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Legistorm Storm
LegiStorm is a web-database with information on the salaries of all Congressional staff. (It was started by a friend, Jock Friedly.) You can find data, for example, on which representatives spend the most say on press secretaries. The salary data has always been "public" on paper, but now that it's available on the web staff are comparing salaries and wondering why it is that that cute intern is paid so much more than the rest. Of course, the politicians are not happy and are trying to shut Legistorm down.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on December 12, 2006 at 09:32 AM in Current Affairs, Data Source | Permalink
Comments
Awesome! Thanks!
Posted by: Jason Voorhees at Dec 12, 2006 9:46:23 AM
Combine that with this list, and you might find a few undervalued prospects in the hill dating pool. Might want to head over to Bullfeathers and check things out.
Posted by: nelsonal at Dec 12, 2006 1:27:29 PM
Forgot the link:
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/50Most2006/index5.html
Posted by: nelsonal! at Dec 12, 2006 1:28:27 PM
While I typically am very strongly in favor of government openness, there are very good reasons for keeping the compensation of private government employees secret. People work better together without the jealousy factor, and there's a certain amount of dignity lost when one's salary is up on the web. While the actions and salaries of the public element of Congress should be available for all to see--the candidates should be subject to every scrutiny, as should the process by which legislation is passed--the salaries of congressional staffers should be no more public information than the salaries of other bureaucrats. However, office budgets and salary aggregates should be posted. Alternatively, remove identifying information from the data.
btw, not a staffer, nor a privacy advocate. But I wouldn't want my salary data up on the web.
Posted by: david b. at Dec 12, 2006 6:08:21 PM
Won't this have the unintended effect of raising their salaries?
Posted by: Hei Lun Chan at Dec 12, 2006 8:27:50 PM
Don't send me to a link that requires me to register merely to read a story.
Bad boy.
Posted by: Dave Barnes at Dec 12, 2006 9:07:39 PM
In college, I was able to look up the salary of all my professors, as well as look up my own salary when I worked as a grader. The professors salaries (in engineering) varied from 80,000 to 300,000, with most from 150,000 to 200,000.
I guess you could call it a law with good intentions that's gone overboard.
Posted by: Matthew at Dec 12, 2006 9:57:10 PM
Neurotypicals confuse the hell out of me.
The government and your employer, the two groups who can most easily harm you already have this information; why in the world would anyone **care** if someone they are working with, or even more so reading a web page, knows what they are making?
Posted by: anonymous at Dec 13, 2006 9:10:29 AM
I think everyone working for or contracting to the government should have their wages or contracts posted on a web page. How better to keep down hiring of relatives, lesbian lovers (a recent problem in California), other lovers, co-religionists, and so on at exaggerated pay rates.
Also, our money is stolen by way of taxes to pay these people, shouldn't we be informed by our "agents" (owners) how much they are paying out in our names.
Posted by: anonymous at Dec 13, 2006 9:14:29 AM
Great to see. Amazing what some of these representatives spend money on. Good to know that overspending on your staff can now be a campaign item.
Posted by: murphy at Dec 18, 2006 2:50:40 PM
The legistorm website is not working, anyone know why?
Posted by: anonymous at Jan 3, 2007 1:04:48 PM
The legistorm website is not working, anyone know why?
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