What Explains a Representative’s Staffing “Style”? Exploring the Relationship between Congressional Staffing Decisions and Electoral Considerations

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231184432
• Author: Jason S. Byers,Laine P. Shay
• Date: 01 November 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

American Politics Research

2023, Vol. 51(6) 749–762

© The Author(s) 2023

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sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1532673X231184432

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What Explains a Representative’s Staff‌ing

“Style”? Exploring the Relationship between

Congressional Staff‌ing Decisions and Electoral

Considerations

Jason S. Byers

1

and Laine P. Shay

2



Abstract

Students of legislative politics are divided over the relationship between electoral vulnerability and the type of “home style”

members of Congress adopt in terms of their district staff‌ing decisions. The conventional wisdom asserts that an increase in

electoral vulnerability corresponds with a legislator increasing the number of district staffers. However, another body of work s

implies that the inverse relationship should occur. To settle these competing claims, we explore the staff‌ing decisions of

legislators serving in the House of Representatives between the 101st and 113th Congress. We f‌ind that an increase in electoral

vulnerability is associated with a decrease in district staffers. These results cast doubt on the widely held view that a legislator’s

electoral vulnerability results in an increase in district attentiveness at least in terms of the ir district staff. Additionally, our

f‌indings provide several insights into the relationship between elections and representation.

Keywords

representation, staffers, congressional elections

In his seminal book on Congress, Richard Fenno develops the

notion of “home style”or the way in which a legislator in-

teracts with her constituency. To help their reelection pros-

pects, congressional members adopt a home style that is

compatible with their district. According to Fenno, one im-

portant component of a member’s home style is the way they

choose to allocate their staff resources. While at f‌irst glance

congressional district staffers may appear to have limited

political implications, there are countless examples high-

lighting how they can amplify a constituent’s voice. For

instance, one news article stressed that “besides attending

meetings to stay abreast of issues,”district staffers diligently

“help constituents resolve problems with various federal

agencies, listen to concerns about health care reform and

other legislation, and travel the region to work with com-

munities and businesses pursuing grants and other federal

opportunities.”The article goes on to provide several astute

observations into how congressional staffers help to facilitate

representation within the United States (Spence, 2009). In

another prominent example, several congressional staffers

visited an Illinois farm to stay informed on agriculture related

issues (Spitler, 2017). After the visit, one of the farmers

candidly disclosed, “The people I was talking to were actually

the ones who write the laws…[s]o by teaching them some-

thing about agriculture, it’s bound to give us a heads up.”

Additionally, legislative staffers for Representative Virginia

Foxx (NC-R) played a vital role in helping to reform the tax

system for veterans after hearing alarming concerns from a

distressed constituent (Bland, 2014).

Given that legislative staffers potentially boost a legisla-

tor’s political career (Parker and Goodman 2009) and en-

hance representation (Abernathy, 2019;Maestas, 2000), we

would expect members of Congress to employ as many

district staffers as possible to help their reelection prospects.

However, there is considerable variation in the amount of

district staffers and off‌ices among the members of Congress.

For instance, at the start of the 115th Congress, Represen-

tative Trent Kelly (MS-R) maintained ten of his seventeen

staffers in the district.

1

His district staff included a district

director, a communications director, and eight constitu-

ency service staffers. Conversely, Representative Ami

Bera (CA-D) had just six of his sixteen staffers remain in

1

University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

2

Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jason S. Byers, Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut,

365 Fairf‌ield Way, U-1024, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA.

Email: jason.byers@uconn.edu