Tuesday, January 15, 2013

An odd introduction to the job

The Huffington Post recently posted a slide from a briefing done by the Democratic Congressional Committee suggesting the ideal mix of jobs a member of congress should do.   This is not a political criticism - I suspect that the RCC probably makes something close to the same suggestion for their members.

So the DCC thinks that the most important job is raising money to get reelected?   Surprisingly (or actually not) they also believe that less than 20% of the job involves around legislating - which is the job that most constituents actually believe Members of Congress are hired to do.

I worked for two members of congress early in my career.  At that time members actually did spend about 20% of their time in constituent meetings but the share of time spent working on committee and floor activity was a lot higher than the DCC suggests it is now.

One other comment.  If this is how the DCC describes the job of a member of congress can you wonder why the quality of people who actually want the job, has declined?

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