LegiStorm

Following an unprecedented MRA increase in March, House Republicans have begun paying their staffers an average of almost $2,600 more per year. The average raise for Democratic House staffers? Just $60, according to a new LegiStorm analysis.

In Q2, Republican House staffers made an average annualized salary rate of $75,100. That's 3.5% higher than their average Q1 salary rate, equivalent to almost $2,600 more per year.

Democratic House staffers averaged an annualized salary rate of $75,800 - still $700 more than the average Republican staffer makes in a year, but only $60 more than the party's average Q1 pay rate.

In March, Congress authorized a 21 percent increase to the House's office budgets for 2022. The Members' Representational Allowance increase was intended to bolster staffer pay in hopes of attracting and retaining talent.

This analysis examines the mean pay increase across all full-time House staffers but does not reflect the distribution of those pay differences.

Both parties averaged a 14% higher annualized pay rate in Q2 than they did in the same time period last year. Then, Republicans paid an average annualized rate of $65,800, or $9,300 a year less than the most recent pay rate, while Democrats paid $66,200, or $9,600 less.

The House's minimum salary of $45,000 per year went into effect on Sept. 1. The extent of staffer pay increases from the new salary floor won't be clear until the House releases its Q3 expense data in late November. 

A Ways and Means subcommittee staffer has left for one of Washington's biggest lobbying presences, the American Hospital Association.

Devin Gerzof is now senior associate director for federal relations at the trade group, which spent nearly $21 million on its federal lobbying in the last year. OpenSecrets ranks AHA as the country's fifth-biggest spender on federal lobbying.

Gerzof spent the last five years with Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee's Health Subcommittee, most recently as a professional staff member. He's also worked for then-Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Democrats are outspending Republicans on security at the highest rate since at least 2016, according to a LegiStorm analysis of House expense data.

House Democrats disclosed spending more than $347,600 on contracted security services in the first half of the year. That's a 10% increase over their security expenses in same time period last year.

It's also nearly 3.7 times the $94,600 of House Republicans, whose security expenses dropped by 28% since the first half of 2021. Although Democrats have vastly outspent Republicans on security for years, this is the largest party disparity since at least 2016, when the House restructured its expense data.

Both parties expanded their security in the year following the Jan. 6 insurrection, with Democrats increasing their 2021 expenses by 63% and Republicans by 27%.

This analysis includes any spending that a personal office has expressly labeled as a "security service" expense and does not account for all security-related spending, such as staffers who play a security role.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) disclosed the highest security expenses so far this year, spending over $82,500 in six months. Reps. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) followed with just over $40,000 and $38,300, respectively. The highest-spending Republican, Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), used close to $15,900 and ranked sixth overall.

One of Rep. Ted Deutch's (D-Fla.) first congressional hires has left for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Josh Lipman is now a director in the agency's Office of Congressional Affairs. He'd worked for Deutch since the congressman took office in 2010 and was most recently deputy chief of staff. Before coming to the Hill, Lipman was an attorney for the Southern Center for Human Rights and for the American Bar Association's Death Penalty Moratorium Project.

Deutch, who chairs the House Ethics Committee, is resigning from Congress in the coming weeks to lead the American Jewish Committee.

Months after an unprecedented increase to the Members' Representational Allowance, 85% of representatives haven't used even a dollar of those additional funds, according to a LegiStorm analysis.

In March, Congress authorized a 21 percent increase to the House's office budgets for the 2022 fiscal year. That increase - the highest since the MRA's creation in 1996 - gave the average office an extra $317,241 to spend in 2022 year, equivalent to $79,310 per quarter.

For most of Congress, the old funds would have been enough: 85% of representatives disclosed Q1 and Q2 spending at rates that would have been sustainable without any MRA increase.

The MRA increase was intended to bolster staffer salaries in order to attract and retain talent. The average personal office spent just 36.34% of its budget in the first six months of the year, leaving the average office more than $91,000 shy of even touching the increase.

Democrat on average have spent 1.72% more of their office budgets than Republicans, a difference of about $32,500 per office.

The House's minimum salary of $45,000 per year went into effect on Sept. 1. The extent of staffer pay increases from the new salary floor won't be clear until the House releases its Q3 expense data in late November.

As Politico reported this morning, the House Select Committee on Modernization of Congress and the House Administration Committee plan to announce a resolution today that includes a reevaluation about how the MRA is calculated.