Competition Stiff for Committee Posts
By Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The meeting was a 30-minute tete-a-tete with John F. Kerry, former candidate for president and, at this moment, a very inquisitive chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Jeremy Marcus, 26 -- who was 2 when Kerry (D-Mass.) was elected to the Senate -- entered the room, sat down and began presenting his case to make a certain federal agency's policies more effective.
"He pushed back on everything," recalled Marcus, who declined to get more specific about the recent meeting. "He will attack any hole in your logic to make sure you know what you're talking about. I felt I had done a poor job, but at the very end of the meeting, he said to me, 'You know what you're talking about. Go ahead.' It was an empowering experience . . . that I could make a fundamental change for the better."
Marcus is a legislative committee aide on Capitol Hill who has navigated Washington's talent gridlock of young professionals, unlike so many others stuck scavenging for public service jobs with decent pay. Among politically oriented people in their 20s or early 30s, Marcus holds one of the more high-pressure and coveted jobs in Washington, similar to that of a State Department special assistant or an associate attorney at a prominent nongovernmental organization, for example.
They represent a portion of their generation that faces less pressure to answer the stressful question of what's next -- a preoccupation of so many others armed with college and graduate degrees and eager for stable work that fulfills their career expectations. The worry of the elite Beltway tribe is about now: Are they too inexperienced? Will they be taken seriously?
Congressional committees, with more than 2,500 people of all ages on staff, typically prohibit aides from speaking on the record. Only a few granted interviews and some access into their workaday culture.
"When I represent the Senate at events . . . people will say, 'You seem really young. How long have you been in this position?' " said Karen Radermacher, 28, a legislative assistant on the small business committee who earned an MBA in 2003. "You're putting together a hearing, and if you make a mistake, it's not your name in the newspaper; it's your boss's."
Only in Washington, where congressional committees negotiate and finalize major legislation offered up by the Senate and House of Representatives, can "committee" connote such prestige.
Within Capitol Hill's multilayered pecking order, aides in the 40-plus committees occupy a perch distinct from lawmakers' personal offices. Young committee aides tend to earn higher salaries; they can focus on one or two issues of national significance; and they aren't always cycled into job churn if the boss loses an election.
Congressional staffs boomed in the 1960s as lawmakers competed with the expanding executive branch. More young people came to the Hill in the 1990s after the Republicans took over Congress and had budget power to expand their committee staffs, scholars said.
No comprehensive data exist on the ages of committee aides, but staff directors say that more young people have been seeking such jobs in recent years, as more seek out graduate programs and professions in public policy or service. They predict more committee openings next year, when a new president will take office and current committee aides are lured to the executive branch or to lobbying firms.
Salaries are decent, especially for the young, childless and single. Several aides interviewed for this article are paid $61,000 a year on average, or as much as $87,000. Data from LegiStorm, which tracks congressional salaries, show that 41 percent of committee aides receive at least $60,000 a year; about 15 percent of aides in personal offices earn that much.
When Congress is busy, committee aides work long hours as well as weekends. Days can be packed with drafting bills, running major hearings, meeting with a CEO or a committee's chairman or ranking member, and negotiating with congressional aides lobbying to squeeze in their bosses' priorities.
Recently, at the Hart Senate Building, Erin Renner, 28, an education policy adviser for the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, met with aides to Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). The senator's staffers were hoping that Renner could sway House education committee members to alter wording in a bill to require, rather than merely urge, universities to publish textbook prices in course catalogues.
"The House language is a bit weak. We think it's a step in the right direction," said Lexi Saudargas, 25, one of Durbin's legislative assistants, sitting across from Renner at a conference table.
"So you're happy with how it's written?" Renner asked.
"He'd like to see it stronger," Saudargas said, referring to her boss. "If you hear of any Senate Republicans we can reach out to, let us know."
"I think you should use McKeon and his influence," Renner said, referring to Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.).
Getting such as job by your late 20s requires something unusual for today's young people fresh out of college: knowing what field you want to work in. Staff directors say they prefer those with graduate degrees that match the committee's subject area. They point to prestigious fellowships as potential avenues, such as those awarded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Renner graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2002. She started on the Hill as the chief of staff's assistant for Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), then earned a degree from Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. A Harvard teaching assistant helped her land a position in the Education Department. Finally, she moved to the committee known as HELP. Last year, Renner worked on the landmark College Cost Reduction and Access Act -- likened to a modern G.I. bill -- and helped beef up Pell grants for needy families.
Initially, Marcus considered an investment banking job with Goldman Sachs after graduating from Stanford University. But he won a fellowship to work in the federal government, where he felt he could make great social impact.
His girlfriend, Una Lee, 28, a Georgetown law student, was working for a congressman when she decided she needed a graduate degree if she wanted to resume climbing the Hill hierarchy. She wonders whether it would have been just as useful to stay on the Hill, get to know people and work her way up.
As the couple talked one night in her apartment building lounge on Massachusetts Avenue, Marcus offered his perspective: "When I think about Washington people, there are some people who don't have substance, but they know everyone. Then there are substance people who know the issues but don't know how to network."
Lee grinned and said, "Quite frankly, I know I could brush up on my networking skills."
Jonathan Black, who turned 30 in November, rose to become a climate change analyst on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee only after spending years working his way up. After he earned a graduate degree in international affairs in 2001, he interned for a senator, then moved to the committee as staff assistant. He now carries one of the more prestigious committee titles: "professional staff member."
One afternoon, Black met in his office with lobbyists for the glass bottle manufacturer Owens-Illinois. They were to meet the next day with committee chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.).
"I think you've made a pretty good case about the energy-intense nature of glass, but I have a few questions," Black told the lobbyists, John J. "Jack" McMackin, 56, and Bert Carp, 63.
They asked Black whether lawmakers could make their industry eligible for carbon-emission allowances. Otherwise, McMackin said, their client would be vulnerable to overseas competitors with less-stringent environmental rules.
"The problem is that imports could eat our lunch," he said.
Black made no promises. "I'm not going to make much of a recommendation to the senator until after the meeting tomorrow," he said. "Certainly, you should make your case, and I'm sure he'll be sympathetic to the situation."
With that, all three men shook hands and Black saw them out the door.
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