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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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