Congressional Staff Turnover and the Ties-That-Bind

Individual members of the U. S. Congress work with staffs ranging in size from a minimum of 18 to a maximum of well over 100. Each member has come to preside over a personnel system and, consequently, may best be understood as an enterprise manager. In this article we examine these congressional enterprises in order to gain some insight about the autonomy of individual staffers, the stability of these member-centered enterprises, and generally, the responsiveness of staffers to member objectives. While it is difficult to observe or measure responsiveness directly, some purchase on the question is gained through an investigation of the causes and consequences of staff turnover; this is the major empirical focus of the research reported here.