Policy making is a mammoth task. It needs careful consideration, hearings, designing, reviewing and much more. Good news is that Congress has the people for it. However, for a logical flow of the policy making process, they work within three different groups.
1. Personal staff
A house member typically has 14 personal staffs. They all work full time. Senators, on the other hand, have bigger groups. Normally, the personal staffs perform day to day office tasks and take care of political matters.
But there are also those who take the responsibility of handing legislation. They are specifically called legislative assistants. Their task may include designing bills, writing speech, keeping tack of committee hearings, closing deals with other staffs and lobbyists. Personal staffs are hired not just by the Congress members, but also by those in state and local governments.
This group has been quite problematic. The members keep increasing within the committees and that is seen as a red flag for the efficiency of the government. Today more than thousands of them are working. A committee is made by combining majority and minority members. Since they tend to be experts from different fields they play a big role in designing bills, attracting political support, cooperating with agencies, eliminating issues and completing negotiations.
3. Institutional staff
With so many policies running at the same time while others are being designed, careful monitoring becomes essential. This is where institutional staff is important. They do research in most impartial way possible to come up with valid data and evaluation reports on policies. Some examples of institutional staff are Government Accountability Office, Congressional Budget office and Congressional Research Service from Library of Congress.
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