Congressional Staff "Dissent" Has Nothing to Do with the Constitution; or, More Anti-Institutionalism

I will not detail the many ways in which I disagree with the notion that congressional staffers need a "dissent channel" or ought to engage in anonymous actions designed to undercut their own, democratically elected employers; the ways in which I think it reflects a fundamental failure to understand institutions, if not a fundamental lack of interest in institutions and institutionalism; the ways in which I think it is weird that members' staff, in the words of a news story today, want to "amplify their own voices on Capitol Hill" but without identifying themselves, quitting, or running for office themselves; and so on. I will simply make three points about the story. 

First, the story quotes a "a spokesman for the Congressional Progressive Staff Association" as saying that "aides who participate in the dissent channel are carrying out an important function of their jobs on Capitol Hill," because:

“While we may work for and be employed by the United States Congress, our ultimate sworn oath is to the Constitution — to the people of the United States,” he said. When staff aides see a “clear difference” between their boss’s position and the feedback they are hearing from citizens in their district, he added, they are “obliged” to say something.

The bit about "an important function of their jobs on Capitol Hill" is bosh, of course, because publicly dissenting from their members' views is not part of their jobs on Capitol Hill and therefore not an important function of those jobs. Informing their own bosses of the facts, even when they don't want to hear them, is often a part of those jobs; informing the world at large that they disagree with their members' positions is not.

But the bit about the oath is interesting. Of course the first part is true: they swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution.* It is not an oath of loyalty to their boss, just as an executive office staffer is ultimately loyal to the Constitution, not to the particular person who happens to work in the Oval Office. The insistence on personal loyalty, and apparent failure to understand the distinction between personal loyalty to President X and constitutional loyalty to the office of the president within constitutional constraints, was poisonous within the Trump administration. More recently, President Biden's own focus, as he considered whether to run again, on personal loyalty, and his reliance only on a personally loyal cadre of aides, did him no credit and very little benefit either. But certainly a congressional aide's duty to the Constitution is higher than, and shapes, his or her duty to the individual member he or she serves. Usually, of course, the conflict is served by protesting internally and then quitting if that is not enough, not by staying on board and complaining anonymously.

Regardless, the strange bit is arguing that this oath is "to the people of the United States," itself an odd move--the oath is not to the people but to the Constitution agreed to by "We the People"--and then moving from that to the idea that any of this has something to do with what happens when aides see a difference between their boss's position and "the feedback they are hearing from citizens in their district." Not polling, not any carefully collected data, but anecdotal feedback. One may suspect a rather large helping of dishonesty or disingenuousness here. The dissent channel focuses solely on Gaza. If the staffers find that they are getting "feedback" from citizens in the member's district that counsels a stronger stand in favor of Israel's position, would they still believe they have a constitutional duty to speak out? May I suggest the answer might be "who's kidding who?"

But even if the argument were somehow sincere, it's still wrong. Members having a different position from the sentiment of the people in their district or state at any given time is not a violation of the Constitution. If anything, it's a feature of the Constitution, a feature of both the "republican" and "democratic" parts of "republican democracy." The members are the people's representatives, not their lackeys or ventriloquists' dummies. They may in good conscience feel obliged not to follow their constituents' wishes. The built-in remedy for this, noteworthy especially in the short terms of House members, is that constituents can vote them out. I'm not sure I could say anything about this that Edmund Burke didn't already cover in his speech to the electors of Bristol, which I trust that every halfway educated staffer on Capitol Hill has read. In between elections, which serve to confirm or reject the positions taken, "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." The "obligation" the staffers purport to feel, and purport to derive from the Constitution, does not exist. 

Second: Despite all that, let's go with it. If these staffers want to dissent on the Israel-Gaza conflict and only on that, okay. It seems odd, not because they have no basis to claim that there is immense suffering happening there, but because there is so much immense and generally ignored suffering happening in so many places. But if they're going to dress up their area- and subject-specific desires in constitutional garb based on some duty to voice dissent from their bosses when there is air between the members' positions and the views of their constituents, doesn't the language of constitutional duty suggest they must open the field of dissent far past the Gaza conflict? Shouldn't these constitutionally loyal staffers create an anonymous dissent channel in which aides who feel that members have gone against constituents' views on any issue, and in any direction, can carry out their constitutional "obligation" to anonymously note that fact, come hell or high water? Say that their member, a few weeks ago, declared--as did a large number of progressive members--their loyalty to President Biden and his candidacy for a second term, but the staff received feedback telling them that constituents wanted Biden to refuse to run again. Or say the member declared loyalty in public but private told staff they thought Biden was unfit to serve a second term. Would they not be obliged to say so? If there is strong anti-immigrant sentiment in such a district, particularly from the more powerless constituents in that district, and that sentiment is not reflected in their member's statements and positions, are they not "constitutionally" obliged to raise the red flag of warning? I confess I would be intrigued by a general, multi-directional "dissent channel." But no one seems to be asking for that. Is their focus on one issue and in one direction not, if we are to believe the stated justification, an abdication of their constitutional duty and of their oath? It seems to me the obvious answer is yes. But the even more obvious answer is that they do not in fact believe the justification or have the slightest interest in going against their members on other issues except for this one, regardless of the views of constituents. They simply want to dissent on Gaza, and Gaza alone, and would like to do so without being fired. They would like to be a first-and-a-half branch on a single issue, but with better job security.  

Finally, and in keeping with how I started out, it seems to me the fundamental error of the whole thing, if we are to take it seriously at all and not simply see it as an instantiation of strong opinion about Gaza from one rather rarefied segment of the population, is the anti-institutional view that everything, and every institution, however structured, ought to be democracy all the way down. The Times story I linked to notes quite correctly that staff have often been treated poorly on the Hill and often without recourse. One has every right to object to that. But this is a question of believing Congress as an employer ought to be just to staffers and to workers on the Hill, not that Congress as a staffed institution ought to be democratically structured. I cannot help but see a connection between the attitude struck by staffers in this somewhat unduly sympathetic story, and the terrible piece published by University of Chicago professor Anton Ford in the Chronicle of Higher Education that similarly misapplies the democracy-all-the-way-down position to the university, an institution for which that argument is equally ill-suited and misplaced. The belief that every institution ought to be democratically structured at every level is not inherent in the belief in a democratic polity; it may, if anything, be harmful to the long-term well-being of democracy in such a polity. It certainly is not a sound idea for Congress as an institution. 

* At least I'm assuming it to be true, because the source said so and should know better than I do. I confess that I'm familiar with a statutory oath requirement for officers and other covered employees in the executive and judicial branches, I'm not familiar with one for congressional staff, and I didn't immediately find such a requirement in a quick search of the U.S. Code. But if you can't trust a congressional staff association spokesperson, who can you trust?