LegiStorm

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, members of Congress didn't slow down their town halls during last week's recess — they held them virtually and overwhelmingly used the events to communicate with constituents about the coronavirus.

Since last Monday, members have held 150 official events to communicate with constituents. During the same time period last year, members held 152 town halls.

But unlike last year, when all but six events were held in person, 88 percent (132 events) of last week's events were held over the phone. The others took place via Facebook.

Some members had initially scheduled in-person events, which they later postponed or converted to virtual formats amid worsening news of the pandemic. More than 75 percent of the town halls that took place were expressly billed as focusing on the coronavirus.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has lost one of his longest-serving staffers.

Mark Ritacco is now deputy director for government affairs at the National Association of Counties. NaCo currently holds a federal lobbying contract with McDermott+Consulting, which represents the group on health-care and Medicare issues.

Ritacco had worked for Murphy since 2007, the year that the now-senator was sworn in to the House. He was most recently a legislative assistant.

A Democratic representative has added an accounting lobbyist to his payroll.

Roberto Rosas comes from the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, where he spent the last three years as a legislative assistant and lobbyist. The trade group dropped more than $5 million on federal lobbying last year.

Rosas, a San Diego State graduate, is now a legislative correspondent to Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.).

A former House legislative director has finally moved to a trade group for medical-product distributors, just as the coronavirus pandemic puts part of the industry to the test.

Ryan McManus now works as government-affairs manager at the Health Industry Distributors Association. HIDA lobbies on health-care issues through outside groups and an in-house team.

McManus spent most of his professional career with former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), who lost her 2018 reelection bid, and worked his way up to become her legislative director. For the last year, he worked in consulting.

House staffers ended 2019 with the smallest bonuses in four years, according to LegiStorm estimates.

Members don't explicitly report bonuses in their quarterly expense reports. Since bonuses are typically paid at the end of the year, to estimate end-of-year bonuses LegiStorm compares average quarterly salaries in the fourth quarter to ones paid in the first three quarters of the year. The bonuses are then reported as the percentage increase paid in that fourth quarter.

Representatives overall gave an average fourth-quarter bonus of 18.1 percent over previous quarters, for an average of just over $2,800 per staffer. Those are the smallest annual bonuses since 2015, when staffers received a 15.3 percent quarterly bonus.

Republican representatives normally hand out bigger bonuses than their Democratic counterparts, and last quarter was no exception: GOP staffers averaged a 19.2 percent quarterly bonus, ahead of Democrats' 17 percent.

Republicans also made up eight of the top most generous bosses last quarter. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) topped the charts, giving his staff an estimated average bonus of 120 percent over what they made in the previous quarters. Aides to Steve King (R-Iowa) received the second-highest increase, at 73 percent per staffer.

Rounding out the top slots are Elaine Luria (D-Va.), Donna Shalala (D-Fla.), Mike Conaway (R-Texas), Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), David Kustoff (R-Tenn.), Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Don Young (R-Alaska).

Any money left over from a member's annual spending allowance is returned to the Treasury at the end of the year.