Senate Democrats tout their staff diversity amid GOP attacks on DEI

Senate Democrats are releasing their annual study on staff diversity Wednesday amid a deepening partisan divide on the value of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

According to the survey, among Senate Democratic staffers, 41 percent identify as non-Caucasian, 57 percent are women and 17 percent identify as LGBTQ.

The 2024 survey shows a small uptick in racial and ethnic diversity from 2023 and a significant jump from 2017, when the study was first carried out and about one-third of all Democratic staffers identified as non-Caucasian.

“When I became majority leader, I promised to work with my colleagues to increase the diversity of Senate offices to reflect the communities they serve. When we have diverse offices and different voices are well-represented, we enact better policies,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.

“Today, I am proud to say that more Democratic Senate staffers are people of color than ever before, and we’ve reached historic milestones in representation. We have more work left to do, but as we move forward, I am encouraged to see our caucus’ offices growing more diverse each year.” 

Latinos represent the largest non-Caucasian ethnic group surveyed; 15 percent of all Democratic staffers say they are Hispanic, while 14 percent identify as African American, 11 percent as Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), 3 percent as Middle Eastern or North African, and 2 percent as Native American, Hawaiian or Alaskan.

Democrats have pushed for years to broaden entry opportunities for congressional staff to look more like the states and districts they work for, but progress on that front has moved slowly.

And Senate membership, in part due to senators’ six-year terms, has been even slower to catch up to national demographic trends.

Of the 51 senators who caucus with Democrats, four are Hispanic — though Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.) is scheduled to resign his seat Aug. 20 — three are African American, and two are of Asian descent.

Staff gender and sexual preference diversity is also running ahead of membership.

Although more than half of staffers and more than half of all Democratic chiefs of staff are women, only 15 Senate Democrats are women, about 30 percent of the caucus.

And only two, about 4 percent, identify as LGBTQ, compared to 17 percent of all staffers.

But behind the scenes, women run the show: 44 Senate Democratic offices have a majority-female staff.

Although only 14 percent of offices are majority non-Caucasian, all Democratic Senate offices are in the double digits, and in many cases, the lack or presence of racial or ethnic diversity reflects the demographics of each state.

The office staff working for Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), for instance, is 77 percent nonwhite and 49 percent AAPI.

Only 21 percent of Hawaiians identify as white, while 36.5 percent identify as Asian, 19.6 percent as multiracial and 9.7 percent as Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, according to the U.S. Census.

Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) each employ a staff that is 12 percent non-Caucasian, according to the survey, a reflection of their states’ demographics.

In Montana, 84.6 percent of the population identifies as white, according to the Census, as do 90.7 percent of West Virginians.

The survey was conducted exclusively among Democratic offices, meaning the exercise is likely to continue in the future regardless of whether Democrats hold on to the Senate majority.

Efforts to calculate and proactively address racial, gender and sexual preference representation have taken a new politicized tone amid growing Republican resistance to DEI policies.

That debate has leaked into the presidential race, with several Republican members of Congress referring to Vice President Harris as a “DEI hire,” implying her race, rather than her qualifications or experience, propelled her to the top of the presidential ticket.