At least 48 U.S. House members have announced they are not seeking re-election, compared to just 35 at the same point in the election cycle two years ago. But it’s not just lawmakers who are heading for the exits. A large number of congressional staffers are leaving, too.
“They're sick and tired of the chaos that's being created in this Congress,” says Naysa Woomer, who has worked on Capitol Hill on and off for the past decade. “It just takes a few members that have really just, you know, just spoil the water a little bit here.”
The non-partisan Congressional Management Foundation says its most recent annual survey on the 'State of Congress' had a grim finding: “Congress is broken.”
“There was a real message from the senior staffers: If you want to look for solutions, it’s tone down the rhetoric, start collaborating with your colleagues inside and outside of your party to get things done for the American people," said Bradford Fitch, the foundation’s president, and CEO.
Since the 118th Congress began last January, there have been a number of historic firsts that have been somewhat embarrassing to the institution, beginning with the House taking 15 rounds of voting to elect Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaker. Then, in October, the House ousted its speaker for the first time in history. Removing McCarthy brought most House business to a standstill for three weeks as House Republicans struggled to elect a new leader. Throughout the last year, Republicans struggled to find consensus on legislation.
“We didn't always have this. We got just a caucus of people in the Congress to feel that shouting is legislating. And that's not the system our founders gave us. It's intended for compromise and center for collaboration,” said Fitch.
It’s a sentiment Brittany Martinez, who worked for McCarthy for five years, echoes.
“At a time like this, when the members themselves barely know how to lead, why would the staff want to be here, they – I'd rather jump off the ship and try my own path and to continue to be surrounded by this chaos,” she said.
Martinez left the Hill at the end of last year following McCarthy’s ouster. The California native started her career as an intern with then-Speaker John Bohner, R-OH, before returning as a full-time professional staffer for about a decade.
In that time, Martinez says, there has been an attitude shift.
“I think that where we are as a country and in politics right now is really divisive, and unfortunately, you see that on the hill as well. I always would say when people would ask me, ‘is it really that bad?’” she says. “I feel like there's a lot of collaboration on the hill, and I would say that there still is between both sides of the aisle, but maybe not as much as it used to be.”
The Foundation’s report found almost six out of 10 senior Republican staffers said they were thinking about leaving their job on the Hill due to the actions of their own party. Martinez says she was one such Republican.
“It just was very clear that now is not the time for me to be on the Hill. It's just not what it used to be and I just don't want to be part of the circus,” she said.
Woomer resigned from her position as communications director after her boss, former Rep. George Santos, R-NY, was indicted on fraud and other charges. Woomer, who had previously been working for the Massachusetts governor, says she had no idea what she was getting into.
“I was working in Boston, and this was someone who – you're not paying attention to every race around the country. And just like anyone else, when you're interviewing for a job, you go to the website. So I went to the campaign website, and read the biography, and just everything seemed interesting and checked out,” said Woomer of her decision to take the job. “I asked a couple people who were in [or] working around New York politics, and there was nothing negative about him at that moment.”
When The New York Times reported that Santos, who is openly gay, had previously been married to a woman, Woomer said she thought it “was the most innocuous thing, because there's been so many gay men who've been previously married to women, because they came from conservative backgrounds.” But then a series of revelations followed, raising questions about his truthfulness and his past. Woomer said his subsequent indictment on federal charges – Santos has pleaded not guilty – was the last straw.
“It was a very difficult decision because I didn't have anything lined up,” admitted Woomer. “And we became – the staff unfortunately, became media headlines from time to time. And I did not want Santos to… I did not want him to say anything incorrect about me. And so I shared my resignation with a trusted reporter and embargoed it until I sent it to the member.”
Over the last several years, there have been attempts to improve life for staffers on Capitol Hill, including a pay raise for junior staffers.
But even members of Congress understand the allure of life beyond the shadow of the Capitol dome for staffers.
“Not to state the obvious, but Congress is punching below its weight right now. It's not coaching as well as it ought to,” admitted Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., who serves as the top Democrat on the House Modernization Committee.
“Congress is not necessarily demonstrating that it's a great place to work, in part because of outward appearances of dysfunction, in part because the institution has not historically done a good job of adequately compensating staff. And the impact of that is that we see pretty profound turnaround,” Kilmer explained. “The average congressional staffer is in their role, on average, about three years. And so what we see is, as someone develops expertise, they – to quote LeBron James – take their talents elsewhere. And that's not great for the institution, it's not great for the American people, because if Congress is going to be a place that can solve big problems for the American people, it has to have competent capable staff members.”
Through the work of the Modernization Committee, Congress has seen the creation of a coworking space and opening a staff academy to refine skills. Kilmer says while this is a good start, more work still needs to be done to retain talent
“The modernization committee was explicit in identifying recruitment, retention and diversity of staff as an issue that we needed to dive into.”
Kilmer, who will retire at the end of his term, said “it’s healthy for an organization to have new blood come in,” and that he sees himself as “a loving critic” of Congress.
“My encouragement to junior staffers, senior staffers and members of Congress is to view yourself as a loving critic of the institution. And every day when you come to work, look in the mirror and try to figure out how you can contribute to the institution being better.”
The Congressional Management Foundation emailed over 2,700 staffers to participate in the survey, but only 138 did. Of those who participated, 55% have worked for Congress for more than 10 years, and almost three-quarters (74%) identified themselves as chiefs of staff, deputy chiefs of staff, legislative directors, committee or subcommittee staff directors, or district or state directors. Some 53% were born before 1980, and “like most of the senior positions in Congress, they lean heavily White (86 percent).”
Fitch says another common thread they found in the survey’s responses was concern for safety, especially in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Post-January 6th, especially with Democrats, there still is a fear of coming to work. We're reminded every day of a January 6 event in Washington. You can't read the paper for two days where someone has been convicted or someone isn't caught, linked to January 6, and that has a mental impact on people who work in this work environment,” explained Fitch.
No Republicans mentioned the Capitol attack in the open-ended survey questions, though Fitch says his team “scoured” for it in their answers. And while the dangers of that day may not be top of mind for Republican staffers, staffers from both parties are seeing an increase in threats. According to the report, four out of 10 staffers reported “direct insulting or threatening messages” were received with a level of frequency.
“More death threats are coming into offices that are members of Congress who are people of color and women,” said Fitch. “The intensity, and frankly, the level of threatening messages coming into congressional offices has gone up significantly since 2017. And in some cases, both Democrats and Republicans report receiving threatening messages on a regular basis.”
And while things are bleak, Fitch says there is hope things will get better. But it starts from the top down.
“We have to have perhaps some changes of the members that are here and get a class of people that understand that you're not going to get 100% ‘it's not my way of highway,’” Fitch said. “If you want that, go [run] for office in England or Italy or Canada because they have parliaments. We have a Republic and [a] Republic demands that individual members do find compromise and collaborate to solve problems for the American people.”
Martinez says she has no plans to return to the Hill right now, but said she would come back (maybe as a member of Congress herself, she said). Woomer says she isn’t swearing off Capitol Hill just yet either – admitting she does “not want George Santos to be the last elected official that I work for.”
But she is also hoping for some of that civility Fitch talked about to return.
“There was a time even when I was here that Republicans and Democrats could still hate each other politically, but you actually like each other personally,” admitted Woomer. “I just would love to see that kind of…energy come back again.”
To read the full CMF report, click here.
