Cultivating Exceptional Office Leadership with Rep. Michael Rulli
Ohio's 6th District — third-generation grocer, reluctant dumpster-cleaner, and the top-rated Member on The Scoop.
If you want to know how to run a Congressional office well, it helps to ask the guy whose staff keeps giving him perfect scores.
Rep. Michael Rulli is currently the top-rated Member on The Scoop — nine reviews, all 10/10, across office culture, office leadership, Member rating, and more.
Naturally, we wanted to know what was going on over there. The short version: he runs his office like his family grocery store.
- 🍅 Making Italian sauce at home and his strong opinions about tomatoes.
- 🇻🇦 Meeting Pope Leo last week.
- 🍝 The Italian American Congressional Delegation dinners.
- 🔪 His butcher background and cowboy tomahawk ribeyes.
Rulli's grandparents came to the U.S. from Italy in the 1890s. His family opened its grocery store in 1917, and it's still running today — now with his son at the helm.
Rulli worked just about every job in the place.
Last summer, he even climbed into the dumpster to clean it out. Why? Because it's a weekly job in July, and somebody has to do it.
During the pandemic, he spent years working the loading dock, where conversations with truck drivers gave him what he says was a better read on the country than most polling.
That experience followed him to the Ohio Senate — and eventually to Congress.
Rulli has heard the same line from lobbyists over and over again: I miss the Hill.
His response: Then why did you leave? Usually, the answer is simple.
His advice to Members is to become better students of their office budgets. If you can give your staff a Christmas bonus, give it.
$90,000 may go a long way in Ohio or Iowa. It doesn't go nearly as far in Washington — and he's not interested in pretending otherwise just to issue a press release about returning money to the government.
He also treats staff turnover as a diagnostic. If someone leaves his office for another Hill office, he views it as a failure on his part, and he wants to understand why. His hope is that his staff are leaving for something great — back home, or an even bigger position in politics.
Rulli has two practical recommendations for Chiefs:
- 🍕 Get the entire office together once or twice a month. Legislative meetings, comms scrambles, and district calls are necessary, but they naturally divide people into silos. Order pizza. Grab breakfast. Have a beer. And if somebody can't make it, move the date.
- 🚌 Bring your district staff to D.C. once or twice a year. District teams too often end up feeling like, in his words, the "redheaded stepchild." A dozen intentional gatherings a year is a small investment for a much more unified team.
Want to get eliminated from consideration in the Rulli office? Be the person at a party who is talking to someone while constantly scanning the room for someone more important.
What is he looking for? People with a reason for being there. What do you care about? What problem are you trying to solve?
Because in Rulli's office, staffers don't just work on his priorities. They get to own theirs.
One staffer is driving an ibogaine bill because he doesn't want to see another veteran die by suicide. Another is leading an organic thyroid bill.
If one of his staffers has the better idea, Rulli's happy to run with it.
- 1:06 The Rulli Family History
- 1:38 Rep. Rulli’s Background and Entrance to Politics
- 3:12 Owning a Business to Leadership in Congress
- 4:13 Meeting Pope Leo
- 5:20 Italian Caucus Dinners
- 8:50 Healthy Food as a Bipartisan Issue
- 10:29 Philosophy Around Leadership
- 11:06 The Story of Uncle JJ
- 12:17 Why Members Have to Treat Staffers Well
- 12:54 Rulli on Staffer Pay
- 18:30 Cultivating a Great Team Culture
- 24:19 Bringing His State House Staffers to Congress
- 26:44 His Gratitude for His Staff
- 27:30 His Take on How to Make Congress Run Better