A Web site documenting the salaries of the roughly 20,000 Capitol Hill employees went live last week -- and almost as soon came crashing down.  No, it didn't get shut down by a judge's order claiming that private information had been leaked. By law, the salaries of Hill staffers have long been available in thick books in the offices of the House and Senate clerks. The site came down because of the rush of traffic from computers housed in Congress -- and elsewhere.  It was a sign of the intense interest percolating on Capitol Hill and political blogs about the just-launched LegiStorm ( http://www.legistorm.com ). The site quickly went back online, offering a window for Hill staff and strangers alike into what everyone -- from senior senators' chiefs of staff to the House barber -- earns per year. It's popular trivia that the president earns $400,000 per year and representatives and senators earn about $160,000 per year, but the information on staff salaries hasn't been so publicly available before.  "These kinds of records . . . were the bread and butter of reporting on the Hill for me," said Jock Friedly, a former Capitol Hill reporter who is behind LegiStorm. "I thought it was about time it was put on the Web."  Friedly said information kept in obscure House and Senate offices wasn't helpful to citizens or reporters doing research on Congress from outside Washington. "The goal is simply to make Congress a little more transparent." he said. Friedly, who runs a business selling government documents, said the site has only a few text advertisements so far.  The LegiStorm data show that slightly more than 200 Senate staffers earn $150,000 per year. Close to 300 House staffers make that amount, many of them on the House Appropriations Committee. Most employees seem to make about $50,000 to $60,000 per year. Many paid interns -- which Hill aides often start their careers as -- take home barely $200 per month.  "I've heard some people say they're gong to use this information as leverage," said a House staffer who has worked on the Hill for six years. "There's no uniformity to what people make."  Another House aide said he wished the site was available when he was negotiating his job three years ago. "Negotiating a salary for a new job is never a totally comfortable process, and this information would certainly give you a leg up as a job candidate," the aide said.  Some Hill staffers expressed gripes about LegiStorm. Because salaries are reported in quarterly increments, they might contain a year-end bonus that would overstate the aide's regular income.  Some staff members who work in district offices outside Washington were worried that their neighbors would take a look at their salaries, a piece of information not publicly available for most of the nation's workers, said Rick Shapiro, executive director of the Congressional Management Foundation, which consults with House and Senate offices on effective management strategies.  "I was concerned that having the American public having ready access to what everybody in Congress would make would lead to bashing people when you don't understand what the cost of living in Washington, D.C., is," Shapiro said. "If you're from North Dakota or other areas where the cost of living is much smaller, you might look at salaries and say this is outrageous."
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