What do senate staffers do

There are resources available to congressional offices seeking staff, but those resources generally do not offer detailed assistance in determining position titles or duties. In the Senate, the Senate Placement Office provides informational interviews to prospective applicants, and provides a weekly bulletin of available positions for offices wishing to advertise vacancies.

The office will deliver resumes and applications of potential job candidates to Senate offices upon request. See U. The template is silent on procedures to determine the actual job duties and responsibilities of an employee.

The Congressional Management Foundation CMF , a private organization interested in congressional management issues, provides a series of core functions that it argues must be carried out in a congressional office. CMF also ascribes cursory job descriptions to some specific job titles, but does not argue that specific tasks must reside in specific positions. Entities that may hire House staff on their own initiative include Member, leadership, and committee offices; party conferences; the Clerk of the House; the Sergeant at Arms; the Chief Administrative Officer; the Chaplain; the Parliamentarian; the House Legal Counsel and other legal offices; the Inspector General; and the House child care center.

Entities that may hire Senate staff on their own initiative include Member, leadership, and committee offices; party conferences and secretaries; the Secretary of the Senate; the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper of the Senate; the Chaplain; Senate Legal Counsel; the Senate child care center; and the Senate library. Senate officers include the Secretary, and the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper. In the House, an employing authority may not retain staff who do not perform official duties commensurate with the compensation they receive House Rule XXIII, cl.

A House employing authority may not discriminate against an individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, due to their race, color, religion, sex including marital or parental status , disability, age, or national origin. In the Senate, an employing authority may not discriminate against an individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, on the basis of their race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or state of physical handicap Senate Rule XLII.

Employing authorities in the House and Senate are subject to two statutory provisions: an anti-nepotism statute, 5 U. The CAA generally prohibits discrimination in congressional employment decisions based on an applicant's or employee's age; disability; race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or past or present duty in the uniformed services.

Additionally, the act requires that congressional employees must get paid at least the current minimum wage, and that certain employees are entitled to overtime pay. Congressional employees are entitled to up to 12 weeks of leave from work for certain family and medical reasons.

With some exceptions, congressional employees cannot be required to take a polygraph test. Workplaces in the legislative branch must be free of hazards that are likely to cause death or serious injury. Some congressional employees, but not staff in Member, committee or leadership offices, are also entitled to notification of office closings or mass layoffs, or to form labor organizations to bargain with congressional employers.

In the House, compensation studies have also been issued for the th and th Congresses. Those studies used position descriptions that were substantially similar to those used in the th Congress study.

Neither study provided data for positions commonly found in House and Senate offices, including staff assistant, and legislative assistant. Both of those titles, however, appear as alternate job titles for one or more of the positions identified in both chambers and presented in this report.

A Senator may establish position titles in his or her office by written notification to the disbursing office of the Senate, 2 U. No similar explicit authority for a Member of the House was identified. Each Member of the House may employ no more than 18 permanent employees. As many as four additional part-time employees may be designated by the Member in any of the following categories: 1 part-time employees; 2 employees drawing compensation from more than one employing authority of the House; 3 interns receiving pay; 4 employees on leave without pay; and 5 temporary employees.

Washington: GPO, , p. Senators are not bound by limits on the number of staff they may hire. Overall staff compensation levels may not exceed the amounts provided for the Senators' Official Personnel and Office Expense Account. Senate, Senate Handbook , p. I, available from the author. This finding excludes partial job titles that do not match one of the 14 titles, as well as compound titles, such as legislative counsel, legislative aide and counsel, etc.

If a systematic approach to including partial matches to the 14 titles were pursued, the number of alternate titles for each position could rise substantially. The House report indicated that its data were based on the responses of This information should be interpreted with care due to the inherently imprecise comparability of congressional positions of the same title.

Forgot your password? GSA Mailing List. Officers Awards. Previous Issues Advertising. Momentum Discussions Podcast. Publication Discounts. Two things that can help you with this are finding a mentor and networking with experts. Building a good relationship with the legislators you work for will both increase your influence in that job and help you get jobs in the future. For example, George Tenet rose from working for a senator, to working on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to eventually becoming Director of Central Intelligence.

You might try to get to know people in think tanks, federal agencies, industry, and academia. It might also be helpful to get involved with the effective altruism community , which includes some people with expertise in high priority problem areas. The guide is aimed at people who are a part of the effective altruism community, but we think it should also be useful for others. Our career review on think tank research. Our guide to working in AI strategy and policy. How to succeed in a congressional internship.

Surviving Inside Congress. We still have some key uncertainties about this career path, which are worth looking into if you are considering becoming a congressional staffer. Apply for coaching. Instead, they looked for all types of influence, however small, on any policy, however unimportant. They interviewed personal staff rather than committee staff. We think that a large part of the impact that Congress has on government comes from committees.

If it turns out that committee staff are more constrained than personal staff, they may not be able to have much impact. They interviewed only staffers, who might overestimate their influence. So, the hearings that we did, I think probably during that time from to , I think probably we did 35 hearings during that time on AIDS issues. The BIS is home to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the body responsible for trying to coordinate bank regulations among the rich countries.

Cardon was involved in this effort. He and Chon spent nearly eight hours together in that airplane, talking about derivatives—an eye-opening conversation. Cardon showed her a detailed report from the BIS on derivatives, and discussed why they could be so risky. He gave her the names of other Europeans who would be at the IMF meetings who could help her understand what others were thinking about derivatives regulation.

She followed up in Turkey, found these people, and realized that there was an emerging international consensus in favor of stiff new regulation of the financial sector generally, and the derivatives market specifically.

She found two. Chon talked to Eisman on the phone to see if he would help her. He was outspoken. Eisman said derivatives had played a big, damaging role in the Great Crash. He argued eloquently for strong regulation. When one Shelby aide asked why it would have been wrong to let AIG go under in September , Eisman had a blunt reply. There was a global freakathon going on.

She thought Eisman was terrific. The second validator Chon found was suggested to her by Barbara Novick, vice chairman of the huge New York investment management firm BlackRock, and a fellow Cornell graduate with whom Chon had become friends. Bolton briefed senators and staff. He gave a just-the-facts presentation with his English accent about how sloppy AIG Financial Products had been, and how reckless.

It contained a strong section on derivatives, empowering the regulators—the SEC and CFTC—to force most trades onto exchanges, and to require participants in private, over-the-counter derivatives trades to post collateral to guarantee them. But Chon knew this was just an early draft. Vintage Books, Consistent with this interpretation, we also find that the political power of the exiting politician is a good predictor of the drop in revenue suffered by the connected lobbyist.

Lobbyists connected to exiting senators who served in the Finance and Appropriations Committees and to representatives who served in the Ways and Means Committee suffer a substantial drop in revenue when the connected politician leaves office. Lobbyists connected to congressmen in neither of these powerful committees are statistically unaffected by their exits. When Democrats won control of the Senate in the midterm elections, Chon was hired onto the staff of the Banking Committee. Chon and Maher had gotten to know each other at weekly meetings organized by the Policy Committee staff.

Kaiser, Robert G. Vintage Books, p. The following year, Tenet was named National Security Council staff director for intelligence, responsible for coordinating all intelligence matters for the White House, including covert action.

In , Clinton named him deputy director of central intelligence, and two years after that, he appointed him director of central intelligence DCI , charged with heading the CIA and the vast U. Intelligence Community. Bush at War. Home Career reviews Congressional staffer. Search for:. On this page:. Ratings Career capital:.

Job satisfaction:. Key facts on fit US citizenship usually required, willing to join a political party and work on policies you might disagree with, able to develop strong networking skills, able to handle long hours, stress, and the frustrations of working in a slow moving system.

Next steps Talk to congressional staffers to learn more. Recommended If you are well suited to this career, it may be the best way for you to have a social impact. Review status Medium-depth career profile. Table of Contents 1 What this profile is based on 2 What is this career path? What this profile is based on We spoke to a current congressional staffer, a former congressional intern, and two senior federal employees, one of whom was a former congressional staffer.

Notes and references Kennedy, Edward M. True compass: A memoir. Twelve, Quoted in Kaiser, Robert G. With U. For these reasons, DoD has long made and continues to make significant investments in infectious disease prevention, research and development, and other activities. Taking the lead congressional staffers and their role in the policy process. Legislative analysis responsibilities are assigned to staff, tax counsel, or legislative assistants with particular expertise in specific areas.

Depending on the responsibilities and interests of the member, an office may have separate legislative assistants assigned to health issues, environmental matters, taxes, etc.

The scheduler may also be responsible for making necessary travel arrangements, arranging speaking engagements and visits to the district, etc.