[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Opinion | Paths to Power: How Every Member Got to Congress - The New York Times

[Szoke, Ron]

From: "Szoke, Ron" <r-szoke at illinois.edu<mailto:r-szoke at illinois.edu>>
Subject: Opinion | Paths to Power: How Every Member Got to Congress - The New York Times
Date: January 28, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/26/opinion/sunday/paths-to-congress.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Opinion | Paths to Power: How Every Member Got to Congress

Find a representative



Alabama

Bradley Byrne

Gary Palmer

Martha Roby

Mike Rogers

Mo Brooks

Robert B. Aderholt

Terri Sewell

Alaska

Don Young

Arizona

Andy Biggs

Ann Kirkpatrick

David Schweikert

Debbie Lesko

Greg Stanton

Paul Gosar

Raúl M. Grijalva

Ruben Gallego

Tom O'Halleran

Arkansas

Bruce Westerman

French Hill

Rick Crawford

Steve Womack

California

Adam B. Schiff

Alan Lowenthal

Ami Bera

Anna G. Eshoo

Barbara Lee

Brad Sherman

Devin Nunes

Doris O. Matsui

Doug LaMalfa

Duncan Hunter

Eric Swalwell

Gil Cisneros

Grace F. Napolitano

Harley Rouda

Jackie Speier

Jared Huffman

Jerry McNerney

Jim Costa

Jimmy Gomez

Jimmy Panetta

John Garamendi

Josh Harder

Juan Vargas

Judy Chu

Julia Brownley

Karen Bass

Katie Hill

Katie Porter

Ken Calvert

Kevin McCarthy

Linda T. Sánchez

Lou Correa

Lucille Roybal-Allard

Mark DeSaulnier

Mark Takano

Maxine Waters

Mike Levin

Mike Thompson

Nancy Pelosi

Nanette Diaz Barragán

Norma J. Torres

Paul Cook

Pete Aguilar

Raul Ruiz

Ro Khanna

Salud Carbajal

Scott Peters

Susan A. Davis

T.J. Cox

Ted Lieu

Tom McClintock

Tony Cárdenas

Zoe Lofgren

Colorado

Diana DeGette

Doug Lamborn

Ed Perlmutter

Jason Crow

Joe Neguse

Ken Buck

Scott R. Tipton

Connecticut

Jahana Hayes

Jim Himes

Joe Courtney

John Larson

Rosa L. DeLauro

Delaware

Lisa Blunt Rochester

Florida

Al Lawson

Alcee L. Hastings

Bill Posey

Brian Mast

Charlie Crist

Daniel Webster

Darren Soto

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Donna Shalala

Francis Rooney

Frederica S. Wilson

Greg Steube

Gus M. Bilirakis

John Rutherford

Kathy Castor

Lois Frankel

Mario Diaz-Balart

Matt Gaetz

Michael Waltz

Neal Dunn

Ross Spano

Stephanie Murphy

Ted Deutch

Ted Yoho

Val Demings

Vern Buchanan

Georgia

Austin Scott

Barry Loudermilk

David Scott

Doug Collins

Drew Ferguson IV

Earl L. Carter

Hank Johnson

Jody B. Hice

John Lewis

Lucy McBath

Rick W. Allen

Rob Woodall

Sanford D. Bishop Jr.

Tom Graves

Hawaii

Ed Case

Tulsi Gabbard

Idaho

Mike Simpson

Russ Fulcher

Illinois

Adam Kinzinger

Bill Foster

Bobby L. Rush

Brad Schneider

Cheri Bustos

Daniel Lipinski

Danny K. Davis

Darin LaHood

Jan Schakowsky

Jesús Garcia

John Shimkus

Lauren Underwood

Mike Bost

Mike Quigley

Raja Krishnamoorthi

Robin L. Kelly

Rodney Davis

Sean Casten

Indiana

André Carson

Greg Pence

Jackie Walorski

Jim Baird

Jim Banks

Larry Bucshon

Peter J. Visclosky

Susan W. Brooks

Trey Hollingsworth

Iowa

Abby Finkenauer

Cindy Axne

David Loebsack

Steve King

Kansas

Roger W. Marshall

Ron Estes

Sharice Davids

Steve Watkins

Kentucky

Andy Barr

Brett Guthrie

Harold Rogers

James Comer

John Yarmuth

Thomas Massie

Louisiana

Cedric L. Richmond

Clay Higgins

Garret Graves

Mike Johnson

Ralph Abraham

Steve Scalise

Maine

Chellie Pingree

Jared Golden

Maryland

Andy Harris

Anthony G. Brown

C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger

David Trone

Elijah E. Cummings

Jamie Raskin

John Sarbanes

Steny H. Hoyer

Massachusetts

Ayanna Pressley

Bill Keating

Jim McGovern

Joseph P. Kennedy III

Katherine M. Clark

Lori Trahan

Richard E. Neal

Seth Moulton

Stephen F. Lynch

Michigan

Andy Levin

Bill Huizenga

Brenda Lawrence

Daniel T. Kildee

Debbie Dingell

Elissa Slotkin

Fred Upton

Haley Stevens

Jack Bergman

John Moolenaar

Justin Amash

Paul Mitchell

Rashida Tlaib

Tim Walberg

Minnesota

Angie Craig

Betty McCollum

Collin C. Peterson

Dean Phillips

Ilhan Omar

Jim Hagedorn

Pete Stauber

Tom Emmer

Mississippi

Bennie G. Thompson

Michael Guest

Steven M. Palazzo

Trent Kelly

Missouri

Ann Wagner

Billy Long

Blaine Luetkemeyer

Emanuel Cleaver

Jason Smith

Sam Graves

Vicky Hartzler

William Lacy Clay

Montana

Greg Gianforte

Nebraska

Adrian Smith

Don Bacon

Jeff Fortenberry

Nevada

Dina Titus

Mark Amodei

Steven Horsford

Susie Lee

New Hampshire

Ann McLane Kuster

Chris Pappas

New Jersey

Albio Sires

Andy Kim

Bill Pascrell Jr.

Bonnie Watson Coleman

Christopher H. Smith

Donald M. Payne Jr.

Donald Norcross

Frank Pallone Jr.

Jeff Van Drew

Josh Gottheimer

Mikie Sherrill

Tom Malinowski

New Mexico

Ben Ray Luján

Deb Haaland

Xochitl Torres Small

New York

Adriano Espaillat

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Anthony Brindisi

Antonio Delgado

Brian Higgins

Carolyn B. Maloney

Chris Collins

Eliot L. Engel

Elise M. Stefanik

Grace Meng

Gregory W. Meeks

Hakeem Jeffries

Jerrold Nadler

John Katko

Joseph Morelle

José E. Serrano

Kathleen M. Rice

Lee M. Zeldin

Max Rose

Nita Lowey

Nydia M. Velázquez

Paul Tonko

Peter T. King

Sean Patrick Maloney

Thomas R. Suozzi

Tom Reed

Yvette D. Clarke

North Carolina

Alma Adams

David E. Price

David Rouzer

G. K. Butterfield

George Holding

Mark Meadows

Mark Walker

Patrick T. McHenry

Richard Hudson

Ted Budd

Virginia Foxx

Walter B. Jones

North Dakota

Kelly Armstrong

Ohio

Anthony Gonzalez

Bill Johnson

Bob Gibbs

Brad Wenstrup

David Joyce

Jim Jordan

Joyce Beatty

Marcia L. Fudge

Marcy Kaptur

Michael R. Turner

Robert E. Latta

Steve Chabot

Steve Stivers

Tim Ryan

Troy Balderson

Warren Davidson

Oklahoma

Frank D. Lucas

Kendra Horn

Kevin Hern

Markwayne Mullin

Tom Cole

Oregon

Earl Blumenauer

Greg Walden

Kurt Schrader

Peter DeFazio

Suzanne Bonamici

Pennsylvania

Brendan F. Boyle

Brian Fitzpatrick

Chrissy Houlahan

Conor Lamb

Dan Meuser

Dwight Evans

Glenn Thompson

Guy Reschenthaler

John Joyce

Lloyd Smucker

Madeleine Dean

Mary Gay Scanlon

Matt Cartwright

Mike Doyle

Mike Kelly

Scott Perry

Susan Wild

Tom Marino

Rhode Island

David N. Cicilline

Jim Langevin

South Carolina

James E. Clyburn

Jeff Duncan

Joe Cunningham

Joe Wilson

Ralph Norman

Tom Rice

William Timmons

South Dakota

Dusty Johnson

Tennessee

Chuck Fleischmann

David Kustoff

Jim Cooper

John Rose

Mark Green

Phil Roe

Scott DesJarlais

Steve Cohen

Tim Burchett

Texas

Al Green

Bill Flores

Brian Babin

Chip Roy

Colin Allred

Dan Crenshaw

Eddie Bernice Johnson

Filemon Vela

Henry Cuellar

Joaquin Castro

Jodey C. Arrington

John Carter

John Ratcliffe

Kay Granger

Kenny Marchant

Kevin Brady

Lance Gooden

Lizzie Pannill Fletcher

Lloyd Doggett

Louie Gohmert

Mac Thornberry

Marc Veasey

Michael C. Burgess

Michael Cloud

Michael McCaul

Mike Conaway

Pete Olson

Randy Weber

Roger Williams

Ron Wright

Sheila Jackson Lee

Sylvia Garcia

Van Taylor

Veronica Escobar

Vicente Gonzalez

Will Hurd

Utah

Ben McAdams

Chris Stewart

John R. Curtis

Rob Bishop

Vermont

Peter Welch

Virginia

Abigail Spanberger

Ben Cline

Bobby Scott

Denver Riggleman

Don Beyer Jr.

Donald McEachin

Elaine Luria

Gerry Connolly

Jennifer Wexton

Morgan Griffith

Rob Wittman

Washington

Adam Smith

Cathy McMorris Rodgers

Dan Newhouse

Denny Heck

Derek Kilmer

Jaime Herrera Beutler

Kim Schrier

Pramila Jayapal

Rick Larsen

Suzan DelBene

West Virginia

Alex Mooney

Carol Miller

David B. McKinley

Wisconsin

Bryan Steil

Glenn Grothman

Gwen Moore

Jim Sensenbrenner

Mark Pocan

Mike Gallagher

Ron Kind

Sean P. Duffy

Wyoming

Liz Cheney

Under-GraduateGraduateCareerGovernmentTheHousePrivatecollegePubliccollegeElitecollegeLaw schoolMedical schoolMaster’sDoctorateNo bachelor’sdegreeLobbyingor activismBusiness ormanagementPrivate lawMilitaryMedicineNonprofits and unionsEducationRealestateBlue-collar or service jobSportsScience or engineeringReligious leaderFarmingor ranchingMediaLawenforcementNo previous officeLocal governmentPublic lawyer or judgeStatelegislatureFederal or state office

The United States does not grant titles of nobility. There are no lords, barons or dukes here. At least, not officially.

Unofficially, however, Congress is made up of people who have credentials and experiences vastly different from those of most citizens. Unofficially, considering education, career, family background and personal wealth, it seems that America has a ruling class — or at least a limited number of ways to enter the halls of power.

Here, we’ve traced the pre-congressional career of every House member in the 116th Congress, showing the narrow but well-trodden paths through prestigious schools, lucrative jobs and local political offices that led the latest crop of legislators to Capitol Hill.

The new House has a notable number of political novices, and more women and people of color than any Congress in history. But a majority of members, even the new ones, still made it to Washington by way of institutions and professions that are out of reach for most Americans.

More than 70 percent of House members were lawyers in private practice, businesspeople (including employees in insurance, banking, finance and real estate) or medical professionals. That work can inform the types of bills they introduce, according to research<https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/29153088.pdf> by Katie Francis, a faculty member at Western Governors University. Doctors sponsor more health care legislation, for example.

In part because Congress is filled with successful white-collar professionals, the House is much, much richer than the people it represents, and affluent politicians support legislation that benefits their own class at the expense of others. Wealthier legislators are, for instance, more likely<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532673X12472363> to vote to repeal the estate tax.

“The rosy notion that lawmakers from business and professional backgrounds want what is best for everyone is seriously out of line with the realities of legislative decision-making in the United States,” wrote Nicholas Carnes, a Duke professor of public policy, in his book “White-Collar Government.”

About 5 percent of representatives
don't have a bachelor's degree,
compared with about two-thirds
of Americans 25 and older.
Hover to see members with no bachelor’s degree


The path to the House starts with higher education. About half of members graduated from public universities, often in their home states, but more than 10 percent of representatives have bachelor’s degrees from elite, private colleges.

It makes sense to elect educated leaders, and voters seem to think a college education is a necessary qualification for office. But the link between having a degree and being a more effective politician is tenuous. Research<http://www.noamlupu.com/leader_education.pdf> on legislators in the United States and in Brazil shows that lawmakers with more formal education are not more productive, more popular or less likely to be corrupt.

The gap between legislators and their constituents is stark in graduate education, too. Almost 70 percent of representatives attended graduate school, but only around 10 percent of Americans 25 and older can say the same.

More than one in three members
have law degrees, compared
with around 13 percent in the
United Kingdom's Parliament.
Law school


Among both Democrats and Republicans, lawyers are staggeringly overrepresented: They constitute less than 1 percent of the voting-age population but more than one-third of the House. Perhaps it is natural for the people writing laws to study them first. But the United States is an exception internationally. Research by Adam Bonica of Stanford and Maya Sen of Harvard found that in Sweden, France and Denmark, lawyers make up less than 10 percent of the legislature.

Not only are lawyers more likely to run for office, they are also more likely to win. This success is largely because of the advantage they have in early fund-raising, drawing from professional networks of other lawyers and affluent professionals.

Once in office, lawyers tend to vote in a way that benefits their profession. They are less likely to support laws that would cap awards for damages or regulate legal fees, according to Mr. Bonica and Ms. Sen’s research.

Almost 40 percent of House
members, more than half Republicans,
cite business experience.
Business owners, executives or professionals


In addition to small business owners and corporate executives, the House is filled with people who worked in finance, insurance and banking.

Members with business backgrounds sometimes argue that their “outside the Beltway” experience will enable them to run government more like a business — to reduce grift and waste and to pass laws more efficiently. Indeed, a majority of Americans think the country would be better governed with more people from business and management, according to a 2014 Gallup poll<https://news.gallup.com/poll/174002/americans-say-business-background-best-governing.aspx>.

House members with business backgrounds get more contributions from corporations and vote for pro-business legislation more often<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07343460809507652>. Other research<http://hansen.web.unc.edu/files/2014/12/Carnes_Gray_Hansen_SPPC_2017.pdf> has shown that states with more legislators who worked in the insurance industry are likely to pass bills more favorable to it.

Fewer than 5 percent of
representatives cite blue-collar or
service jobs in their biographies.
Blue-collar or service job


They include Tom Marino, Republican of Pennsylvania, who worked in factories before law school and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who often refers to her working-class experience as a bartender when explaining her left-leaning economic policy positions.

Mr. Carnes notes<https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/which-millionaire-are-you-voting-for.html> that there is no dearth of politically ambitious, qualified working-class candidates. And when working-class candidates run, they do just as well as candidates from other backgrounds. But blue-collar workers are less able to shoulder the practical burdens associated with running a campaign — like taking time off from paid employment — and less likely to be asked to run by local party leaders and officials.

To get people with a more diverse set of experiences into Congress, he argues, we need to focus on recruiting working-class candidates at the local level — often years before a potential congressional run.

Nearly one in five members served
or currently serve in the armed
forces, including the National Guard.
Military experience


This is a substantial decline from the early 1970s, when more than 70 percent of Congress had military experience.

Seventy percent of veterans in the House are Republicans — but several Democratic women elected in 2018 made their military experience a focus of their campaigns, including Chrissy Houlahan, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who served in the Air Force.

Common fields for Republicans
include medicine, real estate and
farming. For Democrats, they include
teaching, nonprofits and unions.
Experience in one of the above fields


There are rarer occupations, too. Colin Allred, Democrat of Texas, played for the Tennessee Titans in the N.F.L. before becoming a lawyer. Jody B. Hice, Republican of Georgia, served as a pastor before stepping down to run for office. He also started a conservative talk radio show.

Other professions are underrepresented, with material consequences for lawmaking. Only about 15 United States representatives are scientists or engineers, which could partly explain lackluster action on climate change and ineffectual regulation of technology companies.

Women tend to have followed more varied
paths to Capitol Hill: A smaller proportion
are lawyers and businesspeople.
Female representatives


While men might run for office because of a “longstanding desire to be an elected official,” women are more likely to run because “they encounter something in their engagement with the political system that angers them enough or frustrates them enough,” said Kelly Dittmar, a political scientist at Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics.

When they run, men and women have roughly the same chance of winning. But research<https://www.jstor.org/stable/41635235?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents> by Sarah A. Fulton, a political scientist at Texas A&M University, shows that female candidates tend to be more qualified.

Many female representatives campaigned on their experience in business and the working world. Some, like Ann Wagner, Republican of Missouri, also highlighted more traditional domestic roles. Her website says her “most important jobs,” despite her previous role as ambassador to Luxembourg, “have always been as a wife, mother and now grandmother.”

No previous political office

Historically, it is somewhat rare for representatives to reach the House without holding previous political office. Nearly 200 representatives have experience in a state legislature; others were mayors, local district attorneys or state agency heads. These experiences aren’t just symbolic. New legislators with political experience introduce and pass more bills, according to Ms. Francis’ research.

But drawing politicians from local governments and state legislatures also gives an edge to people who can afford to take those jobs. In some states, those positions don’t pay enough to live on. New Hampshire’s legislature, for example, pays just $200 per two-year term. As a result, state politicians are often “local economic elites and corporate titans,” said Jake Grumbach, a researcher at Princeton.

The new representatives in the 116th Congress, however, do represent a significant break from the past. More than 40 percent of those elected in November are political novices who have never worked in government. Many were inspired to run in order to stand up to President Trump’s agenda — two-thirds of new members are Democrats — but they may also have been emboldened by Mr. Trump’s lack of political experience.

“That hasn’t translated into lots of working-class candidates in this cycle,” Mr. Carnes said, but “the larger narrative I see on both sides is, ‘You don’t have to be an establishment type to be a good politician.’”

Sahil Chinoy and Jessia Ma are graphics editors for The Times.

Isvett Verde contributed research.

Methodology We did not consider associate degrees or schools that a representative attended but did not graduate from. We counted only a first bachelor’s degree. “Elite colleges” refers to the eight Ivy League colleges and Duke, M.I.T., Stanford and the University of Chicago. We counted only full-time jobs held for a substantial period of a representative’s adult career; we discounted summer jobs, adjunct teaching positions and volunteering or serving on a board. We did not include political party positions or staff jobs in a congressional or other political office. Government experience includes both elected and appointed office, but does not include staff roles in a government agency. Note The results of the 2018 election in North Carolina’s Ninth District have not been certified, so no representative is included here. Sources Biographical Directory of the United States Congress<http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp>; CQ Roll Call; officials’ websites; Vote Smart<https://votesmart.org/>; news reports; “Pathways to Congress: Precongressional Careers and Congressional Behavior”<https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/29153088.pdf>; Nicholas Carnes

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