Thursday, January 24, 2013

Dangerous CongressCritters On Display

For many congresscritters, they are not only a pain in the butt embarrassing to the U.S. in regards to their policies, they are also a pain in the arse to their employees.
From the Washington Times: Hiding knives from a member of Congress for fear of your own life. Having cellphones thrown at you. Being cursed at in front of your parents. Being told, “I’m a queen, and I demand to be treated like one.”
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas Democrat, has a reputation as one of the toughest taskmasters in Congress to have as a boss, and the numbers appear to justify it.
The Washington Times analyzed a decade of congressional pay records to find the offices with the highest turnover rates and found 27 members who — over a period of four or more years — lost an annual average of at least one-third of their staff who sought calmer pastures or were fired.
Each year, an average of half of Mrs. Jackson Lee’s staff quits, and one year, all but six of 23 staffers left.
Mona Floyd, who served as the congresswoman’s legislative director, has monocular vision and has a lawsuit pending against Mrs. Jackson Lee, who was voted the “meanest member” of the House in a bipartisan survey of Hill staffers by Washingtonian magazine last year. Ms. Floyd said she was told by the representative, “I don’t care anything about your disability.”
Other incidents, including a series of racially charged diatribes, were documented by the Washington-based Daily Caller website after former aides were so taken aback by her behavior that they broke an unspoken Capitol Hill rule not to speak ill of former bosses....
Eighteen of the 27 members of Congress with the highest turnover rates were Democrats, and six were black women. Only two were senators. The data examined by The Times spans from 2001 through 2011 and was standardized by the website Legistorm....
1/3 were black women?  Why?  Do they want to live up to the stereotype of TV shows like Hardcore Pawn, Jerry Springer and other shows that like to portray black women as loud mouth bitches.
It’s not the company Chuck Hagel wants to find himself among as senators consider his nomination to be defense secretary. Yet during the Republican’s tenure as a senator from Nebraska through 2009, his office’s turnover rate ranked second-highest of any in the past decade.
In 2005, 20 of 51 staffers left Mr. Hagel’s office, the vast majority of whom left Capitol Hill altogether and were replaced quickly by people with no legislative staff experience. Only George Allen, the former Virginia senator and governor, had a higher turnover rate in the Senate.
“He was ‘The Cornhusker wears Prada’ to his staff, some of whom describe their former boss as perhaps the most paranoid and abusive in the Senate, one who would rifle through staffers’ desks and berate them for imagined disloyalty,” former Pentagon adviser Michael Rubin told political analyst Taylor Marsh about Mr. Hagel.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/22/who-are-the-best-and-worst-bosses-on-capitol-hill/#ixzz2Ixgos6vL
Hagel is the Obama pick for Secretary of Defense.  Nice choice, Obama.  Another great choice is this person:
Another former lawmaker tapped by President Obama: Another former lawmaker tapped by President Obama also ranks among  also ranks among those running the most tumultuous offices. Hilda L. Solis, the California Democrat who served in the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2009 and later became labor secretary, lost an average of 44 percent of her staff each year between 2002 and 2007, a rate worse than all but four other members that decade.
As she took the helm of the Labor Department, Mrs. Solis pledged to improve working conditions for all Americans.
Apparently, the Obama administration doesn't have a good sense of who are good managers or fairly clean, ethically.  But then, Obama has been rumored to be that kind of boss, though not as extreme as the mini-tyrant.
But this is interesting:
Between 2005 and 2006, 14 of 22 staffers of Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas Democrat, departed, and in recent years she has had an annual turnover rate of 36 percent. But those departing aides shouldn’t expect any help when they leave.
When legislative assistant Chris Crowe asked for a letter of recommendation to the Treasury from longtime Chief of Staff Murat Gokcigdem, Mrs. Johnson’s top staffer instead wrote that Mr. Crowe, who is gay, “performed his duties to somewhat satisfactory level” but the Treasury must be considering him only because gays in the administration were “watching and supporting each other, if you know what I mean.”  Yep, the party that gays support, are supporting this idiot.
Between 2005 and 2006, 14 of 22 staffers of Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas Democrat, departed, and in recent years she has had an annual turnover rate of 36 percent. But those departing aides shouldn’t expect any help when they leave.
When legislative assistant Chris Crowe asked for a letter of recommendation to the Treasury from longtime Chief of Staff Murat Gokcigdem, Mrs. Johnson’s top staffer instead wrote that Mr. Crowe, who is gay, “performed his duties to somewhat satisfactory level” but the Treasury must be considering him only because gays in the administration were “watching and supporting each other, if you know what I mean.”
These high turnover rates not only embarrassing to Congress but they also cost the taxpayer money by training the folks, setting them up in the payroll computers, paying for their expenses and unemployment compensation (if they get it) and lawsuits.
I wish we could do something about it, but most of these bad congresscritters are in safe seats and the people in their district won't turn them out.
Maybe we need to have all congresscritters registered, have background checks done including any mental health issues that shows if they are a danger to themselves or others and take away their rights to hire and fire staffers.  After all, if it saves a staffer from physical or mental harm, all this would be worth it.

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