Explaining Congressional Staff Members’ Decisions to Leave the Hill

Jensen, Jennifer M.

doi:10.1080/07343469.2010.501645

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(45 reference statements)

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“…One reason seems to be that working in Congress can be very rewarding. Despite the long hours and limited compensation, job openings are highly competitive, and many congressional staff derive satisfaction from working for a U.S. senator or congressman and being responsible for decisions that affect hundreds of millions of people, generating purposive benefits hard to find elsewhere ( Jensen 2011). Few jobs offer the intensity, pace, and power of working in Congress.…”

Section: Reasons For the Revolving Door And Regulatory Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

CainBruce¹,

DrutmanLee²

2014

Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy

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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.

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Section: Reasons For the Revolving Door And Regulatory Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

CainBruce¹,

DrutmanLee²

2014

Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy

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“…As a result of these changes, staff are likely to be less loyal to individual members and more motivated by partisanship or ideology, which increases the potential for agency loss. Commit-ment to the party is a more important predictor of whether staff leave Capitol Hill than personal commitment to individual members (Jensen 2011). 3 The incentives for staff to demonstrate party loyalty are likely especially high given the possibility of staff working for aligned groups such as interest groups and political campaigns or joining lobbying firms, which offer lucrative salaries in a sector that is increasingly organized along partisan lines (Confessore 2003;Cain and Drutman 2014).…”

Section: The Changing Nature Of Staff In a Partisan Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Revisiting the role of staff in the legislative process in the contemporary period is especially important given changes in the operation of Congress in recent decades, which have created conditions that might increase staff influence. First, staff are increasingly loyal to parties rather than members (Jensen 2011;Karol 2014), increasing the potential for agency loss but also facilitating staff-led coordination within parties. In addition, increased fundraising demands have reduced the time legislators can spend on legislative activities (e.g., Grim and Siddiqui 2013), which may increase reliance on staff.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Congressional Staff Networks in the US House of Representatives

Montgomery

Nyhan

2017

The Journal of Politics

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Standard accounts of legislative behavior typically neglect the activities of professional staff, who are treated as extensions of the elected officials they serve. However, staff appear to have substantial independent effects on observed levels of legislator productivity and policy preferences. In this paper, we use a novel dataset of comprehensive longitudinal employment records from the U.S. House of Representatives to estimate the effects of Congressional staff on legislative behavior. Specifically, results from a series of heteroskedastic Bayesian spatial autoregressive models indicate that members of Congress who exchange important staff members across congresses are more similar in their legislative effectiveness and voting patterns than we would otherwise expect. These findings suggest that scholars should reconsider the role of staff in the legislative process.

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“…This causes an overall loss of legislative capacity and expertise, as senior committee staffers who possess greater policy expertise and institutional memory are more likely to leave (Romzek and Utter ). Junior to midcareer staffers tend to remain in their positions until they gain enough expertise and experience to be attractive to lobbying firms (Jensen ). Once committee staffers gain personal contacts, policy expertise, and knowledge of congressional procedure, interest groups and lobbying firms then recruit the staffers from Congress (Drutman and Teles ).…”

Section: Developing Legislative Capacity and Expertisementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, staffing levels of standing committees in the House of Representatives are about half of their 1980 levels (Drutman and Teles ). Pay for committee positions such as staff directors and counsels have fallen by as much as 20%, leading to high turnover among staffers, a younger and more inexperienced staff, and the so‐called revolving door effect as many find jobs with lobbying firms (Drutman ; Jensen ). At the same time, Congress has reduced its policy expertise, and the executive branch has grown drastically in both size and influence (Burke ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Don't Sweat the Details! Enhancing Congressional Committee Expertise Through the Use of Detailees

Mills

Selin

2017

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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In contrast to the dramatic growth in the size and influence of the executive branch over the past 40 years, congressional committee staffing levels are at an all-time low. Faced with growing demands to produce legislation and to conduct oversight of executive branch policymaking, Congress can and does supplement its existing staff by borrowing personnel, known as detailees, from federal agencies. Using an original dataset of detailees from 1997 to 2015, we analyze the degree to which congressional committees rely on detailees to increase legislative capacity. We find that committees in the House and Senate use detailees in different ways to further both legislative and oversight initiatives.

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Explaining Congressional Staff Members’ Decisions to Leave the Hill

Cited by 12 publications

References 44 publications

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

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

The Effects of Congressional Staff Networks in the US House of Representatives

Don't Sweat the Details! Enhancing Congressional Committee Expertise Through the Use of Detailees

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