Why it matters if Amy Klobuchar is an abusive boss

Senator Klobuchar’s treatment of her staff behind closed doors undermines the core of the image she tries to project in public.

Sunday’s announcement of the presidential candidacy of Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar gives new urgency to a spate of stories in the past week about Senator Klobuchar’s long track record of angry, harsh, and frankly abusive behavior towards her staffers over her twelve years in the Senate. Some of Klobuchar’s defenders argue that discussion of Klobuchar’s mistreatment of her subordinates is sexist, irrelevant, or both. They are wrong. Senator Klobuchar’s treatment of her staff behind closed doors not only raises serious concerns about her temperament to be Chief Executive, but also undermines the core of the image she tries to project in public.

The charges against Senator Klobuchar aren’t originating from right-wing media outlets; there have been big recent profiles in BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post. Nor is the story a new one; a LegiStorm survey covering the period from 2001 to 2016 found that Klobuchar had the highest staff turnover in the Senate, garnering her a prominent mention in an early 2018 piece in Politico entitled “The ‘Worst Bosses’ in Congress?”