It is not easy being a staffer on Capitol Hill. No, the work is not road paving or ditch digging—but it comes with plenty of stress.
A staff position is anything but secure. Unlike a civil servant, a congressional staffer is an at-will employee whether he is employed in a legislator’s office or by a committee. Staff can be fired on a whim or swept from office by an election.
The hours are unpredictable, and everyday your boss —and therefore you— deal with demands from constituents, interest groups, media, and your own party. Yet, unlike a legislator, staff cannot reap the cheers by standing before voters and stumping for policy or hammering political opponents. No, Hill staff must stay in the background and out of the news.
Certainly, their compensation is nothing to brag about. A competent, experienced staffer can earn more in the executive branch or private sector.
Yet, if there is one thing I have learned in my two decades in Washington it is that staff who can endure the indignities and insanities of the position can experience a supreme joy: making a difference.
I was reminded of this truth by Stephen R. Weissman’s memoir, From the Congo to Capitol Hill (Unconventional History Press, 2023). It is quite a story.
Weissman joined the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa in 1979. He came equipped with a Ph.D. and a couple years’ experience of living in the Congo. He brought with him lessons hard learned, and a real concern about America’s policy towards the country that soon would be renamed Zaire.
Weissman was very worried about Mobutu Sese Seko, who had become the president of Congo in 1965. Mobutu, who had sold himself as a liberator of the Congolese people from colonial powers, was becoming an autocrat. He stoked public resentment towards anyone who disagreed with his regime, accusing them of being traitors or foreign agents. President Mobutu dissolved the country’s parliament, banned all political parties other than his own, and unleashed the military on dissenters.
The new-to-the-Hill Weissman found himself in a particularly difficult position. “[D]espite my academic training in American government, I lacked a practical road map of how these functions should be carried out amidst a politically divided Congress, recalcitrant administration,and sometimes opinionated press.”
The U.S. government had been a longtime supporter of Mobutu. The Central Intelligence Agency had a role in the uprisings against his predecessor, Patrice Lumumba. The State Department and various legislators viewed Mobuto as an ally in the grand geopolitical game against the Soviet Union.
Despite being a bona fide expert on Congo, Weissman found little appetite on the Hill for dialing back military aid to Mobutu and denouncing his human rights violations. Thus, Weissman began a long effort to educate and persuade legislators and staff in the chamber.
It was not easy. There was no Internet or live television that was showing the badness occurring in Zaire. Even on the subcommittee, people’s minds were on myriad other issues. And, of course, there were domestic politics at play. One potent legislator preferred to keep military aid flowing to Mobutu because a company from his home state had a large contract to upgrade Zaire’s electrical grid. Cutting aid could lead Mobutu to end the contract. Another legislator wanted to keep Mobutu’s favor as his home district had medical facilities that imported cobalt from Zaire.
With time, Weissman found both legislators and staff who came around to his view. Mobutu, who kept tabs on Capitol Hill, fought back. He disparaged Weissman as a radical agitator with communist sympathies, and visited Capitol Hill to keep the million of dollars in aid flowing. Lobbyists and media pundits criticized the effort to curtail aid as did executive branch officials.
It got ugly, and the politics were rather crazy. Mobutu tried to get a pro-Israel lobby to pressure Congress, as did American plutocrats that did business in Zaire. The Congressional Black Caucus got involved as did a strange group called the Rainbow Lobby.
It took a decade, but Congress did end military aid to Mobutu. Come 1990, it had become obvious that Zaire’s leader was a kleptocratic dictator who spent U.S. taxpayer’s money to fund an opulent lifestyle, brutalize his opponents, and wine and dine certain members of Congress. Mobutu was irate: money helped him keep his grip on power. A coup removed Mobutu from his perch in 1997, and the despot died soon afterward.
Weissman left the Hill soon afterward. It was time for a break after years of battling on the Mobutu issue and others, such as sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime. When I spoke with him last month, Weissman noted he had left his position feeling a sense of accomplishment.
Today’s staffers should take heart from Weissman’s trim memoir. Yes, being on the Hill means enduring frustrations and lunacies. But it also is a position where a person can make a real difference in the world.
Kevin R. Kosar (@kevinrkosar) is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He hosts the Understanding Congress podcast and edits UnderstandingCongress.org.
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