Members of Congress come from all different backgrounds so that myriad different legislative priorities can be top-of-mind, but a background in public service often bodes a willingness to listen and increases effectiveness.
Members who come from a background in public service, such as veterans, teachers, nurses, and those involved in state and local politics, have a connection to the public that others in Congress may not.
“They’re more working-class candidates,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) told the Washington Examiner. “They understand the issues people are going through, and even when you speak with them about the issues, it’s not something they read in a book or something that was explained to them, but something that they lived.”
Frost, whose mother recently retired from teaching, added, “I’d like someone like my mom being a representative in Congress, right?”
Public service is a dominant career prior to running for Congress. According to congress.gov, for the 118th Congress, “Three hundred fifty-two House Members (80% of the House) and 82 Senators (82% of the Senate) have served as public servants or elected officials at the local, state, or federal level before arriving in Congress.”
Some argue that a career in public service before running in the national spotlight shows a true intention to serve.
“I think that anyone who did public service, quite frankly, had a career before politics, tend to be more honest and clear about their intention, and their intention is public service,” Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) told the Washington Examiner.
Landsman was a public school teacher before running for Congress and talked about how his experience has helped him keep his core values despite the chaos of the political sphere.
“There are folks who get into politics without much experience at all, and I think that can become problematic,” Landsman said. “They’re not tethered to something in the same way that folks who have had real experiences, they’ve learned a lot about the world and themselves. And so when they get into politics, they’re less likely to be pulled away from their core values and why they’re serving.”
Washington can often be a polarizing place in a time of hyperpartisanship, but it’s many of these public servants who keep their focus fixated on long-term wins.
Bipartisan Policy Center’s Structural Democracy Associate Director, J.D. Rackey, told the Washington Examiner that research confirms members with prior public service tend to outperform when it comes to effectively legislating, pointing to two facts that play a role in the effectiveness.
“One is that those with prior public service experience understand the importance of relationships, and so they know that they have to collaborate, both within and across parties, and build trust and social capital among their colleagues if they want to achieve anything,” Rackey said.
“The other factor is that those with prior experience know a little bit better how to right-size their policy portfolios when they’re coming into Congress,” he continued. “Usually, members of Congress arrive — those without experience arrive with a lot of ambition — and they want to fix America’s biggest problems, but they are unfamiliar with the intricacies of the legislative process.”
While Congress faces constant dysfunction with extremely small margins, there are still members who run to fight for effective change as public trust dwindles.
According to the Pew Research Center last month, just 17% of Americans say they trust those in Washington to do what is right “just about always” or “most of the time.” The study shows that trust in Washington is at its lowest in nearly seven decades, since it first started being measured.
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA), who is a decorated Marine veteran and emergency room physician, explained that those who served prior to Congress understand what it means to serve others before yourself.
“I think most people who understand service are very proud of it,” McCormick told the Washington Examiner. “Understand it’s not just about their district. It’s about America. Sometimes you even have to take hard votes based on accomplishing something, rather than just messaging something, and that’s Congress.”
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“This is a hard, hard thing to do sometimes, but you understand it’s not about you,” he continued. “If you make it about yourself, you know, make some really easy votes because you’re an idealist, because it’s about you, but you never get anything done, and that’s problematic.”
McCormick also noted that he thinks “people who understand service are, by the way, more genuinely happy.”