#Congressional oversight process license#
#Congressional oversight process professional#

The only real solution has been to move on to somewhere else. The awful bosses become known, but rarely does the behavior really change. Throwing typewriters, or laptops now ordering staff to walk the dog or get the dry cleaning, tantrums and crude, arrogant behavior result in the Caligula-like lawmakers having poor staff retention. I often heard about some bosses acting like jerks. It also translated into top staff refusing to protect women other than with feckless advice such as вЂњDonвЂ™t get on an elevator with him alone.вЂќ Even if todayвЂ™s accounts of racism and sexism are not always so blatant, they are serious, and too few on Capitol Hill call them out and impose sanctions, especially when it is a lawmaker who performs the dog whistling or the predatory behavior.

#Congressional oversight process license#

It was not a problem just at the member-of-Congress level as with most things, the behavior of the bosses was license for anyone else. Congressman Wayne Hays (D-Ohio) putting a woman on the House payroll to make her available to him for a sexual relationship was only one of the endless examples of a culture rampant with misconduct. The disturbing message, then and now, is clear. They didnвЂ™t exactly punish him for his widely known and unapologetic racism they named the Senate office building after him - and still do to this day.

#Congressional oversight process professional#

One of the very first African Americans to work in a professional job in the Senate, she recounted how one senator would refuse to ride the elevator with her in it. I couldnвЂ™t help but overhear the horror stories of one officemate about the racism she encountered when she started with Javits, years before.

Jacob Javits, a liberal Republican from New York in 1971, I worked in a typically over-stuffed room in the Russell Senate Office Building with five others and their desks, bookcases, file cabinets, partitions and an occasional intern or two. But if staffers do unionize, they should do more than just tackle workforce issues: They should push lawmakers to make Capitol Hill a less dysfunctional place for both itself and the broader public. I saw what todayвЂ™s staffers are complaining about time after time. I worked for members on both sides of the aisle, both liberal and conservative. I worked in Congress for 31 years - 22 years in the Senate and nine years at the Government Accountability Office, the HillвЂ™s watchdog agency. These complaints are certainly legitimate they are also ancient. Staff complain about low pay, long hours, poor conditions, racism, sexism and lousy bosses. It should be no surprise that support is growing among congressional aides to form a union. He also directed multiple major studies at GAO and authored or edited books, anthologies, commentaries and articles while at the Center for Defense Information and the Project On Government Oversight.

Domenici (R-N.M.), Nancy Landon Kassebaum(R-Kan.) and David Pryor (D-Ark.), the latter two simultaneously. Wheeler worked on national security issues for Senators Jacob K.