During my two decades in Washington, D.C., I have met innumerable current and former Hill staffers. When I mention that I worked for more than a decade at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), I almost inevitably get an ebullient response. “Oh, I love CRS. They have saved my bacon so many times.”
These Hill veterans are referring to those moments when their bosses asked them to prepare a briefing or memorandum on an obscure or complex issue. Knowing little if anything about the topic, the staffer would call a CRS expert, who would school them on the subject, then successfully inform the senator or congressperson.
Knowledge is power, as the old saying goes, and CRS has been educating congressional staff and legislators for almost 110 years. When folks on the Hill want to learn which federal agencies oversee banks, why mining and minerals are critical to national defense, or how to introduce a bill and move it through a chamber, CRS analysts and reference librarians are there for them.
Congress calls upon CRS frequently. In 2021, for example, the think tank provided 265 in-person briefings, 2,729 confidential memoranda, 24,044 telephone responses and 34,844 email responses. The agency also wrote 1,073 reports for Congress and 13,348 bill summaries, which the Hill and the public read on Congress.gov.
While it is indubitable that CRS employees are doing a fine job, the agency itself has had troubles for more than a decade.
In 2019, Congress took a close look at flagging staff morale and employee frustration with CRS’s leadership. The Committee on House Administration (CHA) made clear that it wanted CRS leadership to right the ship. That did not happen. A survey of CRS staff last year revealed sky-high displeasure with CRS’s front office. So, the CHA’s Subcommittee on Modernization recently held another oversight hearing to get to the bottom of things. (Disclosure: I testified at this hearing.)
Chairwoman Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) grilled CRS director, Dr. Mary Mazanec, over a bungled $20 million technology project that has left CRS staff writing reports and memoranda with a buggy version of Microsoft Word 2016. The committee also heard that staff service to Congress was suffering due to patchy Wi-Fi in their offices, Zoom accounts that shut down after 40 minutes of use and difficulty in getting technical support.
Chairwoman Bice and the subcommittee also questioned the director about the high staff turnover at the agency. More than a third of CRS employees have quit the agency in the past decade. (These departure figures do not include staff retirements.)
This is an astonishing development, seeing as a position at the Congressional Research Service is a plum job for wonks and nerds. The pay is quite good, and most employees are tenured for life after their first year. The work is rewarding and heady. Staying up-to-date on the news is a duty of the position, as is studying government reports and poring over academic studies. My first CRS supervisor quipped, “This is one of the few places where you can get paid to read the newspaper.”
Yet, nerds in “the temple of wonkery” are quitting due to despair and frustration. This should not be happening, and it is a serious problem for an agency expected to respond promptly to requests from staff and legislators and to do so with deep expertise and knowledge. In many issue areas, CRS has only one staffer with subject mastery. When that person quits, that leaves a coverage gap that can last for months, due to the agency’s slow hiring process.
Hopefully, Congress will help its in-house think tank. Legislators are looking into updating CRS’s half-century-old statute and whether to prune the regulations that put a drag on agency operations. Congress would also be wise to ensure the agency has sufficient funding to hire experts in all the issues Congress wants to be studied.
Critically, Congress can help the agency by installing new leadership that can boost employee morale and reduce staff turnover. The Congressional Research Service’s most valuable resource is its staff. It is they who, as the agency’s motto declares, inform the legislative debate — and, quite frequently, save staffers’ bacon.
Kevin R. Kosar (@kevinrkosar) is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the co-editor of “Congress Overwhelmed: Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform” (University of Chicago Press, 2020). He hosts the Understanding Congress podcast.