A (3:02)

It's really interesting the way that you frame it, because when I was an intern and I decided I definitely wanted to stay and work on the Hill and work in Congress, it's such a fast paced, fun environment. And I was really cautioned away from being a scheduler because it's a job that is administrative. It can be seen as a more junior position on the Hill. But I don't think all scheduling positions are quite like that. And I think what was most compelling to me about the role is the relationship that you can have with the member of Congress themselves. So you really get to know someone very well, you understand what they're priorities are. I'm so glad that I was a scheduler. I think it taught me more about being a chief than even my legislative work did, just in terms of having the perspective of what the member wants. And I think many folks on the Hill know that the most valuable thing that you have in a congressional office is your boss's time. So you're really trying to think day to day and week to week about how they're using their scarce free time. It's not ever really free time. And we can talk about what that looks like. But how do you strategically set up their priorities and satisfy the different people in your office? Each person in your office, the legislative team, the communications team, the district team, even family, they all have their own priorities and different obligations that are put on them.

B (4:29)

Well, let's start there with the people in a Congressional office. So you've got a district office back home in the District, and then you've got the office in D.C. where you spent most of your career. I walk in the front door of, say, Representative Scott Peter's office. Walk me through the space.

A (4:46)

I'm speaking from a House perspective. Senate offices are a little different. I'll just have that disclosure at the beginning. But typically when you walk into an office, you will be greeted by either a staff assistant or an intern. So these are usually entry level staff whose job it is to receive visitors. And you get so many people who come into a congressional office day to day. You have constituents who are coming in from home, you have lobbyists and people who are coming in for meetings. Advocacy groups, sometimes other staff, sometimes strangers from off the street who are asking for a meeting that same day. Because the. While there's security at the front of, you know, Longworth House Office Building, anyone can come in. You don't need an appointment to come into the building.

B (5:31)

So you just need to be. Not carrying a knife.

A (5:33)

That's right. And sometimes people forget not to take their knives or guns out of their pockets, even staff. And they have had consequences for that. So there's security everywhere on the Hill. So when you walk into a congressional office, you'll be greeted by a staff assistant or an intern, and they will ask you, hi, welcome to this office. How can I help you today? And you'll kind of state your purpose for being there. I think what you'll see is usually some like, congressional district pride, decor. Like, you'll see either awards that the member has received, pictures of the district, if it's a particularly pretty district. In the office that I worked in, it was San Diego, and that's a really lovely place to advertise and people got jealous of the nice photos there. It's a pretty small, like, entry room, I think some, some offices, you know, in the receiving room there's a table, a little side table that you can meet at. So sometimes it's almost challenging. If you're the staff assistant, you may have one other front desk person who's there to assist you, but you're really kind of in charge of people who are coming in for meetings and then also managing potentially a meeting that's happening at the side table to be able to facilitate staff level meetings that the member isn't taking. Typically there are different directions you can go from there. So in Rayburn House Office Building, there are typically smaller offices that in our office, the chief and the scheduler sat in. And so it was really helpful to be able to have the chief and scheduler be in the same room because again, going back to the tight relationship there, those two folks are the folks who are most regularly thinking about what is the member doing, what are their priorities, what's the next thing on their to do list, what do they need? So it makes sense.

B (7:22)

Is it fair to say those two people are staffing the principal most closely? And then you've got Legislative and the comms team are not necessarily as focused on the person of the representative?

A (7:32)

Actually, no.

B (7:33)

Okay.

A (7:33)

Correct me, the chief and the scheduler are staffing the boss in a sense of anticipating what the full day is looking like, but they're really quarterbacking. So. And the Other, you know, legislative team and the communications team are the ones who are with the boss most frequently. So how that looks like in practice is like a legislative staffer who covers energy will be staffing the boss at the energy and Commerce Committee and the communications director may take them to go to an interview. The chief and the scheduler aren't necessarily doing the day to day staffing. The chief usually staffs for unofficial business, so like fundraisers and that sort of thing, and may join certain meetings if. Depending on the attendance in the meetings.

B (8:23)

So legislative staff is who.

A (8:27)

The legislative staff is composed of a legislative director, legislative assistants, and then a legislative correspondent. The legislative director is the person who oversees the entire legislative team and the legislative agenda. So anything that happens, that member needs to do in order to introduce bills, write letters to agencies, provide vote recommendations for the member of Congress, staff committee hearings, that sort of thing. Like the whole legislative team is in charge of that. And the legislative director has to manage the different legislative staffers to actually execute. So the legislative assistants and the legislative director in the House, they have different portfolios. So for example, when I was a legislative assistant, I managed a portfolio of about eight different issue areas, including housing, transportation, infrastructure, budget, tax, immigration, labor. Like a broad swath where you know you can be, you can only be an expert in so many things and you had to, you had to have a certain proficiency for each of your issue areas. But obviously depending on the boss, you may be more active in the portfolio in one thing or the other. So for example, housing took up a lot of my time in my, my old office. But that may not be the case in another district where housing may not be as prominent of an issue.

B (9:51)

So that's the legislative team and that's four or five people, maybe out of a dozen in the office.

A (9:57)

There's probably about 10 people and maybe, yeah, four or five people on the legislative team.

B (10:03)

And then we've got chief scheduler, staff assistant, maybe a handful of interns who don't count necessarily to put your quota and then what's the remainder? Comms.

A (10:12)

Comms. The communications team is extremely important and they are almost part of the legislative team in and of themselves. Because if you are working really hard to produce a bill and introduce it and get it passed, you need a communications team to be able to actually explain what it is that the bill does. It's often that we're writing very wonky, wheezy legislation and the communications team makes it relevant to constituents and make it clear like this is why this matters to you. The why of it all? And they are also focused on kind of bigger brand issues of like, you know, what do you want to be known for? Who are the folks that you should be talking to, the people that you want to get in front of? And so the communications team can really vary in size. I think you could have one communications person who, you know, is really stretched

B (11:07)

too thin because they're doing what they're doing tweets and press releases and video. Or booking them on Fox News or msnbc.

A (11:16)

Exactly. So it's bookings, it's doing a lot of writing. It's writing any, you know, talking points, speeches, or reviewing. If the legislative team is the folks who take the first pass at remarks during a hearing, the communications team typically has to review that, make sure that it's relevant. Again, why are we questioning a witness in this way? How are, how is this going to come across to constituents? Is there a way that we can pitch this to a report, or are you going to say something, you know, really interesting at this press conference that, you know, you want to give a heads up, you know, advance notice to reporters? So there, there's a lot of strategic planning that the communications team has to do. And both the Ledge team and the communications team are really strengthened if they really see themselves as like, partners and amplifiers of the work that they do, rather than like ledge versus comms, which is often what it comes down to.

B (12:07)

You're describing kind of the modality member of the House of Representatives. And I think that that kind of layout of talent is pretty common. But you do get members who care a lot about legislative work and are not really interested in making a public name for themselves. And you see people on the opposite end of the spectrum who are really not there to pass legislation or change legislation. They're there to get on TV as much as possible. Tell me about kind of that variation. And does that change how you staff your office? I mean, are there offices that are just super comm staff heavy because the boss really wants to be on TV every day?

A (12:42)

I would say that there's no office that I've known who's like, only had, you know, seven comm staffers and like, one legislative staffer. I don't, I don't think that's really a realistic layout. But I do think that you could have a pretty substantial comms team with three people on the House side where you have a communications director and a press secretary in the D.C. office, say, and then you have a district press secretary or, or you have a communications director and A digital director, and that's it. So I think there are certainly members who demand press or members who prioritize press in a certain way that other members don't, but you can't, because the House already has such small legislative teams. I don't think you can really make too much of a dent in slimming that down. When I first started in my office, our legislative team had only two legislative assistants. And then as the mra, the members representational allowance increased and the budget got bigger to pay staff. We ended up expanding and having three legislative positions instead of two. So I would say it typically sits around there. So the members representational allowance is what every member receives each year to pay for basically everything that they need to pay for. So this includes salaries, which is the vast majority of what takes up a member's mra. Any office expenses, including rent for your district office, printers, computers, telephones, paper, that sort of thing, Salesforce, subscription, salesforce, or your constituent. Whatever your constituent resource management system is. So fireside or IQ or what have you, and then travel. So like, if a member needs to fly to and from the district or take the train to and from the District, it has to include all of that. So the MRA is typically around $2 million, but it actually varies depending on how big your district is, how far away your district is from D.C. and they're trying to.

B (14:43)

They try to account for the travel.

A (14:45)

Yeah, yeah. So the budget allocation is. It's interesting. The budget really increased, I think by 20% in 2022, which was the first time that it was a huge increase in a long time. And that was explicitly for House staff salaries to go up. And so that was one of the biggest changes during my time on the Hill. That was a concerted effort to try to increase congressional staff retention and make sure that folks are paid better within

B (15:15)

that bucket of money to spend each year. Do congressmen have. Congressmen and women have pretty wide discretion on how they want to break it down. Obviously, like, basically every office has some distribution of these, you know, five or six titles. But is that just because it's like the evolved best practice? Could you say, like, no, screw this, I'm gonna. I'm run my office completely differently.

A (15:38)

I think you could. But again, it comes back to like, there are core functions that as a member of Congress, you need to fulfill your constitutional duties, you need to know how you're voting, you need to be prepared when you go to committee hearings. And like, I don't think it would really work if you decided. I actually don't want a legislative team. I'm gonna do it all on my own. I think that'd be very bold and would be, you know, surprised to see a member take that tact. But I, I will say that each member of Congress, each, each congressional office really runs themselves like their own little small business. And so each budget is totally at their discretion. There are obviously things that you can and can't spend money on. Like there are ethics rules against spending money on campaign things. So there are some prohibitions. But at the same time, I think there's a lot of wiggle room that you can kind of have in terms of salaries. And you know, some offices really don't pay a lot for their salaries. And some offices really prioritize that. And they say, I want the best people I'm going to have. I'm going to pay at the higher end of the salary band for averages in order to get really talented staff. And so there are some offices that may spend up to 90% of their budget on salaries and they're paying for

B (16:50)

it where and the boss is doing less travel or the furniture is kind of dinky or whatever.

A (16:55)

I would say the main place of discretion that you can spend in the MRA is on communications and franking. So franking is a weird privilege that members of Congress and government officials have where they can send mail with their signature and it's taxpayer funded communications. And different offices have a variety of franking budgets. And you typically see, you know, members who are in tighter seats so are in competitive reelections. They put more money toward franking because they want to actively be communicating with their constituents. So while that is not a campaign related expense, I think there's, you know, you often see a correlation of members who want to get their name out there and be talking to their constituents a lot.

B (17:47)

It's an interesting dynamic where there's a clear firewall legally in all kinds of ways between your time campaigning for re election and your time governing. And so, for instance, you know, as you know, Congressmen have to step off of the Capitol grounds to take fundraising calls, which I've seen happen. You know, where they step out and you see them out the window across the street and then they finish their call and they come back inside. But in other ways, as you point out, obviously there's a lot of overlap between being an incumbent, talking to your constituents a lot about the good work you're doing and campaigning, even if they're formally separate activities.

A (18:23)

Of course. Of course. And I think, you know, members of Congress they always have, especially House members, they always have reelection in the back of their mind. They are reelected every two years. So you're basically always campaigning. And the separation is distinct. There are a lot of rules. And I think the vast majority of offices really strive to be very ethical and spend their money in appropriate ways. And then what you were saying on the geographic component of it is really interesting. I think there's this perception that members of Congress are wheeling and dealing in their congressional offices when they meet with lobbyists. And that's just really not true. There's certainly a firewall. The two people in a congressional office who can really experience both the official and unofficial side is the scheduler and the chief. The scheduler has latitude to see the member's entire calendar and needs to schedule both official and unofficial business. And the chief of staff often has to be the person who is staffing those unofficial meetings.

B (19:31)

Well, before I get to kind of the details of the boss's schedule, I like how, as a side note, I like how people on the Hill just almost always refer to their boss as the boss.

A (19:39)

As a quick aside, when I told, when I called Derek, my boss in front of people, he was like, please don't call me that. And I was like, I'm. It's habit. I can't help it. I'm so sorry.

B (19:48)

I was, I was really thrown off the other day. One of my, one of my colleagues was like, hi, boss. Well, not heard that in a while. The last kind of core function of an office that we've only talked around is the constituent services side. Say a little bit about what that is and who does it. Because I think a question a lot of folks have about this is like, should I call my congressman? Is this kind of bs they're like, call your congressman? Does it matter?

A (20:10)

I love that question. Yes, it does matter. The way you do it matters too. I think constituent services is such a big category. I will just say that I think like no matter what, every single person in the office, your job is constituent services. Like that is, that's why people come to work on the Hill, is to serve the people who, you know, the 750,000 plus people who elected your boss. And you're always trying to make their experience special. So first I'll talk about the D.C. office since you asked about mail, and then I'll talk about the district office a little bit. The legislative correspondent is the person who is the point person who manages all of the constituent incoming to a members of Congress office. So whether you call into the office you write in, you mail something in, in or email, that person will be reading your message and batching your message and trying to figure out the best way to respond to it. So because there are so many ways to contact your congressional representative, which is excellent, the way that a congressional office has to manage that is by doing something called batching. So if you are writing in about a particular topic or a bill, typically it will get marked as like it's a housing issue. Or if there are a lot of letters or emails coming in about a particular housing bill, then there may be a new batch that's made to say, you know, HR677 or whatever it is, and say, okay, great. It seems like enough constituents care about this particular bill. We should figure out if we have a response to address this specific concern. So I think, to the extent that it matters, I think it matters if a lot of people are calling in about something and it's really noticeable what's

B (21:57)

happening to those batches. So, like, in a given week, a bunch of people call about this immigration bill or that housing bill, they get batched, then what?

A (22:03)

Right. The batching helps just organizationally and in a way that, you know, really gives you a clear understanding of what has and hasn't been responded to and figuring out what types of letters you need to write. So do you already have a letter? Have people written in on this before? And do we already have a position for the member to describe to constituents who are writing in about this? Sometimes it's a novel issue where something will pop up in the world, maybe in foreign affairs, and the office needs to have a position on it. And so you're, you know, the legislative correspondent may talk with the legislative assistant who handles that issue and say, hey, you know, how is the boss thinking about this issue? What should we say? What's our position here? The, the other way that your calls and emails make a difference is just by making the office think about the issue, which I think is an, you know, an underrated thing, even if they may not necessarily be taking a position or taking an action from there.

B (23:01)

Why does an office have to think about every issue here? I mean, I can imagine somebody from a very rural district or one that's relatively untouched by, I don't know, pick some topic. I can imagine a boss saying, look, I don't want to make a name for myself on foreign policy. Say, it's just, I'm not going to engage on that. Or I, or even, you know, more cynically, I don't have time for us to spend a lot of time responding to constituents, I'm going to do TikTok, you know, and we're going to seal the re election that way. What is constraining an office to respond to people?

A (23:31)

You raise an interesting point, which is that offices really vary in their constituent mail program. So I will just say I have never met anyone who's worked for an office who simply says none of this is worth responding to. I think there are some members, particularly, you know, older members who have been in office for 30 years and they, you know, never got around to setting up a constituent. A CRM like the office has never set up a way to receive, you know, digital notes.

B (24:08)

These are old representatives in safe seats basically.

A (24:11)

Yeah. So they just don't really need to worry about responding to constituents in the same way or providing sort of thorough responses. I think there can be diminishing rates of return where you don't necessarily want to respond individually to every single message that comes in. I think that there's, you know, you could spend all of your time doing that and it just won't really make a big difference.

B (24:34)

I'm familiar with, with bosses with representatives who I'm told spent a huge amount of time reviewing legislative correspondence and making sure it really sounded like them. And I know people who thought that was a very poor use of the boss's time and talents.

A (24:48)

I think that's a fair opinion to have. I think it just totally depends on the member themselves. I think some members really see their job as being responsive to constituents and literally responding to their incoming is the best way you can be responsive to their concerns. And so I also had friends who have worked for bosses who they read every single word that goes out that has their name on it. If they have signed it, they will read it. And that's not always the case for every office. Sometimes, you know, if there are again novel issues where it's unclear what the member thinks about a certain issue, they may want to review that letter and say I think we should edit this. Some members, you know, will be even proactive about constituent correspondence. Where I had a friend who worked for a member who wrote handwritten thank you notes to every single constituent they met with that week. And that would be their task on the plane. And so I think it really depends on what the members priorities are. But I think the overarching point here for listeners I think is, is that calls generally do matter. And I think the difference is can you get a mass number of people to do that? The way that it gets presented to members of Congress really varies. Sometimes if there are really compelling letters, you may want to pull out a letter that comes through that describes a story. Or maybe you're looking for constituent stories about a particular that may help guide future policy making. That's always great. But typically members of Congress will get kind of a report of like here's what constituents are writing in about this week. If we are voting on a particularly big issue, there may be a. This many people wrote in for this thing, this many people wrote in against it and try to give kind of a little bit of color on what the vibe is in the district.

B (26:38)

So that's I think all the basic functions of a D.C. office of a member. I want to, I want to ask about your experience as scheduler and then chief of staff. I'm curious about what different things you have to balance when you're scheduling a member for the week. In your case it's been just Member Scott Peters, but I know you we're not going to stick just to, just to that office.

A (27:01)

I can talk about it generally because when you are a scheduler you have lots of scheduler friends. So you trade notes and you really want to have scheduler friends who can get information for you or do favors for you when you need it. When you are a scheduler, your goal is to use your members time most efficiently and most effectively. The way that you kind of start to wrap your head around how your member likes to be scheduled. Say you're coming in to work for a member who has been a member of Congress for a little bit of time and they know what their priorities are. I would say the first thing you think about when things come in is like is this meeting or event even practical? Like so many people request meetings when Congress is out of session and the member of Congress is back home in their district. If that's the case, you know, immediately, okay, great, you gotta staff that out and the member can't meet with you. The reason why members of Congress come to D.C. is because of the vote schedule. So typically in November, December of each year, the majority sends out a calendar that's usually pre negotiated with the minority and says here are the days that Congress is in session. You can plan your lifes now. So members of Congress and staff really depend on, you know, that congressional calendar. You know, both members and staff like can't take vacation when there are votes because you need to be in town and you need to be doing your constitutional duty. So when members are in D.C. you have to schedule Most around votes and your committee hearings and markups. And so generally members fly into town on Mondays. They're called fly in days. Votes are always at 6:30pm reliably for about half an hour. Members like my old boss who fly in from California, they only have a couple of hours before votes. So we would typically do a scheduling meeting and a staff meeting before votes and then maybe have an evening event after votes, but perhaps not. The committee hearings are typically in the morning and votes are typically in the afternoon. You kind of get a sense of what the cadence of scheduling looks like around that and how you have to, what time you have. Then you have to layer on caucus meetings. So each party, both the Republican Conference and the Democratic Caucus, have their caucus meetings typically the morning after the fly in day. They bring in different guests to talk to members or its committee ranking members or chairman who are presenting on what bills will be on the floor that week. The members of Congress who are more focused on the communications aspect. We'll talk about what the message is. And so it's kind of trying to get everyone on the same page and what the priorities are that week.

B (29:49)

If a representative is in other caucuses, he's in the Build America Caucus or the Congressional Black Caucus or what have you. Those squeeze in weekly, biweekly, something like that.

A (30:01)

Potentially, I think it really depends on the caucus. Some caucuses are really active and frequently me and some, some are a little less active. And so I would say the, the most active ones are typically the ideological caucuses. So again, speaking from my background as a House Democratic staffer, the primary ideological caucuses in the House Dems are the Progressive Caucus, the New Democrat Coalition and the Blue Dog Coalition. And so those groups typically have standing meetings. You know, when those are, they always bring in guests to speak. It's typically a lunch. There are other caucuses where they're more scheduled ad hoc. And I think depending on your boss's priorities or if they have a leadership role in that caucus, they will want to make time for that. They will often, you know, if they do have a leadership position, have to ask other members to come to whip attendance, that sort of thing. And so given what we've just talked about, which is votes, committee meetings, caucus meetings, that's a ton of time. That could be your whole week. But you also have a ton of meeting requests. So you have constituents who have come in all the way across the country to meet with a boss to talk about an issue they care about. You have industry who may be coming in to meet with you to talk about a business issue. You can have press events that you could be invited to, speaking events, maybe scheduling press hits with tv, all sorts of things. So time really gets scarce very quickly. Fundraisers. We didn't even talk about fundraisers or campaign side events, which. That typically consumes anywhere between, you know, a couple hours to 15 hours of a member's time a week.

B (31:48)

Even in the first year. How much in the first year? Because the second year, obviously, it's election

A (31:52)

season, Members are always fundraising. So it's really hard to say, you know, but I think I see it more in terms of end of quarters. So, like, you know, maybe you would have more fundraisers at the end of a quarter than you would at the beginning because you report fundraising by quarterly for House members. It really. The fundraising doesn't really slow down. I think some members of Congress, I think the difference in hours spent is really, if you're in a really competitive district, which honestly, not too many members of Congress are these days, I think most get reelected. Most get reelected fairly easily. But for those who are not and those who are in really tight seats, they are obligated to do a lot of call time, which is basically going into a room, getting handed a list of people that you need to call and ask them for money. And so you could, you know, people who are in competitive seats maybe may spend up to 15 hours a week just on call time alone, which is pretty miserable.

B (32:54)

That's. You're literally going down the list and saying, hey, Joe, how you doing? Like, is this pure schmoozing?

A (33:00)

It can be that, or it's like, hey, we're hosting this lunch event. We'd love for you to join. Please come to my lunch, and you can pay a thousand dollars to be there.

B (33:09)

Just to go back a second, I realized I didn't know the etymology of the word caucus as we were talking about it, looked it up. Do you have any idea where this word is from?

A (33:17)

I have no idea. Where is it from?

B (33:19)

I would have guessed it's Latin. You know, caucus apparently is an Algonquin root. It means advisor. It's like a Native American language. Really pops up in, like, the mid-1700s.

A (33:31)

That is fascinating.

B (33:32)

Isn't that crazy? I really would have assumed it was like a. It sounds like a Latin, like, Latin root, but it's not.

A (33:38)

I don't know. So advisor, Fun fact.

B (33:41)

Let's say I'm a constituent from the district, and I really want to make sure I get FaceTime with the boss. I'm going to D.C. you know, we're doing a family trip, but we really want to stop in and talk about, you know, this transit issue. We really care about. Giving her the facts on the ground. I'm assuming I have to, like, make sure Congress is in session, not a Monday morning. What else do I have to do to maximize my chances of shaking hands with my representative?

A (34:07)

I love this question because these types of meeting requests, when they came in, these are the ones we were most excited about scheduling. I think people just don't really think when they go to D.C. that they can visit their member of Congress. And it was always really fun when constituents would drop in and say, hey, we're here visiting. You guys helped us get a Capitol tour and a White House tour and we're about to go on our Capitol tour, but just wanted to, you know, stop by and say hi. It was really fun to be able to greet folks like that. And what separates a good scheduler from a really great scheduler is kind of noticing that as an opportunity of like, wow, it's so great that these constituents are in town. What can we do to make their visit even more special if we haven't already done that? So sometimes, like simply a drop by works. And if the member of Congress and boss happens to be around, I think like, you know, our scheduler would typically say, congressman, constituent families here to visit. Do you want to say hi and, you know, get a photo? And I think, you know, members of Congress are more than willing to do that. Again, it really depends on the member, but I think that's, that's always something fun to do. My old boss also loved to take kids on the floor. So you can take kids under 12 years old to go on the House floor, which is a really cool experience. And so there are sometimes, and this is rare, right? Like the stars kind of have to align. If books are in town and votes are about to happen, you happen to stop by the office sometimes. We could facilitate meetings like that or some of those more like special engagements. But I would say if you're really interested in meeting your member of Congress and you're coming to D.C. talking to the scheduler and sending a request to them and just say, hey, we want to stop by and visit, I think, you know, it's worth doing. You never really know depending, because sometimes, you know, things are really busy and sometimes there's five minutes here and we can make that five minutes work. I would generally say, though, that if folks want to meet their member of Congress, they can also do it in the District, like they are also there, you know, a fourth to a third of the time. And so it's harder because there is less time in the district and there are also a lot of, you know, demands on their schedule in the district office, going to different community events. But you live there and you also have a whole team there. And so know, dropping by the district office and trying to, trying to meet your member of Congress that way is also great.

B (36:31)

You've mentioned a bunch of things that are basically, I mean, in some ways fixed. Floor votes are fixed, Committee markups are fixed, caucuses are fixed. Fundraising is fixed, but necessary if you want to keep your job. What else are you trying to squeeze in there?

A (36:46)

Lunch. I really think, like, I remember probably my first week of scheduling, I don't think I like really thought about making sure that my boss had lunch. And it's very apparent when you start scheduling that you're scheduling for a human. So I think lunch is really my shorthand for saying that each member of Congress has their own human priorities and then their other priorities sometimes, like if their family is in town, setting aside time for that, making sure that they have time to go to the gym and that there are things that you need to do in order to be a healthy, happy human. So, you know, wanting to prioritize, that is good.

B (37:27)

What percentage of congressmen would you say go to the gym on a semi regular cadence?

A (37:32)

I have no idea, but I would

B (37:34)

say more than half.

A (37:35)

More than 50%? Yeah.

B (37:36)

Good for them.

A (37:37)

D.C. is a walkable city.

B (37:39)

That's true.

A (37:40)

Maybe they walk, maybe they take the Metro. I don't know.

B (37:42)

Okay, when lobbyists, business interests, issue advocates are trying to get on the boss's schedule, what are your heuristics for deciding who gets FaceTime and who doesn't?

A (37:57)

Yeah, so this is always the trickiest part of scheduling, is trying to figure out in the limited discretionary time that you have, who is actually going to be able to meet with a member of Congress at that time. I would say a lot of it comes down to practically speaking, when can the requesting person meet and when does the member of Congress have time? And sometimes, you know, someone will ask, hey, we really want to meet. We can only meet between 9am and noon on Tuesday. And it looks at the time that was scheduled, he's already got a committee hearing, he already has to step out to have an interview. He has a speaking event prior to that. Like there's just no way really to make it work. And those are kind of the easier ones where it's just sorry, we really can't make it work. So not going to happen. If it is a CEO, I think like at that point you'd probably say really sorry, we can't make it work. And they probably don't want a staff meeting. If it's someone who you know is open to being staffed out, we'll say, you know, our legislative director would love to meet with you and we can pass that message along and hope that the member can meet you next time. I think you always have to think about the priorities of the member of Congress. So is this an issue that is within their purview, within their committee jurisdiction, one of their priorities, Are they going to be interested in hearing about and listening to this issue? Sometimes you get folks who come into town a lot and want to meet every other month and we just don't really have time for that. So I think it's also a matter of how recently have you talked with this person? Do you need to catch up or can it be a staff meeting or skip something for now?

B (39:51)

And as a scheduler you track all that information. You can pull up that person's name and be like, oh, you were just in here last month, sorry dude.

A (39:57)

Yeah, you can look at the calendar and just say when was the last time we met with this person? So I think that's a heuristic. I mean the most obvious one. It feels so obvious that I haven't even stated it yet, but I think it's the number one screen is like what is the district nexus? So is there a constituent in the meeting? Sometimes you would get requests from big fly ins where you know, it's a conference that's being organized for some advocacy issue, say like for breast cancer and there's someone from Los Angeles who's requesting a meeting. And it's like we don't really have time to meet with someone from Los Angeles because we represent San Diego.

B (40:35)

So that fine grained that's interesting to me it's all the same corner of the world but you have to be laser focused on the people who vote for this person.

A (40:45)

Right. And I think, you know, there are constituent interests. The state of California is huge. And of course any member of Congress from California has an interest in other parts of the state, but they can't care about the whole state. That's the reason why there are 52 of them. You know, they each have their own neighborhoods that they have to look out for. And I think if you met with every Californian, that wouldn't work. I really Sympathize for the California senators who get requests from every Californian.

B (41:11)

This is reminding me of a, of a question I meant to ask earlier, which is what are the kinds of resources that an office has outside of just the actual the office? Because I know we had a, a guy on about a year ago after the huge wildfires in Southern California. And among other things, he had previously been the guy who did wildfire issues and fire management, forest management for the California Democratic Caucus. So I can't remember. Yeah. Matt Weiner. But it's like what, like 30 or 40 of the, of the 52 California.

A (41:46)

44. 44, 45, yeah.

B (41:48)

Wow. That whole caucus had somebody who was kind of dedicated on fire issues. Fire experts. So that you didn't have to staff inside your personal office. Each person their own fire expert. What else exists? I guess like with caucuses or party leadership or just, you know, from the architect of the Capitol's office to plus up your team?

A (42:11)

I would say the biggest resource that staff have available to them are the cao. The Chief Administrative Officer is an enormous resource. It's. There's a whole staff support team where they do a lot of. Done a lot in the past several years to professionalize congressional staff in a way that it previously had not been. Like I said earlier, each congressional office is really run like, like a little small business. And that is the case for a lot of things. We talked about budget earlier, but I think it's much more than that. It's in the. There are not the same standards for promotions or for titles or salaries or anything like that. And I think the CAO has done such a good job at training staff and saying, this is how you become a legislative correspondent. If you're a staff assistant, this is how you can stand out in your office. This is what you can do to volunteer to write letters or stand out and have a relationship with your senior staff in order to be able to progress in your career. I think prior to the CAO providing some of those resources, it was just very one to one mentorship. Obviously, if you have a good office and if you're in an office who strives to support junior staff and getting ahead, that's great. But not all offices are like that. And so they're able to provide a lot of resources. I would say the Congressional Research Service is the best. They are a team of impartial experts. Where if you ever have any question about the legislative history on a particular issue or there's this problem in the district, what are some potential solutions to this? What are existing programs that already tackle this issue. It's a pretty remarkable service because you can submit a request and they'll call you back within the day or the next day and say, hey, what do you need here? Sometimes they'll write reports for you. And the value of CRS really cannot be unstated. I will just say that, you know, from my own experience and from experience of my friends on the Hill, there are so many issues that pop up every day that you're like, I never knew I had to learn about. You know, this very obscure grant program that affects my district. Like, how do I. I don't even know what the acronym stands for. And the fact that you're able to call someone and say, hey, help me understand this. And they do so in a very, like, quick and comprehensive manner. So I would highlight those two.

B (44:51)

Those are more on the kind of intellectual or professional support side. But there's also this whole kind of building management, like the office management side, which I'm curious about. I think you and I previously talked about your boss, Representative peters, moving offices three times over the course of the 10 years that you were there. I guess I'm curious, like, how much does that sort of thing. The fact that the whole office has to go across the street and you gotta settle into a new building, you've got new neighbors, new roommates. Is there like a lot of serendipity in who you get placed next to and the, the bills you then go on to co sponsor?

A (45:25)

I wish I could say that, but not necessarily. I would. I would say you mentioned earlier the architect of the Capitol. So they are an entire resource in and of themselves that are really there to serve the House and Senate office buildings and making sure that anything that you need as an office gets taken care of. So this is anything from. You need a new piece of furniture. And sometimes that furniture could be custom made. Sometimes you can get that furniture from a catalog. You're alluding to different members of Congress who, you know, move from office to office as your seniority increases. I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that at the end of each Congress, there's essentially a room draw for offices. So as members retire or lose their seats, their offices are vacated. And given that a lot of retiring members are the more senior members, those members typically have the biggest offices. And so they're either the biggest offices or you have a really excellent view of the Capitol from your window. And so pretty nice each year. Yeah, it's pretty nice. It's a nice perk Once you get to be a senior member, the room draw basically gives members of Congress the option to move to a different room. So you always have the option at the end of every Congress to move. Some members choose to stay in their offices, and I think that makes sense. And depending on how senior you are, and if you have a good office setup and a good location, you may stay. Other members want to mix it up and have a different layout, have a different space. Rayburn is where a lot of the House committees are. And so sometimes members want to be closer to their committee. They don't want to walk as far. If you're all the way in Canon and you have to go to Rayburn for your committee, that's just. That's a lot of time. And so back to our scheduling point. If you spend 10 minutes walking back and forth from your committees, that's kind of inefficient. But different members prioritize different things. Some members want to be, you know, close to the entrance so their constituents can find them more easily. I think there are a variety of reasons why you'd want to move.

B (47:35)

Rayburn, Cannon, Longworth. Am I missing one? Those are the three. The three congressional office buildings.

A (47:42)

Those are the three primary House office buildings that members of Congress are in. There are also Ford and o', Neill, which mostly have committee staff. If you are talking about a member of Congress and like the congressional office themselves, their staff will be in those three offices.

B (48:00)

And you said Rayburn is a little bit more of the committee stuff. Do they have different MOs, different stereotypes, the three office buildings?

A (48:09)

A little bit. I think so. Cannon has been under construction for the past eight years. They've gone wing by wing. So, you know, there are four wings of Cannon, and they're on their last wing now. And so Cannon has gone through this whole revamp where. Where they're kind of the fancier offices. They have really tall ceilings, lots of natural light. A lot of the offices have built in standing desks. That is not the case for Longworth and Rayburn, I would say. Longworth typically has junior members of Congress there. I think some of the offices are a little bit smaller, unless you have a corner office, in which case you can have a little bit more space and more windows. And then Rayburn, I think, is kind of seen as the more senior building. It's very sterile. It kind of feels like a hospital. I like it the least. But I think a lot of members really like the offices because the member offices themselves are pretty big.

B (49:03)

The actual room, the member Gets the

A (49:05)

actual room the member gets.

B (49:06)

I should say part of my motivation behind wanting to Hear the different MOs here is this is like a treat for listeners who've gotten this far, but my dad proposed to my mom in Canon office building.

A (49:17)

Oh my God.

B (49:18)

Yeah.

A (49:19)

So exciting.

B (49:20)

Says a lot about about the host of this podcast. And you know why? Why my interests are the way they are.

A (49:25)

Right.

B (49:26)

Two more questions for you on the scheduling side and then I want to ask you a couple things about just the chief of staff role itself before we close. One of the questions is, are you scheduling in like 5 minute increments? Like how, just like mechanically, how closely are you monitoring the boss's time?

A (49:41)

You can be scheduling in as small or large of increments as you'd like. I think the sophisticated schedulers will see timing as really more of an art than a science. I think different members prefer different things and I think some members really require travel time explicitly on the calendar and say you need to leave this meeting by this amount of time. And I've mapped it because it takes this amount of time to get to your next meeting and that's going to be very regimented. Some friends that I had worked for, members who just were perpetually late, you know, they were no matter how much that was just the way they lived. You know, you'd try to schedule a 15 minute meeting and it would become a 25 minute meeting. And so again, if you're a perceptive scheduler, you're trying to account for that and anticipate what the boss needs. And so okay, you get can probably guess that they're going to run a little bit late for your meeting. So instead of scheduling a meeting back to back, you give a little bit of extra time so that the meeting isn't the next meeting, isn't waiting for longer than you need. This is also the case for committee hearings where maybe you had scheduled. We haven't really talked about scheduling blow ups. But like the schedule at the beginning of the week looks very different than the end of the week. So votes may be called at a different time. So typically at the beginning of the week you get a general sense of when votes are going to happen, but you never really know exactly when votes are going to happen or how long they will be because you know there's a certain amount of debate that's on the floor and an hour of time that Democrats get, an hour of time that Republicans get and members just don't have as much to say on a certain bill and don't have as much debate. And so the debate runs short and maybe the floor decides to recess and try to give members the predicted time the votes were going to be called. Or maybe they just decided to call votes now and then there goes your hour. And so you have to like rearrange

B (51:42)

and the boss is jogging down one of those tunnels to get to a vote on time.

A (51:46)

That's right. So I mean there's, there's wiggle room. So when they first call votes, members get around 15. In reality, it's more like 25 minutes, not as much 15 minutes, but you get some notice. And then the vote series may be short or long, depending on how many votes you have in a series. So if it's a bigger bill, like an appropriations bill and you have a lot of amendments to vote on, that may take like a two hour vote series. During COVID voting, increments were blocked by last names. And so people, you know, had a much longer time period to vote and voting took a really, really long time. There was also proxy voting during COVID And so if you needed to stay home because either you had Covid or someone in your family had Covid or you were, you know, there was a spike in Covid and you didn't want to get on the plane at the time, you could delegate to another member at your proxy. And so then a member of Congress who potentially like a DMV area member held a lot of proxies for people and would have to say, okay, I'm voting yay for this person, nay for this person, et cetera. So it's run as a much tighter ship now that there's no proxy voting. And I think Flora staff try to make it as predictable for members as they can, but they can't control everything. And so I think a trait that you need to have as a scheduler is just zen flexibility. Like things will change and you need to be able to adjust to, to make things work.

B (53:16)

Last question on this is what lessons from being a professional scheduler for a principal? Should us normal schedulers of ourselves in everyday life take away any tips and tricks on a tactical or big picture level that you. Now you know what you're scheduling your own week.

A (53:34)

You, you bear in mind professional scheduling and personal scheduling are just two different beasts. You know, I just, I think the.

B (53:41)

Surely that's not the case. That's, that's so dispiriting. That can't be true.

A (53:44)

I know, I know. I learned how to be a much better flight booker after being a professional scheduler I think I was able to kind of scout flight rates a little bit better and timing. And I think I also developed the trait as a scheduler that if you really want to make something happen, you can do it. I think it's, it's about will. So sure, like there, there are times when like it's really unlikely or it's really difficult to make something happen. But I think if it's a priority of yours, you can get it done. So I think that's a nice, like motivational thing that sometimes it feels impossible to schedule things. The other thing I learned is really to not over schedule yourself. So try to be kind.

B (54:30)

I'm still working on that one.

A (54:31)

We all need that reminder.

B (54:33)

So after a period as scheduler, a couple other roles in the office, you ended up as Representative Peter's chief of staff. And you and I have chatted. We got into a deep conversation at a conference a couple months ago about the different kinds of good chiefs of staff, that basically there are as many archetypes as there are bosses. Obviously as kind of the boss's right hand man or woman, you've got to adjust to that principle. But I'm curious, like maybe at a high level, what does every chief of staff need to have? And then what are some of the kind of different ways you can approach that job on the Hill?

A (55:05)

So to be a chief, I think first and foremost you need to know your principal really well. You need to know what it is that they care about, what are their priorities, and really stick to what those priorities are. And also give them the latitude knowing that there may be outside of priorities. There's still a lot of job responsibilities that you have as a member of Congress that are important to get done. And you need to be able to motivate your team to do those things, even if they may not be the boss's number one priority. Like we talked about earlier, I think different members of Congress see themselves in different ways. Some really want to focus on legislating, and their primary goal is how do I be the best legislation legislator, I want to pass bills, I want to, you know, make change in that way. Some members are really messaging focused. They really want to help shape the narrative, whether that's within the Democratic Party or Republican Party or be known for taking stances on certain things. I think there can be a lot of value in those type of members as well. But that's obviously a different orientation. And some members, whether they want to or are obligated to, need to prioritize their campaign and so members who are in super tight districts and they need a chief who is focused on fundraising and making sure that they come back to office. So this is often the case in freshman offices where, you know, obviously if you've been reelected once, you're much more likely to come back. But if you're a freshman, it's, it's a lot harder. And I think you just have to be scrappier to try to keep your seat. I would also say that the chief of staff role is also all about managing staff and your team and knowing what different members of the team are working on, making sure that they are staying focused and really executing on the vision that the member sets forward. Is each member of the team contributes in equally important ways. I think one of my former chiefs described the chief job as like, it is big and it is small. Like you are worried about if the boss needs coffee and you are worried about a big vote that's coming up and knowing who in the district is going to be upset at you if you vote a certain way. And so you are constantly having to balance all of these competing priorities. The last trait I would say is just general relationship management. There are so many different stakeholders and opinions both within your team and outside of your team on, you know, what the boss should be spending their time on, whether that's in a legislative sense or just events that they're going to or what have you. So really trying to maintain good relationships with different stakeholder groups and knowing that, you know, the member is interested in listening to what different stakeholders have to say. And I think the chief can be a really great extension of the member in that way and say, I'm trying to receive everything that you're explaining to me and really delegate it in the best way to make sure that we can manage your request.

B (58:33)

My impression of your old office, and this is not just from talking to you, it's from other people's perspectives as well, is that it was a well run, was and is a well run office, that it's like a, it's a good place to work. That's definitely not the case for many Hill offices. And the one thing that I always find funny when I'm talking to people on the Hill is kind of how active, like the gossip and the information sharing is about who's a great boss, who's a terrible boss. Which offices have different kind of pathologies? I'm curious, I'm not going to make you name names here, but what are the kinds of pathologies an office can display? Like, what are the ways that an office in the House of Representatives can be a very badly run office?

A (59:15)

That's a really tough one. The notorious bosses that staff always talk about on the Hill are members who are not just mean. I think we all have heard stories before about members of Congress who scream at their staff.

B (59:30)

Or I'll link a list. There's some great stories every year of like, classic nightmarish bosses.

A (59:37)

Yeah, those are well covered, so don't need to get into those. But I would just say some of the dysfunction in offices can arise when there's really a tension between, like, not having direction. I think that I was really lucky to have a boss who really had a vision and a passion for getting things done and a relentless focus on accomplishments. And that was really motivating as a team to say, like, okay, this is the job. We are all here to serve. Let's have a spirit of we're all on this together to get this job done sort of attitude. I think where it can go wrong is if you have offices that are really competitive amongst each other and don't necessarily see themselves as a full team, and that can result in communication silos. And I think it's important to always encourage people in one office to say, like, you know, we can share intel amongst each other as safely, and we never want folks to feel like they can't share information that could be helpful to one of your colleagues. Other friends who have worked for, you know, different members, I think are one. I think it's pretty rare to work for a member of Congress who really, really isn't in it for the right reasons. Those exist, but I think it's more so of like, again, like the lack of focus or priorities. And if you're a staff member who doesn't align with their priorities, I think, you know, every staff member I've ever chatted with, I think if you work for a boss, there's gotta be some issue that you personally may disagree with them on the issue. And I think that's totally okay and encouraged, I think, in a lot of offices. But if you work for a member who's you're really not aligned with, I think that's always going to cause friction too.

B (61:29)

So obviously some offices are just bad work environments for everybody. Some are not the right place for you, for me, or for whoever it is because they're not aligned. What about places that are not necessarily nightmares to be in as an employee, but just are offices that don't work very well, they don't function well. Curious about that as well. Not just the, like, who's throwing staplers at heads.

A (61:50)

I'm trying to think of, like, stories or anecdotes from friends who have been in offices who just don't work really well. I think that sometimes it depends on what position you're in that it's not working very well. So is it that you are a legislative assistant and you have a portfolio of a certain issue and your boss isn't on any relevant committees of jurisdiction, and you just don't really, like, get a lot of attention? There's not a lot of responsive work that you need to do, but you aren't growing because your boss isn't really willing to lead on any of the issues that you have in your portfolio. I think there are some staff, and I may have even had this perspective when I was a more junior staff of like, you know, you're not able to grow in a certain way because you don't have that priority. But it's really like, maybe a better office would be better suited for you so that you can grow. If you're in an office that really just doesn't function very well, I think that's. That's really a problem for management because if there's a team member that's slacking, it's very obvious. You have a team of nine to 10 people in a D.C. office. You know, seven to nine people in a district office in not going to fly. You're going to notice pretty quickly if someone is not pulling their weight.

B (63:13)

Okay, Bailey, last kind of line of questioning for you. Let's say 2020, you know, early 2027 rolls around and you've been brought back in as chief of staff to a freshman, freshman representative you just love. You just think it's fantastic, and you've been convinced to go back to the Hill. And this freshman is asking you, okay, like, help me get started here. How do I allocate the budget? What should my first steps be? Maybe to start with a budget piece, given your perspective on, you know, the different ways you can do that. You're put in charge of a new office. And freshman, how are you allocating your resources?

A (63:49)

I think the first question is to this new member is, what do you want to accomplish and what do you want to be known for? And what is it that two years from now, at the end of this term, do you want to have done? And let's think about that in a realistic way. If you're a freshman member, it's going to be hard to do a Lot of the things that you're dreaming about right now. But the best way to get set up for success is to have a, you know, hire and manage a well run team.

B (64:21)

Let's say this, she's a rock star and she wants to do it all. She's like, I want to put my name on some signature legislation for two years and I want huge earned media and I want the TikTok to blow up and I want to pin people to the wall in committee hearings and make a big scene out of the witnesses. I call just maximalist. I've got the energy, I want to do it all. Help me get there. Bailey.

A (64:47)

I assume most freshmen come in like that. The first thing I would say is you can't do it all. We have to choose and there will be trade offs because you can't do everything and you can't be everything to so really trying to encourage some amount of discipline by choosing priorities. Yes, you are letting some things go, but by prioritizing you're going to be much clearer to your team and to your constituents about what it is that you're here to do. I think the best members that I have seen and have worked with are the ones who really know why they're in Congress. I think there are so many members of Congress who come and they want to do everything and they end up getting not a lot done because they are trying to have their hand in every single issue. And I think at the federal level there's certainly the opportunity to do that. But I think carving out and like using your own personal experience as expertise. So each member of Congress has their own personal background, they have their own interests and their own skills. So really pulling on that and going back to kind of why they ran in the first place and what are the things that they're good at. So trying to like match that Venn diagram and what's suited and making sure really that I think the hardest thing for when you're a new member of Congress is that it really takes over your life. You know, you have a scheduler who controls your entire schedule. You have a team that writes words that you are going to speak. You really have to have a team that you trust and you need to be able to empower them to be a multiplier of you rather than feeling like you're being held back by them.

B (66:32)

Last question here, but just to stay on this thought experiment for a second, let's say your new boss gets that and says, okay, I really want to invest as much as we can. In talent. I want to make sure, despite being a freshman, we get the best people. We're going to go to the top of the pay range, and we're going to have to eat costs, take the savings elsewhere. You mentioned one area you could do that, which is just franking you send fewer letters back to your district. Anything else you would do to kind of squeeze a little bit of extra salary juice out of the congressional office? What else are you striking or downsizing to get the absolute best people in an office?

A (67:09)

I will say there are not too many more changes that you could especially. I'm really more thinking, like, if you're a freshman and you need. You need to buy everything from scratch. So when you're a freshman, you presumably either, you know, you succeeded someone who had the district, you may get some equipment and materials that the old district had, but you may need to upgrade a lot of things because if, you know, this was an older member of Congress, maybe they don't have the, you know, latest and greatest technology. So freshman budgets are really hard because you just, you need a lot of stuff and you need to set it up. So I wish I had a better answer for you that there's. In terms of hiring, I think the. On salaries, it's really important to prioritize and hire good staff. One way that you could do that is by saying, okay, we're not going to get our committee assignments until March or April. Usually freshmen are put onto committees that are a little less demanding. You're not going to get onto an exclusive committee like Energy and Commerce until a couple of terms in. And so, you know, let's hire a really good legislative director who can be great at managing the committees that you do have and maybe a legislative assistant. And then in the issue area that you really want to be a leader on, and you pay those folks really well. But maybe you don't hire three legislative assistants at the time. So maybe it's less about, you know, cutting in other ways and more about how do you prioritize and structure the team that you have.

B (68:50)

That's great. Well, Bailey, we could talk for hours. There's so much more to cover here. But I'm going to wrap here. Thank you for joining. It's been a real pleasure.

A (68:59)

Thanks, Sam.