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Caught Our Eye items are posted daily. LegiStorm Pro subscribers have access to all posts a few hours before other users, and are also able to search the full Caught Our Eye archive. Log in as a LegiStorm Pro user or learn more about subscribing.

Ex legislative director now with the Joint Commission

Posted by LegiStorm on June 15, 2016

Adam Harbison has spent his last five years advising members of Congress on healthcare issues. But this month, his penchant for all things health has taken him from Capitol Hill to the Joint Commission, a nonprofit accreditor of medical organizations.

Harbison has spent the last five years working for Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va), advising the congressman on legislation and issues involving health care, agriculture, defense/homeland security, transportation and veterans' affairs. Harbison became senior policy adviser in 2013 and then legislative director with the same office until last month. Before that, Harbison served as Rep. David McKinley’s (R-W.V.) legislative assistant/special projects coordinator. 

He’s also worked at the Appalachian Regional Commission and interned for the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

He graduated with a degree in health care management from the University of Alabama, where he served as the national advocacy chair of Colleges Against Cancer and was named a USA Today Academic All-American.

 

Seasoned pro back on the Hill after a 15-year break

Posted by Keturah Hetrick on June 14, 2016

John Edgell has, by his own accounts, "convinced a half dozen members of Congress [to] bowl with frozen chickens," "had convicted felons disassemble an automobile in less than five minutes in front of the U.S. Capitol" and "convinced the Drug Enforcement Agency to build a meth lab for a congressional hearing." Now, he's putting his powers of persuasion to the test as Rep. Marcy Kaptur's (D-Ohio) communications director.

But Edgell isn't new to the Hill. From 1985 until 2001, he worked his way around the Democratic side of Congress, starting as a staff assistant for former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and eventually working his way up to legislative director for former Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.) and then chief of staff for former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio).

Edgell then spent a few years lobbying on behalf of organizations such as the Wheat Gluten Industry Council, the National Candle Association and the Center for Patient Advocacy. Edgell, who holds a bachelor of business administration degree from James Madison University, has  worked on five presidential campaigns in all and several congressional campaigns.

From 2014 until he started with Kaptur last month, Edgell worked as a senior congressional officer at the U.S. Department of Labor. He's also served as an adjunct professor at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management, where he recently co-taught a class titled "Influencing the Media."

From cults to comedy to Congress

Posted by Keturah Hetrick on June 13, 2016

Tina Dupuy was born into a cult and attended Alcoholics Anonymous for 24 years before realizing she was never an alcoholic in the first place. Now, she's working on the Hill.

As a young adult, Dupuy toured the country as a standup comedian. She eventually became an investigative journalist, writing for outlets such as Mother Jones and The Atlantic and serving as editor-in-chief of TheContributor.com. In April 2016, she took her first job in politics, working as communications director to Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) as he is retiring from the House and running for Senate.

Dupuy met Grayson about five years ago at Netroots Nation, a conference for liberal bloggers. Earlier this year, she received a call asking if she would take over for Ken Scudder, who had served as Grayson's communications director since May 2015.

Dupuy admits she is a bit different from most congressional staffers. "I didn't go through the traditional channels, which I think is good," she told LegiStorm.

Dupuy has always been critical of D.C.'s seeming homogeny. Hill staffers "have the same backgrounds, they went to the same schools, they wear the same loafers, and they start to sort of have confirmation bias," she explained. "This is a very big country with a very diverse populace and lots of different opinions. There's not that intellectual diversity in the halls of Congress. We do need people who come from different places."

The self-described "native New Yorker born in exile" returns to her home in Manhattan when Congress is in recess. In the meantime, Dupuy is making the most of her time in the nation's capital.

"I'm having a great time while I'm here. I'm learning a ton about my government that I don't think I would have been able to learn otherwise. And I feel like I have a lot to contribute - not only to my member but to Congress," she said.

What's Dupuy's favorite part of her new job?

"I've written speeches for my boss, and my words have ended up the Congressional Record, which is pretty cool," she said. Dupuy, who used to read the Congressional Record when she was an intern for Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), characterizes the experience as "profoundly humbling."

Dupuy says she's asked "five times a day" if she intends to return to journalism when Grayson leaves office in December. For right now, the award-winning writer is undecided.

Also up in the air is Cultish, the investigative podcast that Dupuy hosted until moving to D.C. a couple months ago. Dupuy, who was born into The Children of God cult, says she has gotten "a lot of requests" to bring back the serial, which focuses on the lives of former cult members.

Through Cultish, Dupuy says she was able to give a voice to and bring together people who had been living in isolation.

"People with PTSD who have been profoundly manipulated and how to unpack that and still maintain a normal life is kind of a gut-wrenching process that not a lot of people understand," she noted. "I was able to give voice to people who had been living in the shadows."

For now, the podcast is officially "on hiatus."

Former staffer and MCI lobbyist back on Hill

Posted by LegiStorm on June 10, 2016
Former staffer-turned-lobbyist Seth Maiman is on Capitol Hill representing the interests of Pacific islands roughly midway between Australia and Japan.
 
But he's not a foreign agent for an obscure island nation. He's the new legislative director for Gregario Kilili Camacho Sablan, the congressman for the Northern Mariana Islands.

From 1989 to 1993, Maiman was chief of staff to Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). He then worked for telecom giant MCI for more than a decade, after which he joined the Close Up Foundation in 2007 as director of government relations. The foundation brings thousands of students and teachers to Washington to dialogue with lawmakers, media and fellow students.  

In 2013 he started his own company and until he joined Sablan's office, was principal of Maiman Political Consulting. His political consulting projects included managing a state legislative campaign and leading a political analysis project for an environmental organization. 

Maiman graduated from University at Albany, State University of New York and American University Washington College of Law.

Scheduler leaves Hill for paper giant

Posted by LegiStorm on June 9, 2016

The age-old decision at the grocery store checkout line has become much easier for Phillip W. Fordham, a former scheduler for Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.). He'll choose paper.

Fordham has taken a job as government relations specialist for the Memphis-based International Paper Co. The manufacturer, which employs 55,000 people in 24 countries, lobbies on a wide range of issues such as carbon neutrality, lumber tariffs and even postal rates.

The Georgia native graduated with a political science and pre-law degree from Georgia State University in 2013 and interned for the Georgia State Senate before joining Carter's campaign as field coordinator in 2013. He stayed on as transitional aide and then became scheduler and executive assistant for the congressman.

About Caught Our Eye

We spend a large part of our days looking at data. Documents often come in by the dozens and hundreds. And while most are boring - how interesting can staring at a phone directory or salary records be, for example? - we find daily reasons for interest, amusement or even concern packed in the documents. So we are launching a new running feature that we call "Caught our Eye."

Longer than tweets but shorter than most blog posts, Caught our Eye items will bring back the interest in reviewing documents and researching people. Some items might bring hard, breaking news. Others will raise eyebrows and lead some into further inquiry. Others might be good for a joke or two around the water cooler. All will enlighten about the people or workings of Capitol Hill.

Caught our Eye items will be published each morning for LegiStorm Pro subscribers. Non-Pro site users will be able to receive the news items a few hours later. In addition to having immediate access to the news, LegiStorm Pro users will have a handy way to search and browse all past items.