Congressional Legislative Staff: Political Professionals or Clerks?

Abstract

Theory: Wilensky's (1959) basic sociologic model of professions, which has been applied to federal employees (Mosher 1982) and modified by Brante (1990) and Raelin (1991) is applied to congressional legislative staff to ascertain whether they can be portrayed accurately as professionals. Brante's typology of professions includes a category for a political profession for individuals who have a special form of tacit knowledge and expertise in political technology which transcend departments and party lines. Raelin articulates characteristics widely accepted to be typical of professional groups: expertise, autonomy, commitment, identification, ethics, and standards enforcement. Hypotheses: Congressional staff are more than a mere occupational grouping of political operatives and more than mere clerks, as official congressional nomenclature would suggest. Methods: The findings are based on data gathered during 40 intensive, exploratory interviews with congressional legislative staff which were conducted during the first half of 1995, the early days of the 104th Congress. Results: Congressional legislative staff constitute what Brante (1990) refers to as a political profession; they share most but not all of the characteristics of professionals. Staffers have high status, expertise, substantial but qualified autonomy, commitment to the political enterprise and public service, and some identification of themselves as political professionals. They do not control access to the profession nor have self-policing mechanisms but they do recognize a common framework of norms of professional level work as essential for success.