42 TIME April 11/April 18, 2022
to an analysis by data tracker LegiStorm. The at-
trition rate was 55% higher last year than in 2020.
Demanding working conditions and meager
wages also mean that staf jobs generally go to
“people who are privileged,” says James Jones,
author of the forthcoming book The Last Planta-
tion: Racism in the Halls of Congress. A 2020 re-
port from the Joint Center for Political and Eco-
nomic Studies, a Washington- based think tank,
found that 89% of top Senate aides—chiefs of staf,
policy chiefs, and communications directors—are
white. On the House side, 81% are white.
That lack of racial diversity is bad for Congress’s
ability to create nuanced legislation, Jones says.
But it’s also bad for the rest of Washington, which
relies on Congress “as a credentialing institution.”
“You spend a few years on Capitol Hill, but that ex-
perience gives you a license to work in many other
elite workplaces, like the White House or the Su-
preme Court,” Jones says. Early-career Hill roles
paved the way for top political leaders Senate mi-
nority leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President
Kamala Harris. In other words, organizers argue,
making Congress a more decent place to work
could pay dividends to American democracy.
IT’S AN IDEA that Representative Andy Levin, a
Michigan Democrat with a deep résumé of labor
organizing, embraces. “The staf came to me be-
cause they knew that I would understand that this
isn’t about us,” he says, “and it isn’t about what
headaches it might cause.” On Feb. 9, he intro-
duced the resolution to codify protections for
House stafers to unionize; 165 of 222 House Dem-
ocrats have signed on. It needs 217 votes to pass,
but has yet to come up for a vote.
More frustrating than that delay, CWU stafers
say, are the 55 House Democrats who voted to pass
the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a bill pro-
tecting private- sector union workers, but have yet
to sign on to Levin’s resolution. “I personally have
experienced many times, people who say they are
for the idea of workers having unions,” says Levin,
“but then when their own workers want a union,
somehow, all of a sudden, it’s not appropriate.”
In the Senate, things are even less rosy. Senator
Sherrod Brown said he planned to introduce a Sen-
ate resolution after Levin’s House version, but he
has not yet. It would have very little chance of pass-
ing the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. Democratic
Senator Joe Manchin has expressed skepticism
about the workability of a unionized Senate staf.
As the resolutions stall, the stafers’ ambitions
have not. In March, Congress passed an appropri-
ations bill increasing House members’ oice al-
lowances by 21%—the largest bump since 1996.
CWU members have since advised several stafers
on how to advocate for salary increases tied to the
boost—a small victory, but one that gives purpose.
“I feel proud to be a Hill stafer,” says one, “for the
irst time in a long time. Potentially ever.” —With
reporting by MARIAH ESPADA/WASHINGTON △
Representative
Andy Levin
(D., Mich.)
speaks during a
news conference
on congressional
staf unioniza-
tion eforts
on Feb. 9 in
WashingtonPOLITICS
TOM BRENNER—REUTERS