PULLING STRINGS

By Corin Hirsch

On the first floor of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., is an office with vaulted ceilings and a working fireplace where Senate aides come to bend the ear of staff, especially when they’re advancing legislation under the complex process known as budget reconciliation. Presiding over this office, most of the time quietly, is the parliamentarian of the U.S. Senate, Elizabeth Cross MacDonough JD’98. However, when the Senate is in session, and she’s seated in front and below the Presiding Officer. “I’m a referee,” said MacDonough, who in 2012 became the first woman to hold the post. “We help guide the Senate in its day-to-day proceedings and interpret the Senate’s rules, precedents, and statutes, deciding which constitutional provisions apply.”

When the Senate seas get stormy—as they can when contentious legislation arises—MacDonough’s low-key visage may dissolve when her office’s role is catapulted into the media, as it was in both 2015 and 2017, during the debate over proposed health care legislation from each party.

At such times, right-leaning media might like to point out that MacDonough is unelected; in 2017, one called her “a little lawyer.” MacDonough, a down-to-earth presence with an easy sense of humor, has a geniality about it and doesn’t express affiliation of any kind, lest it compromise the “historically unpartisan presence” of the Senate parliamentarian, as she puts it, “with neutrality as its hallmark.”

Of the 800 or so VLS alumni who work in government, about a quarter are on the federal tier, with sizable contingents at both the Environmental Protection Agency (44 alumni) and Department of Justice (16). Nearly a third working on the federal level, though, are not affiliated with an agency—but their influence is felt in other ways.

A Job She Almost Didn’t Take

When the Senate parliamentarian post was created in 1935, it was done so specifically for clerk Charles Watkins, a trained stenographer with a photographic memory who was already unofficially serving as an advisor on Senate procedure. Only five people have held the post since, including MacDonough, who ascended into the job after then-parliamentarian Alan Frumin retired. (“There's a new sheriff in town," said Senator Harry Reid on the Senate floor that day).

It wasn’t necessarily the type of job MacDonough ever imagined she’d have as she headed to law school in the mid-1990s.

“My grandfather was a lawyer, my uncle John is a lawyer, my brother is a lawyer, my cousin John is a lawyer,” MacDonough said. Growing up outside of D.C. (and, later, Connecticut), MacDonough envisioned herself as a lawyer too. After earning her bachelor’s degree from George Washington University in 1988, she spent five years working as a Senate library aide.

Initially drawn by VLS’s environmental program, MacDonough took classes in international law, family law, national security law, and intellectual property. “There was a pull from each of them,” she said. “I didn’t have a focus, but I thought I knew I wanted to be a litigator.”

And that was the path she followed after graduation, working as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice at an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. In the winter of 1999, at a memorial service for one of her close friends—Scott Bates, the Senate’s then-legislative clerk—MacDonough was told about the opening for an assistant in the parliamentarian’s office. Barely a year out of law school, she initially dismissed the idea. “When you come up in more junior clerical positions in the Senate, you think the parliamentarians are like these demigods, that they know everything,” MacDonough said. “I was really torn, because litigation was something that I loved. It was a sort of ‘two paths diverge’ kind of thing. You don’t really go into the parliamentarian’s office and then practice law again.”

Ultimately, after much research and advice-seeking, MacDonough accepted and became assistant parliamentarian in May 1999. It was a baptism by fire. “It was all new, and nothing you study in school. Some of it is legal, obviously, and constitutional, but a lot is based on this unique set of the Senate’s own rules.”

Some of the office’s tasks are mundane, she pointed out—such as keeping time—but the parliamentarian also refers every piece of legislation to committee, advises on committee jurisdiction, and decides what’s in order. “We also do a lot of things that people don’t think about,” she said, such as counting electoral ballots during presidential elections, undertaken during a joint session of Congress. After the 2000 election, MacDonough advised candidate and then-vice president Al Gore on counting the ballot, one of her job duties. Years later that assistance led some to report, erroneously, that she had worked for Gore. “That became a huge issue for me during the [2015] health care debate, when some were trying to say that I had my thumb on the scale,” said MacDonough.

When it comes to parsing challenging decisions, MacDonough will often cast back to experiences at VLS. “I hear [my professors’] voices in my head all the time,” MacDonough said.

If I try to dissect something, I think about Professor David Firestone, who was methodical and organized and would look at things in a time continuum. It helps me to organize something in a linear fashion to make sense of it, like pulling a thread of a sweater and then putting it back together.

While the parliamentarian’s decisions are not binding, the Senate always follows the guidance, and it seems that MacDonough has earned respect. That might stem partly from relationships fostered during grueling stretches. “Nothing will build friendships better than sitting in a three-day filibuster,” MacDonough joked. “You get to learn who the morning people are and who the nighttime people are, who the cat people are, and who the dog people are. We talk about things like ‘Game of Thrones’ and sports and sometimes policy. You learn to view [senators] as human beings.”

A Steady Arc

Kendra Brown JD’12, chief of staff for North Carolina's Rep. G. K. Butterfield, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Jay Mallin

About a mile away, inside the Rayburn House Office Building, Kendra F. Brown JD’12 works for the other body of Congress, as chief of staff for Congressman G. K. Butterfield, D-N.C. She began the job in December 2018 after an influential career that has wended through the Capitol, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Congressional Black Caucus, and on the staffs of several members of Congress.

Growing up in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, Brown said her parents instilled a deep sense of giving back that would eventually propel her into law. (Her father was a church pastor as well as assistant principal of her high school.)

I had two parents who were always in service to others, so I knew I wanted to have a role where I helped people and could make a difference.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Virginia’s Hampton University, Brown eventually headed to VLS, where she was drawn to the school’s environmental justice focus—but the Vermont mountains also reminded her of home. “I knew that there were VLS alumni that had gone to work with the government,” said Brown.

Two VLS faculty in particular significantly impacted Brown’s path: the late dean Gil Kujovich, with whom she took a civil rights seminar, and Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Diversity Shirley Jefferson JD’86. “Dean Kujovich was such an amazing professor, weaving his work in civil rights into what he was teaching us,” she said. “And, understanding all the barriers Dean Jefferson had to fight through to come to law school and to be so successful in her career—they were both such an inspiration to me.”

While at VLS, Brown became involved with the National Black Law Student Association, first as northeast regional chair and, later, national chair working on issues such as election protection, criminal justice reform, and educational equity. “It was very transformative in my career and really set the tone for everything in terms of what I’m doing now,” Brown said.

Brown’s subsequent career constantly hits higher octaves: After VLS, she earned a master of divinity from Howard University and held positions at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as counsel for Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.; as deputy chief of staff for Rep. Dwight Evans, D-Penn.; and as senior director for diversity, inclusion, and affinity for the Washington College of Law at American University, where she earned her master of laws.

Her two-year stint as policy director for the Congressional Black Caucus was pivotal. “It was a very interesting time. Ferguson had just happened, the death of Michael Brown, and there was a lot of unrest in the nation,” Brown said. “I thought it would be a great opportunity and to be a part of turning the tide, and what the appropriate response should be from Congress. So many things have happened as a result of that time in history.”

As Representative Butterfield’s chief of staff, Brown leads a staff of 19 in forging and supporting the congressman’s priorities, such as protecting voting rights, affordable healthcare, technology and broadband inclusion, and equal access to jobs and job training. Her weekdays usually begin with an 8:15 a.m. meeting, and she travels to North Carolina at least once a month. Will she ever run for office herself? “I actually don’t consider [it],” she said. “I really adore serving the constituents that I do.”

In the Eye of Change

In their respective time on the Hill, both MacDonough and Brown have witnessed shifts. For MacDonough—who credits her career-minded grandmother and mother as mentors—the role of women has evolved since she started in the Senate in 1990. “Certainly I’ve seen a cultural shift, a shift in the power structure and how much of it is held by women,” MacDonough said. “There are more women in power in the Senate—the first female legislative clerk, the first female sergeant at arms.”

“More attention is paid to diversity and inclusion,” observed Brown, “but I think there is more work that needs to be done. We have to ensure that we always have well-thought-out efforts and plans and processes in place to ensure staff working on [House and Senate] issues are representative of the constituents we serve.”

As she helps advance that work, Brown said she is in frequent contact with other VLS alumni. “We talk frequently. Not a week goes by that we’re not in communication. They are lifelong friends.”

Corin Hirsch is a journalist who primarily writes about food, agriculture, and business.