Hill staffers, even compared to federal civil service employees. In fact, Hill pensions are about 70% better than in the civil service, and one doesn’t have to be age 55 or 60 to get the pension. Hence, a lot of well-compensated double-dipping goes on in Washington.
b) the Hill staffer can go to the private sector after five or so years and double or triple his Hill salary. In truth, top lobbying jobs in Washington now range from $1 million to $1.5 million, and all those aren’t going to former Members of Congress;
c) Hill staffers routinely leave for a presidential administration in a comparatively highly-paid Senior Executive Service-type job that can pay more than a Member of Congress makes. In addition to the pay, these jobs offer a higher profile and often much more influence, albeit within a narrower issue category. Having a “deputy assistant secretary” or even “special assistant” listed on one’s resume can be a highway to a pot of gold at the other end.
Fifth, the author ignores the fact that many Hill staffers come from wealthy or well-to-do families that subsidize their existence in Washington until they can support themselves with a normal lifestyle. I’ve known families that have bought their Hill staffer children condos, etc., so there is no rent or mortgage payment to be made, the biggest bill for most Americans. This occurs much more frequently than one might think.
Finally, Mr. Shannon sounds like he has never worked on Capitol Hill or worked with or “lobbied” them on issues. He makes an assumption that they are “well-qualified.” By what criteria? Merely having a college degree? My personal experience, and that of many of my lobbyist friends, is that these young staffers, particularly on the House side, are ignorant of the details of policy on which they purport to advise their Members, even when that Member is on the committee of jurisdiction concerning the issue at hand. In fact, the problem of congressional staffer ignorance has gotten worse in recent years. The old Washington mantra, “it’s not what you know, but who you know” has likely been the operative phrase for a century, but the average Hill staffer as recently as 10-15 years ago was more competent on the issues than many of the aides that Members are hiring now. I think many Members like it that way, not to mention the lobbyists, as it is easier to get one’s way with an ignorant staffer than one who knows the issues. As for Members, they have their own agenda, and want staffers who will help them implement it without providing resistance in the form of facts or political realities that might upset the applecart.
In sum, what the taxpayer deserves — in the civil service as well as on Capitol Hill — is a more competent staffer who knows the issues and is not primarily looking at the revolving door with one eye while advising the Member or agency with another. I propose fewer staffers across the government, but who are more highly paid. Alas, given our budget constraints, this is not likely to happen, though the “fewer staffer” part would be consistent with the budget issue.
This, a hundred times over. This: “In fact, many avoid being registered lobbyists because that classification is restrictive” even more so.
Hill staffers like to complain no doubt, but the absolute ignorance shown by the author of this piece is astonishing. DC is its own little world, like it or not, and to make broad proclamations while obviously knowing nothing about what you speak just makes you look foolish.
What I want is 90% less staffers.
That’s all.
Pastor of Muppets – I LOVE your Nom de guerre.
What has always gripped me about Hill staffers is how they seem to too often find their way into juicy, powerful appointments. A recent case in point is Chairman Jazko of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
A physicist by training, his career seems to have been spent working on the staffs of Congressman Ed Markey and Senator Harry Reid. Both are stridently anti-nuclear politically. Yet he leaves Reid’s staff and gets an appointment to the NRC.
He seems to know nada about commercial nuclear power yet has one of the most powerful positions regulating the industry, one that provides 20% of America’s electricity.
Sorry, there should be a ban on a Hill staffer moving over to an appointed government position. Maybe after a 5 year cooling off period but not directly.