White Committee Chairmen Have Fewer Black Aides

Black aides are so scarce on some House committees that the Congressional Black Caucus surveyed the panels. Their conclusion: black staffers are most prevalent when African American chairmen do the hiring.

The 31-person Democratic staff of the House Agriculture Committee and the 24-person Democratic staff of the House Rules Committee, for example, each have a single black aide. Conversely, the Homeland Security and Oversight and Government Reform Committees–both run by African American chairmen–have Democratic staffs that are 45.5 percent and 44.4 percent black, respectively.

The caucus is comprised entirely of Democrats, and the group gathered data only on the rosters of the majority party. Republicans on each committee have separate staffs.

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The Black Caucus’ data, which has not been publicly released, begins to paint a portrait of staff diversity in an institution that has not traditionally kept records on racial representation.

The caucus’s effort mirrors formal and informal diversity initiatives under way in Washington lobbying shops and in the Senate.

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Overall, the survey found that African Americans account for a percentage of committee staff–18.7 percent–that is higher than the 12.8 percent of the national population that is black.

That average is skewed upward by the hiring practices of black chairmen, whose staffs range from 35.3 percent black on Michigan Rep. John Conyers Jr.’s Judiciary Committee to 45.5 percent on Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson’s Homeland Security Committee .

The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, which is chaired by a white woman, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, ranks third-highest with African Americans accounting for six of the ethics panel’s 16 aides. Lofgren took over for an African American, former Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, when Tubbs Jones died in the last Congress.

The staff of the House Administration Committee , where white Pennsylvania Rep. Robert A. Brady holds the gavel, is 34.4 percent black. Brady comes from a majority-black district in Philadelphia and he succeeded the late Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-Calif., who was black.

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Black aides comprise 10.5 percent or less of the staffs of nine House committees, all of which have white chairmen.

Four committees with white chairmen–Budget; Education and Labor; Financial Services; and Veterans Affairs–occupy a middle ground, with African Americans holding between 16.9 percent and 21.7 percent of the staff jobs.o

The Small Business Committee, run by a Hispanic lawmaker, Rep. Nydia Velazquez of New York, did not participate in the Black Caucus survey.

Black lawmakers argue that the absence of black staffers can have an impact on the choices that are made in the course of a committee’s work–choices about what to put in bills and about what bills to make a priority.

Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., offered as an example the difficulties black farmers have had in getting timely information from the Agriculture Department. “Those black farmers aren’t getting their fair share,” he said, suggesting that they would fare better if there were more black staffers at the Agriculture Department and on the Agriculture Committee.

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