Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sent messages to all members of Congress terminating their positions, stating “Your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment.” All Democratic and independent members of Congress, as well as two Republicans, found themselves locked out of their offices after everything inside had been confiscated.   read more

As adviser to Sen. Dick Durbin, Kotarac scored a minor victory when he learned that Sen. John McCain planned to amend a spending bill to kill funding for Illinois bike trails. Kotarac was able to alert Durbin to the threat and the bike trails, including one running through Chicago’s southern neighborhoods, were saved. Some of the bigger bills Kotarac worked on include those improving railroad infrastructure and service and water resources.   read more

Kesteloot was made CLB’s executive director in 1996 and added the title of president to his resume in 2002. One of his challenges there was the dropoff in business from CLB’s largest customer. The federal government formerly accounted for 90% of the organization’s business in clocks. Regulations changed, allowing departments to purchase clocks locally, such as from big-box stores. Kesteloot retired from CLB in 2009.   read more

In 2012, Ryan was selected as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate. “Ryan is the most conservative Republican member of Congress to be picked for the vice-presidential slot since at least 1900,” wrote statistician Nate Silver. Ryan has received top ratings from the NRA and anti-abortion groups. Up for reelection in 2016, Ryan distanced himself from candidate Donald Trump’s controversial statements, while maintaining lukewarm support for Trump to avoid rocking the boat with GOP factions.   read more

Svinicki was appointed to the NRC in 2008, but had a run-in with Sen. Harry Reid, who wanted one of his former staffers, Gregory Jaczko, to be reappointed to the commission. Reid held up her nomination until the appointments were joined. Svinicki gained a reputation for keeping her head down and working long hours as a commission member. In 2011, she joined three other commissioners in accusing Jaczko, by this time the chairman of the NRC, of being a bully. He stepped down the following year.   read more

Burns served as head of legal affairs of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris from April 2012 to November 2014. He provided legal advice to NEA management, supervised the NEA’s legal education and publications program, and provided advice and secretariat services to the Nuclear Law Committee and to the Contracting Parties to the Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy.   read more

Gardineer went to work for the FDIC circa 1988 as an attorney handling enforcement actions and preparing policies and regulations affecting the financial services industry, including the policy statement for minority-owned institutions. She joined the Office of Thrift Supervision in April 2006 as assistant managing director of supervision policy. From 2008 to 2010, she served as the managing director for corporate and international activities.   read more

Attwood began her legal career in 1973 as an attorney in the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Civil Rights Division, where she litigated civil rights cases before federal courts. She left DOJ in 1979 to join the Dept of Labor (DOL), where she worked for the next 30 years as associate solicitor for Mine Safety and Health, associate solicitor for Occupational Safety and Health, eight years as attorney advisor for DOL’s Administrative Review Board (ARB), and three years as appellate judge on the ARB.   read more

Collins and her husband, Chuck, launched WDG Ventures, a real estate development company in San Francisco. They helped develop the Moscone Convention Center and the company has worked on large hotels, medical centers and other projects. Collins was one of the founding directors in 2006 of Presidio Bank, a business bank in the San Francisco Bay area and continues to serve on its board. In May 2015, Collins joined the national board of the American Automobile Association as secretary.   read more

In 2010, Haslam ran for and won the governorship of Tennessee, weathering criticism by his opponents over allegations of price-gouging by his oil firm in the aftermath of fuel shortages following Hurricane Katrina. Ranked as the 17th most conservative governor in the country, Haslam's controversial initiatives allowed therapists to turn away LGBT clients, criminal assault prosecutions of new mothers who'd used narcotics while pregnant, and denial of public school teachers' bargaining rights.   read more

At EAC, Masterson helped develop voluntary voting system guidelines.Since the job of the EAC is to ensure states comply with the Help America Vote Act of 2002, it’s ironic that Masterson went to work for Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted. Husted has worked to suppress the vote of Democratic-leaning Ohio voters, particularly in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. During Masterson’s tenure there, Husted cut early voting in Democratic areas while increasing hours in Republican strongholds.   read more

In South Carolina, Jacobs-Simmons served as grants administrator for the Charleston County government and executive director of the Trident Workforce Investment Board. In 1999, she joined the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) as deputy assistant secretary. In 2002, she was named administrator of the Department of Labor and deputy assistant secretary for ETA’s field operations. She was subsequently named regional administrator for ETA’s Philadelphia office.   read more

In 2014, Coats fought for tough sanctions against Russia after its invasion and annexation of Crimea. He was a member of the secretive The Fellowship (or The Family), a Christian group that includes many conservative lawmakers and has promoted a fundamentalist agenda in the U.S. and around the world, including anti-gay laws in African countries. Coats fought the idea of gays serving openly in the U.S. military in the 1990s and once called same-sex marriage a sign of “deep moral confusion.”   read more

Hicks worked as a senior lobbyist and policy analyst for Common Cause, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that empowers citizens to make their voices heard in the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to the public interest. He then served as a senior elections counsel and minority elections counsel on the House Committee on House Administration, responsible for issues relating to campaign finance, election reform, contested elections and oversight of both the EAC and FEC.   read more

Since October 1986, Gilbert has been news director at KELK/KLKO Radio in Elko, Nevada, where for about 18 years she has hosted a daily half-hour community news program, “Elko Live.” In 1997, she became the founding news director and first anchor of KENV TV News 10 in Elko. Gilbert was appointed to the CPB board by President George W. Bush in 2008, and reappointed to a second term by President Obama in 2013. In 2003, Gilbert had a voice role in the movie "Identity," starring John Cusack.   read more

Francisco represented R.J. Reynolds Tobacco in its successful First Amendment challenge to a federal regulation requiring cigarette manufacturers to display graphic warning images on cigarette packages. Francisco also won the appeal of former Republican Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia, who’d been convicted of taking bribes. He recently found himself in the midst of a prominent case as acting solicitor general when he had to argue that Trump’s travel ban should be implemented.   read more

Yang began her government service as a trial attorney in Dept of Justice Civil Rights Division. At the law firm of Cohen Milstein, she represented plaintiffs, mainly workers, in civil rights class actions and wage collective actions. Her prominent cases included Dukes v. Wal-Mart, the largest sex-discrimination class-action suit in history, in which she represented a class of 1.6 million women against Wal-Mart. The case went to the Supreme Court before being dismissed on technical grounds.   read more