The Work and Role Orientations of Personal Staff in Four State Senates

Although the importance of legislative staffers has been recognized in Congress, little is known about staff at the state level. This project uses survey data from fifty-nine is percent of the state senate offices in Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin to provide information about staffers in the states. I find that staffers tend to be Caucasian, female, about thirty-seven years old, well educated, and earn about $37,000 dollars annually. Although the largest single category of work that staffers perform is constituency service, sixty-four percent of their work time is dedicated to other activities. Personal staffers in professional legislatures spend more time on constituency service, while staffers in citizen-professional legislatures spend more time on administrative tasks and preparing their legislator for the floor. The amount and types of work performed by state staffs suggest that the congressional “legislative enterprise” concept can be appropriately applied to the states. Most staffers have a “technico” approach that suggests they value the traditional, objective, and policy neutral approach to the job of personal staffer. Surprisingly, the “representative” approach, which values giving a voice to constituents, is the second most popular approach. It appears as though the “politico” approach, which emphasizes reelection, is more important to staffers in professional legislatures than in citizen-professional legislatures. Finally, staff from states with term limits appear to be younger, to have less overall experience, and to have less tenure with their current legislator.