Klobuchar Could Be “Worst Boss” In Congress

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar tops Legistorm's "Worst Bosses?" list ranking the 10 offices in the House and Senate with the worst employee retention, calculated by using annual salary-weighted turnover.

Credit: Lorie Shaull

WASHINGTON – Sen. Amy Klobuchar may be the worst boss in Congress, according to a new report tracking staff turnover rates.

Legistorm, a government tracking website, recently released a new feature charting the staff turnover rates of members of Congress. The list–titled “Worst Bosses?”–ranks the 10 offices in the House and Senate with the worst employee retention, calculated by using annual salary-weighted turnover.

Legistorm provides two rankings–one covering just the most recent year and the other covering 2001-2016–acknowledging it is hard to determine a pattern from one single year.

“Short periods of time like a single year can make such measurements particularly unreliable. In single years, members might be hit by bad staffing luck or need a change in strategic focus caused by outside events,” Legistorm explains on their website. “But for longer periods of time, turnover becomes a more reliable indicator of which offices staff might want to avoid if they can.”

Analyzing data from the extended period, Klobuchar comes in first for highest staff turnover, beating her fellow senators by a significant margin. According to Legistorm, Klobuchar has an annual staff turnover rate of 36 percent. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) came in second place with 30 percent and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) rounded out the top three with 28 percent.

Legistorm does not speculate what causes the high turnover rate, but does offer words of caution over the effects of “office dysfunction.”

“Offices with the most staff turnover might also include some of the worst bosses. Some members of Congress get a reputation for being hard to work for, whether due to anger management, shady ethics, poor pay, demanding too much or creating a toxic work environment” the Legistorm website reads. “Whatever the reason, the resulting office dysfunction can lead to high turnover, helping to make a member of Congress more ineffectual. One possible side-effect of high turnover is making an office less responsive to constituents while being more dependent on lobbyists for advice.”

Klobuchar has not commented on her office’s high staff turnover rate.

Christine Bauman