Accountability of Congressional Staff

This research was supported by a grant While accountability is a popular topic among elected offifrom the General Research Fund of the cials, accountability of congressional staff has received little University of Kansas. Thanks are also systematic scrutiny, a gap this article seeks to fill. Congressional due to the Brookings Institution for staff have substantial autonomy and opportunity to influence extending guest scholar privileges while the author was conducting these interpublic policy, albeit in ways that are not very visible to the views, and to Christopher Deering and general public. This article explores the web of accountability Andrew Whitford for helpful comments relationships within which congressional legislative staff work. on an earlier version of this article, which The data, based on open-ended interviews, indicate that while the was presented at the Midwest Public as esented attion meetings in icag, rhetoric of Congress supports a notion of swift and sure accountAdministration meetings in Chicago, 1999. ability, in practice the picture is much more complex. Congressional staff work within a web of multiple accountability relation'Issues of reform that relate to Congress ships under a variety of performance standards. Congressional include decentralization of the power structure in the Senate (Omrstein, Peasaffare attentive to a diverse range of stakeholders, with body, and Rohde 1997) with even more members of Congress being the primary but not the only group. sweeping reforms of House operations The challenge for congressional staff is to discern which standard regarding policy responsibilities, leaderis appropriate at any given time. The consequences of not meetship, and internal processes of the House committee system (Dodd and Oppening performance expectations are subtle and uneven. heimer 1997; Evans and Oleszek 1997); more general issues include campaign Most of the pressures for government reform during the past reform, term limits, and the Congresdecade, whether in administrative or electoral politics arenas, can sional Accountability Act of 1995 (Evans . . . sional Accountability Act of 1995 (Evans be traced to concerns for increased accountability. The rhetoric and Oleszek 1997; Task Force on Campaign Reform 1998). Issues of reform that that surrounds accountability is often passionate and moralistic, relate to the executive branch generally even though accountability relationships for employees reflect fall under the rubric of the National often mundane processes, such as frequent, if not daily, comPerformance Review (Gore 1993 and 1995), reinventing goverment (Osboe munications between employees and the relevant authorities. Typand Gaebler 1992; Romzek 1998), and ically the public hears about accountability only when something civil service reform (Romzek forthgoes awry-in the form of a mishap or scandal covered in the coming). media.2 This is part of the basis for the public perception that The country has witnessed a substantial increase in scrutiny of government government is out of control and is further fueled by the politics agencies and government officials. For of trumpeting efforts to stop waste, fraud, and abuse. example, the Independent Counsel statute, which has been on the books since 1978, Congress has long been one of the key institutions for has generated twenty separate investigations of the behavior of elected officials overseeing the accountability of federal executive agencies, with varying degrees of effectiveness (Calvert, McCubbins, and WeinJ-PART 10(2000):2:413-446 gast 1989; McCubbins and Schwartz 1984; Wood and Waterman 413/Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory This content downloaded from 157.55.39.170 on Wed, 19 Oct 2016 04:05:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Accountability of Congressional Staff 1991; 1993; 1994). Congressional staff, through their work on oversight committees and casework, are key actors in the accountability relationships of executive branch agencies. Especially thoughtful analysis recognizes accountability as a two-way l(continued) street, suggesting that in addition to bureaucracies being held and senior executives in the federal nse nt se ecut rad, accountable by elected officials, those same elected officials also government by special prosecutors. And, of course, the nation's public discourse should be held accountable for their direction of the bureaucracy regarding accountability of public officials (Wood and Waterman 1994). This article takes that logic one reached a fevered pitch in 1998 and early step further and asks about the accountability of congressional 1999, culminating in the impeachment of President Clinton by the U.S. House of staff. What performance expectations do they face? How and to Representatives and his subsequent trial in whom are they accountable? As Malbin (1980) notes, they are the U.S. Senate, only the second such not elected to their positions; as such they have only an indirect instance in the republic's two hundred mandate to carry out the public's business. Hence the interest in year history. whether and in what ways congressional staff are accountable. 2This is part of the basis for the public perception that government is out of Members of Congress delegate substantial autonomy to staff control. As a consequence, the rhetoric because members themselves rarely have the time, skill, or of reform usually poses questions of accountability in terms of whether inclination to manage their congressional enterprises (McCubbins government employees are sufficiently and Page 1987; Loomis 1988; Whiteman 1995). Legislative staff accountable, with calls for more accountOccupy positions of influence as professionals who bring experability being a popular rallying cry. While tise to bear on the public-policy process (Price 1972; Fox and ability in terms of more or less, doing so it^ is o mp sibeodscu acoutHammond 1977; Kofmehl 1977; Malbin 1980; DeGregorio 1994 implies a unidimensional, linear concept and 1997; Whiteman 1995; Romzek and Utter 1997). As expert that does not reflect the complexity of agents for their member-employers, congressional staff bring to American public management. A more the institution the potential risk associated with the use of useful approach, which is employed in useful approach, which is emplyed i professionals in any organization, the potential for professionals dimensions of accountability and the comto be self-serving, self-perpetuating, and unresponsive to the plex context of public accountability. public interest and/or their employers (Appleby 1952; Piven and Cloward 1971; Tullock 1965; Mosher 1982; Bell 1985).3 3This perspective has received much attention in the principal-agent literature (Salisbury and Shepsle 1981; Moe 1984; The motive and opportunity for these unelected and "invisGarvey 1993; Shepsle and Weingast ible" staff members to influence public policy is substantial (Fox 1995; Brehm and Gates 1997). Examining and Hammond 1977; Malbin 1980; Romzek and Utter 1996). As the activities of congressional staff through the lens of principal-agent theoone observer noted: ries requires recognition of multiple principals and multiple agents. Problems [M]uch of the work behind drafting legislation operates on a level of detail of information asymmetries, hidden that belies the simple descriptions given on 60-second nightly news spots. actions, and moral hazards on the part of One new sentence, even one new word, in an environmental protection bill agents may emerge if agents, as selffor instance, could exempt a chemical company from properly packaging its interested utility maximizers, pursue their product (Waldman 1995, 20). own agendas at the expense of the interests of their principals. Research indicates that staff policy agendas overlap with These circumstances are the basis for concerns about staff members' agendas (Kingdon 1989; Patteraccountability and control-to ensure that in the exercise of their son 1970; Romzek and Utter 1997); but discretion, congressional staff are pursuing publicly defined staff career interests may not completely goals. This can be especially challenging when staff are encouroverlap (Romzek and Utter 1996), giving rise to the possibility of information aged or allowed to adopt an entrepreneurial approach to their asymmetry and hidden actions. jobs (Price 1971; Malbin 1980). 414/J-PART, April 2000 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.170 on Wed, 19 Oct 2016 04:05:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Accountability of Congressional Staff Public officials, whether they are elected or appointed, routinely face multiple authorities who have expectations about their performances, which officials accommodate through prioritization of the different authorities and tradeoffs among expectations. While some aspects of accountability for elected officials are highly visible (e.g., elections), accountability dynamics for congressional staff are often relatively obscure to outside observers. The purpose of this article is to lift the veil of obscurity on the accountability of congressional staff. I will use as a starting point a framework of accountability that has been developed to explain accountability practices of executive branch agencies, which acknowledges a wide range of accountability relationships and complex dynamics (Romzek 1998; Romzek and Dubnick 1987). Can this framework help to explain the accountability experiences of congressional staff? Is there evidence for similar patterns in the accountability of congressional staff? These analyses are based on data drawn from fifty-seven intensive exploratory interviews with professional level congressional staff. In-depth interviews were conducted between 1995 and 1998, encompassing the 104th and 105th Congresses. See Appendix A for details.