Alison MacDonald is preparing to sunset a long career supporting the work of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who is retiring from Congress at the end of the term. MacDonald, a New Hampshire native, was working as a health policy advocate outside of the Capitol when she was drawn to the opportunity to work for Shaheen…
The Hill•Helen Huiskes15 Sept
No two days are the same for Wyndee Parker. As national security adviser to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Parker is responsible for overseeing the activities of all of the lower chamber’s national security committees, including Armed Services, Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security and their Appropriations counterparts. She also works with the executive branch…
The Hill•Ellen Mitchell15 Sept
Kamela White sees that numbers can tell a story — or be used to hide one. As a clerk for Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, White plays a role in shaping federal policy through government funding. She said her biggest goal under the Trump administration has been to work for accountability as the Department of…
The Hill•Rebecca Beitsch15 Sept
Rubi Flores, 30, is a concert pianist turned policy director who has landed at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) as it positions itself to fight the Trump administration on its mass deportation agenda and other issues key to Latinos. An immigrant from Mexico who moved to the U.S. at age 10, Flores excelled not only…
The Hill•Rebecca Beitsch15 Sept
Few Capitol Hill staffers can match Raymond O’Mara and say they’ve worked at the leadership level in the Senate and the House, and even fewer can say they have worked in Congress from as many vantage points as he has. O’Mara now serves as the top policy staffer for Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.),…
The Hill•Alexander Bolton15 Sept
Nelly Decker is a quintessential under-the-radar staffer who prizes being nearly un-Googleable. But she has nonetheless been a pivotal player in some of Congress’s biggest battles — and will be central in many of the body’s coming clashes should Democrats retake the House. “I have worked in a majority, then minority in Oversight, waged a battle against…
The Hill•Rebecca Beitsch15 Sept
Zach Barnes says that working with members of the House Freedom Caucus — the hard-line conservative group famous for confronting Republican leadership and instigating procedural and floor fights — makes him joke about how Congress must have operated a century ago. “Members of Congress didn’t have 15 to 18 full-time staff in D.C., in their…
The Hill•Emily Brooks15 Sept
July 15, 2025, was “the most stressful day” of Raphaël Schreiber’s career in Congress. The legislative director for Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) had a “very brief” conversation with the congressman about the idea of a bill directing the Department of Justice to publicly release materials on its Jeffrey Epstein investigation. “And then he told me,…
The Hill•Emily Brooks15 Sept
President Trump’s call to give all American adults $5,000 payments if Republicans win the midterm election is getting panned by Republican lawmakers, who warn they will not support giving away money to people who don’t work or pay taxes. Fiscal hawks in the GOP warn the extravagant proposal raises questions about the looming insolvency of…
The Hill•Alexander Bolton15 Sept
GOP leaders in the Capitol and White House are throwing cold water on the notion of quickly adopting new AI safeguards, despite an apocalyptic new warning from industry titans about the threat the technology poses to humankind. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) quickly dismissed the idea of moving swiftly to enact new regulations on the rapidly…
The Hill•Sudiksha Kochi15 Sept
The saying goes that victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan. That doesn’t mean, however, that there won’t be any paternity claims after a loss. And if Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) really does manage to lose his Senate race against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, naming the father of what…
The Hill•Chris Stirewalt15 Sept
The 119th Congress has had no shortage of pitched battles, fragile negotiations and high-profile scandals. Lawmakers may have taken center stage in each, but today we’re featuring 25 staffers who worked diligently behind the scenes on the issues in the spotlight: the legislative director who drafted the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Ethics Committee staff…
The Hill•The Hill staff15 Sept
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said Monday that Lindsay Clancy should be publicly executed, as the Massachusetts woman faces a new trial for allegedly murdering her three children. “Her children are dead, she should be dead too,” Mace told TMZ. The South Carolina Republican later said, “She should get the death penalty. It should be public,…
The Hill•Max Rego15 Sept
The House Rules Committee on Monday approved bipartisan legislation aimed at increasing sanctions on Russia amid its war in Ukraine. The bill, which the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) championed, would allow President Trump to impose penalties on individuals working on behalf of the Russian government to stall peace negotiations with Ukraine, violate a negotiated…
The Hill•Max Rego15 Sept
Attorney General Todd Blanche will brief reporters in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday, as he will become the latest administration official to fill the shoes of former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. A White House official confirmed to NewsNation, The Hill’s sister network, that Blanche will speak to members of the press. …
The Hill•Max Rego15 Sept
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) Senate campaign received nearly $54 million from the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund’s (SLF) Texas affiliate, according to a filing. The Austin-based Texas PAC donated more than $53.8 million to Paxton’s campaign, based on filings to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The committee is affiliated with the SLF, which is…
The Hill•Max Rego14 Sept
The Supreme Court refused to clear the way for President Trump’s mail-in voting plan for the midterms on Monday over the dissents of two conservative justices, keeping intact a judge’s block that declared the plan unlawful. It’s the third time the Trump administration brought the plan to the high court’s emergency docket after groups have blocked the effort. Previously, the…
The Hill•Zach Schonfeld14 Sept
U.S. diplomatic facilities in four Gulf countries suffered around $184 million in estimated damages from Iranian military strikes, according to a new report from the Pentagon’s watchdog made public on Monday. The posts are located in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Pentagon watchdog said in the 44-page report, the first…
The Hill•Ellen Mitchell14 Sept
The Trump administration on Monday gutted the rules governing the nation’s climate regulations for power plants. Here’s what you should know about the final rule from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): It axes most, but not all, power plant climate rules The rules, which have been announced but whose underlying text did not appear to…
The Hill•Rachel Frazin14 Sept
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) returned to the Senate Monday evening to cast his first vote since June 11 after spending months away from the Capitol recuperating from a fall he suffered at home. McConnell’s long absence and the trickle of information from his office about his condition fueled weeks of speculation about his health and…
The Hill•Alexander Bolton14 Sept