Hill lags in hiring Hispanics
Hispanics make up nearly one-sixth of the U.S. population, but a new study shows that they’re almost nonexistent in high-level staff positions on Capitol Hill.
Out of 100 Senate chiefs of staff, only one is Hispanic: Amanda Renteria, who works for Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow. There are no Hispanic legislative directors or deputy chiefs of staff in the Senate, the study shows, and only one Hispanic staff director.
In the House, the study finds, Hispanics hold only 12 of the roughly 440 chief of staff jobs and only nine of about 440 legislative director slots.
The Congressional Hispanic Staff Association calls the results an “outrage.”
“For whatever reason, we’re just not getting into senior-level positions,” said the chairman of the CHSA’s Placement Committee, whose office would not allow him to give his name. “We’re really trying to avoid finger-pointing at any one individual office. The real problem is that every single office is hiring [fewer] Latinos than they should be.”
That’s not to say that lawmakers aren’t hiring Latinos to staff their offices — currently, 156 members of Congress, seven leadership offices and 27 committee offices have at least one Hispanic employee on staff, according to the Latino Leaders Network.
But when Latinos are hired, it’s most often for low-level positions that don’t offer opportunities for policy work. A 2009 House employment survey found that the greatest number of Hispanic staffers in the House work as schedulers, followed by staff assistants.
