Partisan Aspects of Congressional Committee Staffing

Abstract

ONGRESSIONAL committee staffing is a subject which has been largely ignored in political science literature. A number of otherwise excellent studies of congressional committees have not dealt with the committee staff.' George B. Galloway and Gladys Kammerer have written extensively on the effects of the Legislative Re-organization Act of 1946 on committee staffing.2 Their writings are highly prescriptive and diagnostic. Kenneth Kofmehl's recent study of congressional staffing is similarly diagnostic.3 Consideration of congressional committee staffing in texts on the legislative process, both state and national, primarily consists of a recitation of figures and a prescriptive plea for larger staffs. This point, it might be noted, begs the question. Admittedly the work load of committees is increasing annually. However, a mere increase in the size of committee staffs is not going to meet those problems which may exist. The members of congressional committee staffs are actors in the legislative process. Staff members above the level of persons doing clerical work are not neutral servants. In a real sense the staff members, i.e., those doing other than clerical-type work, are as actively involved in the legislative process as are the members of Congress.4 The professional staff gathers much of the information with which