Republican lawyers on the Senate Judiciary Committee are waiting to learn their fate from Senator Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., after he took over as their new boss this week.
Sessions, the new top Republican on the committee as of Tuesday, has inherited the committee staff hired by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Specter had led the Republicans since 2005, a position that put him in charge of more than 20 staff members. But his switch to the Democratic Party last week has given Sessions the opportunity to put his own stamp on the staff.
The team put in place by Specter is led by two people: Stephanie Middleton, the Republicans’ staff director, and Nick Rossi, their chief counsel. Middleton has worked for the Judiciary Committee since 2006, first as GOP general counsel and then becoming staff director about a year ago. She is a former chief counsel for litigation at health insurer Cigna in Philadelphia and could head back to Pennsylvania. Rossi was a long-time special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working in Sacramento, Calif., and in D.C. before joining the Judiciary Committee staff in 2006.
Sarah Haley, a spokeswoman for Sessions, wrote in an e-mail late Thursday that no decisions have been made. She declined to elaborate.
Another person whose role could change is Matt Miner, who has been working for Sessions as the Republicans’ chief counsel on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts. The subcommittee could have a new top Republican now that Sessions has a larger role. A former assistant U.S. attorney in the Middle District of Alabama, Miner previously worked for Specter as the Republicans’ chief counsel for crime issues and as a counsel to then-Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.
Any change would come at a busy time for the committee’s staff. President Barack Obama’s nominee to succeed Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court will force Democrats and Republicans on the committee to work long hours in preparation for a confirmation hearing.
The likelihood of Specter leading a Judiciary Subcommittee this year, first reported Thursday by The Washington Post, would provide one spot for his staff to end up if Sessions were to make changes — and if they would want to work for a Democrat. Hannibal Kemerer, who most recently has been Specter’s chief counsel for crime and oversight, is moving over to the subcommittee with Specter, a Republican aide said. Kemerer is a former NAACP assistant general counsel who went to work for Specter in 2005.
Makan Delrahim, a former staff director and chief counsel of the Judiciary Committee under then-Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, says turnover among staff is common when there’s a change in the committee’s leadership. “There may be some staff from Senator Specter that will go with him, and there may be some staff that Senator Sessions wants to bring in,” says Delrahim, a partner at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.