House press offices expand as other staffs shrink

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress are putting your money where their mouths are.

Since Republicans took control of the U.S. House in January 2011, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has led a cost-cutting effort that has trimmed staff for House committees by nearly 20%, saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. But the number of committee staff responsible for press and communications work has increased by nearly 15% over the same period, according to House spending records.

In the first three months of 2010, with Democrats still in control of the chamber, the primary committees of the House reported employing 1,570 staff members, 74 of whom had "press" or "communications" or related terms in their job titles. Over the same period this year, the same committees reported 1,277 total employees, a 19% cut, 85 of whom had communications-related job titles.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the numbers are "completely unsurprising. We promised responsible oversight of the Obama administration, and effective oversight requires communicating with the American people."

But the numbers raise concerns that Congress is replacing investigative and legislative work with political messaging.

Drew Hammill, spokesman for Minority Leader (and former speaker) Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, "while the urgent needs of the American people are ignored by House Republicans, it isn't surprising that their Republican Committee chairmen are hiring more communications staff to spin their record of obstruction, dysfunction and distraction."

Rep Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the top Democrat on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said it is Republicans on his committee who have driven the change. "Our committee — and all committees — should use taxpayer dollars to help better the everyday lives of our constituents, not inflate their press operations to basically run political campaigns out of government buildings."

The Oversight Committee has gone from a total staff of 118 with eight communications people in 2010 to 108 staff and 10 communications people. The trend is more dramatic over a longer period of time. In 1997, when the oversight committee headed by Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., was aggressively investigating President Clinton, the committee listed a staff of 121 with only two employees with communications in their job titles.

As the majority party in the House, Republicans get a bigger staff on each committee, and GOP staff grew after the House switched from Democratic to Republican control. For instance, the House Financial Services Committee had four press people in 2010, two Republican and two Democratic. For the first quarter of 2014 there were six, and GOP spokesman David Popp said four of those are Republicans. But the House records do not detail which party the staff members work for.

Becca Watkins, spokeswoman for Republicans on the Oversight Committee, said the change is driven by changing technology, and it affects both parties. "Just as the Internet changed the landscape for newspapers, it changed it for Congress as well. On a bipartisan basis, fewer staff hours are used on mail and managing paper-based archives. More goes toward digital efforts — good communication will always be integral to good oversight."

Brad Fitch, president and CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation that helps lawmakers manage their offices, said "Internet and e-mail have increased the number of conversations that citizens are having with members of Congress . . . (which) generally leads to more positive communications because (lawmakers are) providing more information."

But Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, which trains congressional staff on how to investigate government programs, said "communicating with the public — that's incredibly important, but technology has made that easier to do. You don't need to increase your staff significantly and disproportionately."

Brian said her concern is that Congress is replacing subject-matter expertise with communications expertise, which makes it harder to generate significant and meaningful legislation. "It's more important to know what you are doing than it is to talk about it," she said.

Watkins said this is not happening. "There are still plenty of lawyers and investigators," she said. "Technology advances that have allowed for overall staff reductions haven't meant a drop-off in reforms, investigations and hearings."

Former congressman Tom Davis, who chaired the Oversight Committee 10 years ago, said "Obviously the legislative output hasn't gone up. ... A lot of it is just messaging at this point. Getting the message out." But, he adds, lawmakers also have to keep up with their constituents' engagement in new media platforms. "If they weren't out there responding to people, people would fault them. So you're damned if you add more staff, damned if you don't."

Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington who specializes in political communication, said the numbers are not a surprise. The White House always gets more media attention for its views than Congress does, he said, which is a particular problem for Republicans who control only the House and not the Senate. "It is surprising to me that Congress hasn't been more aggressive earlier in trying to reduce the disparity between the attention that the White House and Congress gets," Farnsworth said.

"Since the legislative branch is mired in single-digit approval ratings, the members figure they need to invest more in getting their message out."