WORKING ON THE HILL: Have You Ever Been Pressured to Work on the Boss’ Re-Election Campaign?
With serious attention finally being paid now by congressional leaders in both parties to the working conditions of their staffers, lots of issues that have heretofore been in the background are beginning to percolate to the surface.
One such issue is working on a Member’s re-election campaign staff in the months leading up to an election. For House-side staffers, this is a perennial concern because of the two-year term. It’s less so on the Senate side where re-election campaigns only come around every six years, but the difference in the problems presented have to do with frequency rather than kind.
An excellent deep-dive analysis of this issue was published June 4 by Business Insider (BI) explicating the many angles to the problem. The analysis was authored by Kimberly Leonard, Warren Rojas and Camilla deChalus.
Among the problems spotlighted by BI are those attendant to the difficulties of keeping two balls in the air that are never supposed to be shared. Campaign stuff and official business are not supposed to mix.
What If You’re Expected to Work for Free?
“‘I was aware that I was being pushed past the limit of what was reasonable, but I was 24 years old and so happy to be a communications director and didn’t want to upset the apple cart,’ the former Democratic communications director who worked during the 2016 cycle said.” — Business Insider
There are multiple other serious challenges involved, particularly if you are a junior staffer being paid a minimal salary, living in the expensive District of Columbia (living in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs isn’t exempt from this, either), and being pressured to add campaign work to your off-duty schedule.
Staffers can end up putting in way more than the usual 40-50 hour works but receiving no extra compensation. And they have no defense against being fired without explanation in the event of getting crosswise with the boss, the chief of staff or the campaign manager.
One curious aspect of the Business Insider analysis, however, is virtually all of the unnamed sources are described as being on the Democratic side of the partisan aisle. I find it difficult to believe this phenomenon is not found among Republican staffers as well.
If you are on the GOP side and have experienced this problem and you are willing to talk about it if guaranteed anonymity, please email me. I have been doing journalism for more than three decades and have never burned a source, so you can be confident of being able to talk candidly without fear. mark.tapscott@hillfaith.org