Congressional Staff 101:

We noted in an earlier post that most Congressional offices have legislative staff based in Washington D.C. and casework staff based in the Congressional district. In this post we'll examine those two types of staff and also talk about the career path most Congressional staffers follow.
Each Member of Congress in the House of Representatives may have 18 paid employees. These employees will be split between the Washington D.C. office and the district office. Many offices will place more employees in the district office so that the Congressman can have his staff representing him at many events across the district.

District staff are usually drawn from the district and are often either career Congressional staff, former government employees in the civil service, or political operatives from a Member of Congress' campaigns. A district office is headed up by a District Director who oversees all activities and personnel in the district. The District Director may also be involved in fundraising and other political activities. If so, he or she will be paid by the Federal government and the Member of Congress' campaign at the same time. Under the District Director will be several field representatives who also serve as caseworkers. These staffers will represent the Congressman in the district at a variety of political and community events. They will also perform casework for the public, which is essentially any function of the Congressional office not related to legislation. As we noted, it most typically includes activities like helping the public navigate the bureaucracy. The district office may also employ support staff, such as a secretary or scheduler, and often has several interns to answer phone calls and do other routine office work.

The Washington D.C. office will be headed up by a Chief of Staff, who is also the highest ranking staffer in the office. The Chief of Staff is also the ultimate supervisor of the district office, though the day to day management of the district office is usually left to the District Director because of the typical distance between the D.C. office and the district office. The Chief of Staff is responsible for the Member's representational allowance, which is a lump sum of money given to each Congressman to operate his office. The typical Member of Congress receives around $1.1 to $1.3 million to run his office each year, though that amount varies based on the distance between the Member's district and Washington D.C. Members with districts that are further away get more money to cover the increased cost of travel between D.C. and their district. The Chief of Staff also does campaign work, such as fundraising, and will often act as the Congressman's campaign manager or the individual who hires the Congressman's campaign manager. The Chief of Staff makes many strategic decisions for the Congressman and advises him on overall political strategy.

Directly below the Chief of Staff is the Legislative Director, who is also sometimes called a Legislative Counsel or a Deputy Chief of Staff. This person will be in charge of all legislative strategy for the Member of Congress and the person ultimately responsible for the day to day legislative operations of the office. The Legislative Director oversees the Congressman's committee work, advises him on how to vote on legislation before the House, and serves as a liaison with special interest groups that seek to lobby the Congressman. The Legislative Director is expected to make sure that the Congressman's legislative actions further the Congressman's legislative agenda and do not cause the Congressman problems with interest groups, leadership, or voters back in the district. The last major duty of a Legislative Director is to oversee all outgoing office communications with constituents, which means approving letters and setting the tone of the communication strategy.
Legislative Aides serve below the Legislative Director and shoulder some of the same responsibilities as the Legislative Director, but they have less authority to make decisions. They will advise the Congressman on votes, specific pieces of legislation, and work with special interest groups, committees, leadership, and constituents.

Legislative Correspondents write letters at the instruction of the Legislative Director and manage all incoming constituent contacts. Congressional offices receive on average around 25,000 contacts per year, or more, so there is enough work writing letters and managing incoming contacts to keep one or two people fully busy at this job.

Staff Assistants are an entry level position. These individuals answer phones, greet visitors to the office, handle routine office logistics, take visitors to the office on tours of the Capitol, answer the phones, and perform any other task assigned to them.

Schedulers handle the continually changing schedule of the Congressman. They manage meeting requests, campaign events, floor votes, committee schedules, and all other movements of the Congressman to make sure that the Congressman is in the right place at the designated time. The Scheduler may also answer phones and do some other limited office logistics, but the job of keeping a Member's calendar is a full time job.

The Press Secretary handles all of the office's interaction with the media. They schedule interviews, write op-eds, create quotes that are attributed to the Congressman in press articles, talk to reporters, and develop the Congressman's media communication strategy. Today's Press Secretaries also handle the "new media" platforms that are growing popular as a means of political communication.
There are two main ways that an individual "breaks in" to Congressional staffing work, especially in the Washington D.C. office. The first way is through the Congressman's campaign. When a new Member of Congress is elected he may decide to bring some personnel with him who helped him win election. Campaign personnel may start at any level in the office; some Members will put a trusted campaign manager or other advisor in charge of their new office as a Chief of Staff. This happens often enough to be worth mentioning, but it is by far the less common route for a Congressional staffer.

The vast majority of Congressional staffers begin their careers on "the Hill" (as it's called in D.C. parlance) in entry level positions such as an intern or a staff assistant. Once the new staffer masters his or her current job they will seek to advance to the next level. A Staff Assistant becomes a Legislative Correspondent. A Legislative Correspondent becomes a Legislative Aide. A Legislative Aide becomes a Legislative Director and a Legislative Director becomes a Chief of Staff. It usually takes around ten years for a new staffer to go from Staff Assistant to Chief of Staff.
Congressional staff may have other experience, such as prior private sector experience and a significant number are attorneys. However, most Congressional staffers are fresh out of college with a standard degree, often in political science. The average age of a Congressional staffer is very young, 22-28, though there are a very few career staffers who spend their entire lives on the Hill, usually as very senior staff. As a result, the pool of Congressional staff is a very hidebound institution. Staffers frequently move between offices and develop deep ties in the Hill community. Since the Hill community places are great degree of value on personal relationships most staffers are eager to conform to the community norms. Staffers will try to promote each other as much as possible in other offices so that they will have connections to those offices. This aids staff in lobbing each other for legislation and other types of cooperation.

Senior staff receive significant pay, but junior staff receive very little pay. A Chief of Staff may receive between $100,000 and $160,000, while a Staff Assistant will receive between $20,000 and $25,000. Legislative Assistants will receive in the $30-$40,000 range. Legislative Directors will receive between $60,000 and $90,000. Schedulers and Press Secretaries typically are in the $50,000 to $60,000 range. Of course, the pay of any staffer is at the discretion of the Chief of Staff and, ultimately, the Member of Congress.

The reason that Congressional staff are willing to work for long periods of time in a high cost of living area (Washington D.C.) at modest pay for much of their career is because few staffers remain on the Hill after 10-15 years. After spending 2-5 years at a senior staff level (Legislative Director or Chief of Staff) the vast majority of Congressional staff "go downtown." That is, they become lobbyists. By the time the average staffer becomes a lobbyist he or she has likely worked for a half dozen Members of Congress or more. Their previous bosses are most likely still on the Hill and reaching the point in their careers where they have significant seniority. If the staffer is lucky an old boss will have a high rank on an important committee. Staffers use their previous jobs and far flung network of acquaintances on the Hill, along with their knowledge of how Congress works, to market themselves to lobbying firms or other groups that have interests in legislation. An average staffer can make two or three times the salary lobbying that they could make as a senior staffer. The best staffers, which is to say the most connected staffers, can command prices in excess of a million dollars per year to lobby. This is the career endpoint that most Congressional staffers have in mind when they begin their careers on the Hill.

As you can probably see at this point, the system has some significant weaknesses that many Tea Party activists are critical of. When a new Member of Congress arrives on the Hill he or she is immediately confronted by an entrenched staff that try to make their new boss conform to the orthodox methods of operation. A Member of Congress that wants to shake things up must not only resist the bureaucratic inertia of the government and other Members, but also his own staff. Of course, a sufficiently strong Member of Congress can be fully in control of what happens in his or her office, but unfortunately, too many Members are all too willing to integrate into the system. A deeper critique of the Congressional staffing system is beyond the scope of this post. Hopefully you now have an idea of how Congressional staffing works. If you have any questions please let me know in the comments below.