There are a few well-trod career paths for a congressional staffer. Many decide to trade their hard-earned institutional knowledge for fat paychecks on K Street, while others put their experience to use working on some political passion project at an NGO or interest group. Others still leave politics behind entirely, and an increasingly rare few are lifers who never want to leave.
But then there are some staffers who love Congress so much, they had to let it go. They left Congress so they could try to fix it.
“Whether or not Congress is responsive to the people is a core democracy issue,” said Gideon Cohn-Postar, a former House Oversight Committee aide who is now a legislative director at Issue One, which pushes for government transparency. “The huge advantage of leaving Congress was that I actually got to work in a more targeted manner on those issues.”
