Congressional Staff and the Revolving Door: The Impact of Regulatory Change

Abstract

In 2007, Congress passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA) in an attempt to slow the revolving door between Congress and the Washington lobbying industry with one year bans on contacts between the ex-staffers and their former colleagues in the Congress. The variation in the Senate and House rules and a complete set of congressional staff panel data between 2001 and 2011 allow us to assess the effectiveness of the revolving door provisions of HLOGA and the relative importance of different factors that contribute to congressional staffers' employability as lobbyists. Using a differencein-differences quasi-experimental design on data from Legistorm, we find evidence that the HLOGA realized some of its intended effect. As compared to ''high-level'' staff earning between 60% and 75% of a member's salary, the share of ''covered'' staff (i.e., those making 75% and above of a member's salary) becoming lobbyists within a year declined at a greater rate. This decline, however, was much more notable in the Senate, which had enacted much tougher contacting rules. The effects of HLOGA were stronger on committee staff than personal office staff, and strongest of all on Senate committee staff. They were also stronger on majority party than minority party staff. Additionally, we found some substitution effects in the lobbying market. Demand for high-level but uncovered Senate committee staffers actually rose in the wake of the reforms, as did the demand for covered House committee staffers.

Sliding doors in Brussels: A career path analysis of EU affairs managers

“…As emphasised in one of the most important works in this field: 'It is documented that regulators with five years' public service can triple their salaries just by stepping out the revolving door' (cited in Che 1995: 393). This has been empirically demonstrated in more recent studies (Blanes i Vidal et al 2012;Cain & Drutman 2014). Previous work experience in the private sector elicits the same consequence (Gormley 1979).…”

“…Recent works on revolving doors in the United States suggest that companies hire individuals with experience in the public sector not because of their expertise, but because of their personal contacts (Bertrand et al 2011;Blanes i Vidal et al 2012;Cain & Drutman 2014;LaPira & Thomas 2014;Lazarus et al 2016). We build on this new perspective for the management approach to revolving doors proposed in this work.…”

“…() find that from 1976 to 2012 a quarter and almost a third, respectively, of members of the House of Representatives and Senators became lobbyists, with this trend increasing over time. Finally, Cain and Drutman () demonstrate that roughly a fifth of staff leaving Congress became lobbyists.…”

Who walks through the revolving door? Examining the lobbying activity of former members of Congress

“…Congress itself appears to take these concerns seriously, as evidenced by several laws and rules governing the post-congressional employment of former Members and staff (see Cain and Drutman 2014). For example, members and staff must report outside job negotiations to the House or Senate Ethics Committee, former members of Congress who register to lobby lose their access to the chamber floor and other areas of the Capitol, staff are restricted from lobbying their former offices for one year, and registered lobbyists must disclose their former employment by Congress.…”

“…Recent studies are creating a more accurate picture of the revolving-door population than has previously been available (Cain andDrutman 2014, LaPira andThomas 2014). In this article, we take a narrow analytical focus and ask specifically, which members of Congress are most Second, we look at the member's chamber.…”