LegiStorm

The House's pay gap between its Caucasian staffers and the lowest-paid racial groups expanded from Q1 to Q2, according to a new LegiStorm analysis.

In the first quarter, Hispanic staffers were House Democrats' lowest-paid racial group and made a median salary that was 94% that of the median white staffer. That disparity widened to 92% in Q2, leaving Hispanic staffers and American-Asian and Pacific Islanders staffers tied for the party's lowest-paid racial group in Q2.

Black staffers, House Republicans' worst-paid racial group, made 93% that of the median white staffer in Q1. In Q2, Black Republican staffers made 91% that of their white counterparts.

Those pay disparities mean that in six months, Democrats paid their Caucasian staffers a median of over $2,500 more than Hispanic and AAPI staffers, while Republicans paid their Caucasian staffers a median of $3,000 more than their Black staffers.

The racial pay gap held true among staffers with policy and communications job functions. Among constituent services staffers, the median white and non-white aide made virtually the same pay. This analysis does not compare exact job titles.

This analysis examines the median pay across all full-time House staffers but does not reflect further distribution of those pay differences. These salary rates include any annual bonuses and may not necessarily reflect the median staffer's pay rate for the entire year.

The House continues to put a higher proportion of its official expenses toward staffer pay, even as personal offices struggle to use up their official budgets.

In the first half of the year, the average personal office used 38.78% of its total annual budget, according to a LegiStorm analysis of the House's latest spending data. Of those expenses, 79% went toward staffer compensation. Staffer pay accounted for 77% and 74% of all personal-office expenses in 2022 and 2021, respectively.

Despite staffer pay taking up a higher proportion of funds, offices are using a smaller proportion of their budgets than they did before the 2022 Members' Representational Allowance increase. Including expenses that were reported late, offices spent an average of 89% of their budgets in 2022 and 95% in 2021. This year, the average personal office is on track to use only 78% of its annual budget - leaving the average office with more than $430,000 in unspent funds that could have gone toward greater staffer compensation.

A senior attorney to Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats has a new job, and it's music to her ears.

Avery Gardiner is now at Spotify, where she'll work on global competition policy. Gardiner was most recently chief technology counsel to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and chief counsel to the Judiciary Committee's Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights Subcommittee, which Klobuchar chairs.

The streaming giant runs a small but influential in-house lobbying team that works on issues from artificial intelligence to technology-industry competition. Scott Wilson, one of Spotify's two registered lobbyists, is also an alumnus of Senate Judiciary Democrats.

Republican staffers are more likely than their Democratic counterparts to pass through the revolving door, according to LegiStorm data.

So far this year, 415 partisan ex-staffers have registered as federal lobbyists or foreign agents. Of those, 225 (54%) were Republicans, and 190 (46%) were Democrats. Republicans made up 53% of partisan staffers who registered as lobbyists in 2022.

For over a decade, Republicans have made up the majority of staffers-turned-lobbyists every year except 2021, when numbers were virtually tied.

Congressional Republicans also more likely than Democrats to add ex-lobbyists to their staffs. Of the 96 former lobbyists who have moved to partisan Hill offices this year, 61 (64%) are Republicans and 35 (36%) are Democrats.

A Senate adviser has decamped to Waxman Strategies, former Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-Calif.) firm.

Jackson Thein is now a director at the lobbying and communications group. The Clean Air Task Force, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and Electrify America make up Waxman Strategies' biggest federal lobbying clients by revenue. Henry Waxman has run the lobbying shop since retiring from Congress in 2015.

Thein was most recently Sen. Jeff Merkley's (D-Ore.) policy adviser on health, education, nutrition and LGBTQ issues.