SHOULD HILL STAFF BE PAID MORE? Massachusetts Democrat Katherine Clark believes they should, especially if Congress wants to do better oversight of the executive branch and pull back powers it has given up in recent decades.

I worked on the Hill early in my career and the pay was low and hours were long then, too, so not much has changed since then. The irony is the same Congress that pays its own staff so poorly has made federal civil service pay and benefits much better than comparable jobs in the private sector.