Staff and Support Agencies

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Staff and Support Agencies

• Chapter 5
• Section 5

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Section 5
Congressional Staff Role

• Lawmakers rely on congressional staffers to help
  them

• handle the growing workload of Congress,

• communicate with voters,

• run committee hearings and floor sessions,

• draft new bills,

• write committee reports, and

• attend committee meetings.

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Section 5
Congressional Staff Growth

• Congressional staffs grew as lawmaking became
  more complex after the early 1900s.

• Members of Congress needed a large office staff
  to deal with the many letters from people in
  their states or congressional districts.

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Section 5
Personal Staff

• Personal staff members work directly for
  individual senators and representatives.

• Committee staff members work for the many House
  and Senate committees.

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Section 5
Personal Staff (cont.)

• There are three types of personal staff members

• The administrative assistant runs the lawmakers
  office, supervises the lawmakers schedule, and
  gives advice on political matters.
• The legislative assistants make certain that the
  lawmaker is well informed about the many bills
  with which she or he must deal.

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Section 5
Personal Staff (cont.)

• Caseworkers handle the many requests for help
  from a members constituents.

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Section 5
Support Agencies

• Congress created several important support
  agencies, including

• The Library of Congress largest library in the
  world, contains more than 100 million books,
  journals, music pieces, films, photographs, and
  maps.
• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Help
  congress analyze and study the national budget,
  projects the costs of proposed programs.

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Library of Congress
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Section 5
Support Agencies (cont.)

• The Government Accountability Office (GAO)
  Audits government programs to make sure that
  money is spent appropriately.

• The Government Printing Office (GPO) Prints
  almost all publications produced by the three
  branches of government.