LegiStorm

The House's average personal-office staffer made 11% more in the first quarter than a year before, according to a LegiStorm analysis.

House staffers working for personal offices brought home an average of $20,600 in the year's first quarter - 11% higher than the $18,600 that the average staffer made during the same pay period in 2022.

This analysis examines the mean pay increase across all full-time House staffers working for personal offices but does not reflect the distribution of those pay differences. These salary rates include any annual bonuses that were paid in Q1 and may not necessarily reflect the average staffer's pay rate for the entire year.

Republican staffers saw a bigger average Q1 pay bump than did their Democratic counterparts. The average Republican staffer made 12% more than in 2022 Q1. Democratic staffers saw a pay increase of 10% but still brought home higher average pay that quarter - $20,900, versus $20,300 for the average Republican.

In March 2022, Congress authorized an unprecedented 21% increase to the House's office budgets for that year, while a $45,000 minimum salary rate for all full-time House staffers went into effect that September. Both increases were intended to bolster staffer pay in hopes of attracting and retaining talent.

Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) has hired a maritime and environmental lobbyist to help in her mission to save Alaska's fishing industry.

Martha Newell-Kinsman, now Peltola's fisheries policy adviser, joined the congresswoman's office from her one-woman lobbying shop, Isthmus LLC. Her lobbying work focused mainly on maritime and related issues.

Newell-Kinsman previously worked as a lobbyist and chief strategy office at environmental lobbying group ESP Advisors. She also served a legislative assistant to then-Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), whose seat Peltola now holds.

Peltola's "pro-fish" campaign helped elect the Democrat to Congress last year. In an effort to revitalize her state's declining fish populations, the congresswoman has reportedly made opposition to the trawling fishing practice a cornerstone of her policy priorities.

The proportion of House expenses that goes to staffer pay continues to increase, even as personal offices struggle to use up their official budgets.

In the year's first quarter, 82% of all personal-offices expenses went to staffer pay, according to a LegiStorm analysis. Staffer pay accounted for 77% and 74% of all personal-office expenses in 2022 and 2021, respectively.

Still, personal offices are using a smaller and smaller proportion of their total budgets - leaving even more unused funds that could be spent on staffer pay.

The average office is on track to use less than three-quarters of its 2023 budget by the end of the year. Including expenses that were reported late, offices spent an average of 89% of their budgets in 2022 and 95% in 2021.

Sen. Joni Ernst's (R-Iowa) newest hire is the daughter of former Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who directly oversaw the Mueller investigation.

In her first Hill job, Alison Whitaker joined the senator's office as legislative correspondent. She's a recent graduate of the University of Iowa and a former Ernst intern.

Her father, Matthew, spent three months as President Donald Trump's acting U.S. attorney general. He assumed suvervision of the Mueller investigation until William Barr, whose own daughter Meg McGaughey works for the Senate Judiciary Committee, was confirmed as U.S. attorney general in February 2019. He's also a former political rival to his daughter's new boss, losing a primary challenge for Ernst's Senate seat in 2014.

An AARP lobbyist has retired to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee's majority staff.

Sarah Mysiewicz joined the committee this month as senior counsel under Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). She'll handle pensions issues.

Mysiewicz was most recently an AARP government-affairs director. She was a member of the advocacy group's massive lobbying team, which spent more than $16.2 million on its federal program in the past year. Sanders has often worked closely with AARP, even holding a town hall in conjunction with the group last week.