| Tech companies are notorious in Washington for using their ample resources to lure politically savvy congressional staffers away from cash-strapped offices on Capitol Hill. But a recent hike in the salary cap for House staffers will give lawmakers more of a fighting chance to keep that talent. That could, in turn, make regulation easier by boosting the level of tech policy expertise in Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday announced that the maximum salary for staffers in the chamber will be raised up to $199,300, as my colleague Felicia Sonmez reported, meaning top staff pay could exceed that of even lawmakers, most of whom earn an annual salary of $174,000. The decision was hailed as a win for House leaders, who have long struggled to attract and retain technical expertise due in no small part to pay disparities between congressional offices and the private sector, such as the lobbying firms on K Street. "They were having tremendous trouble retaining staff," said Demand Progress Policy Director Daniel Schuman, who has tracked the issue. "They're just turning over at a very high rate." The gap between what congressional staffers make and what they could make by jumping to the private sector could be as much as 145 percent for top positions such as counsel, according to testimony in 2019 by R Street Institute associate fellow Casey Burgat. Anecdotal accounts suggest the disparity can be far greater in some cases. The maximum pay also doesn't reflect the reality for many staffers, whose salary is barely a living wage in the nation's capital. But subject matter experts say the raised ceiling is especially significant in the tech policy space, where the world's wealthiest companies are often able to poach aides working on legislation that might rein in their conduct. "People see stars in their eyes when they think of the tech companies, and there is so much wealth to be had, so it's not surprising that this is one of the places where we see a particular issue," Schuman said. Travis Moore, a former House staffer and founder of the group TechCongress, said he's known congressional staffers who were able to triple their salaries by decamping for a tech company. "It happens all the time," he said. Some of them, he said, are now actively lobbying against efforts they had worked on and supported as congressional staffers, including on tech policy. Moore's group is no stranger to the issue. It pairs technologists and scientists with congressional offices through fellowships in an effort to "bridge the divide of knowledge and experience between DC and Silicon Valley for better outcomes for both," as described on its site.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday announced that the maximum salary for staffers in the chamber will be raised up to $199,300. | The salary cap increase won't solve all of Congress's tech retention woes, though. There are some notable caveats. The change will only affect salaries in the House, not the Senate. And while the individual cap will be higher, raises will be dependent on congressional offices getting higher budgets for salaries — and on lawmakers disbursing the money into staff paychecks. The hike won't fully close salary disparities between the House and industry, either. But Schuman says it doesn't have to. People work on Capitol Hill partly out of a sense of duty and public service, so closing the gap is more about making the job economically feasible. "The question is like, have we hit the sweet spot in terms of paying people enough to be able to retain them on the Hill?" he said. "Because we're never going to match private-sector salaries, but you can do enough that people don't feel the pressure to leave." Moore, who worked under former congressman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), said everyday factors such as student debt, livability and savings weigh heavily on Hill staffers deciding whether to stay or leave. "There's not a way that if I had continued at my [past] staff salary on the Hill that I would be positioned to have enough savings for a down payment on a house," he said. Those factors also make it harder for aides who don't come from wealth to stay at lower-paying jobs, which limits how much staff represents different socioeconomic backgrounds. That, in turn, limits the perspectives brought to tech policy debates. "The current salaries, they privilege a significant slice of the population to be able to stay and work in Congress, so you get a very unrepresentative set of staff," Moore said. | 
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