WASHINGTON — Citing statistics that show a paucity of senior staffers of color in the U.S. Senate, a National Urban League representative on Thursday called for legislative action to keep better track of the issue so that senators can be held accountable for making sure their offices are diverse.
“Congress should enact legislation or a rule where they will start recording numbers,” said Donald Cravins, Jr., a former Louisiana lawmaker who now serves as the National Urban League’s Senior Vice President for Policy.
“We’ve got to know the real data. The Senate needs to be more transparent,” said Cravins, an adjunct in the School of Professional Studies at George Washington University.
The transparency that Cravins called for could come sooner than later.
Don Bell, president of the Senate Black Legislative Staff Caucus, or SBLSC, revealed a proposed resolution Thursday that he said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) may introduce soon to establish a chief diversity officer for the U.S. Senate.
The resolution calls for up to $1 million to establish an office, and for the chief diversity officer to hire two individuals — one for the majority party and one for the minority — to collect statistics to produce a biannual diversity report and to develop and implement plans and programs to increase diversity among employees of senatorial offices, whether of individual senators or senate committees. It remains unclear, however, as to whether the resolution will ever make it to the Senate floor.
The proposal comes after one of the most divisive elections in American history and at the dawn of one of the rare instances where Republicans — who have largely failed to capture the majority of the African American and Latino vote — will control the White House and both chambers of Congress.
