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The congressional staffers she faced, Gwen Robinson remembers, were white. The project she was seeking some federal money for was in predominantly black Bond Hill. "You're sitting with people whose eyes glaze over because they have no sense of this community," said Robinson, president of the Cincinnati-Hamilton County Community Action Agency. "It definitely does make a difference." In a metro area where one in nine residents is black, the seven men who represent Cincinnati in the U.S. House have almost no black staffers working for them. Cincinnati's congressmen stress that they work hard for all their constituents, regardless of color. As conservative Republicans, they say it's often hard to find blacks to work for them. Election polls show blacks, for example, backed Democrat John Kerry over President Bush by an 8-1 margin last year. Two years after Republican leaders pledged to hire more black staffers in their offices - in the wake of racially explosive comments that toppled then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott - there is little evidence of change, both nationally and locally. No one on Capitol Hill is tracking the numbers of black staffers, or high-level black staffers. Attempts to follow up on the pledge to increase black participation were intermittent and haphazard. An Enquirer survey of House members representing the 15-county metro area found that five of the seven members have no black staff members. None in the office of Rep. John Boehner, who represents most of Butler County. None in the office of new Rep. Geoff Davis, who represents Northern Kentucky. Davis spokeswoman Jessica Towhey said Davis hired based on the resumes he saw, which didn't specify race. Reps. Steve Chabot and Rob Portman represent the city of Cincinnati, which is 43 percent black. Between them, they have one black staffer out of 29. [more]