Courtney’s Chief of Staff Feels Privileged to Work on Capitol Hill
GROSS PROFILE
New London Day
Renée Dudley
Boston University Washington News Service
April 12, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 12 – When freshmen members of Congress arrive in Washington they must start from scratch: they have to hire staff, learn how to vote and how to navigate Capitol Hill, and organize furniture and computers left by previous inhabitants – and it is the job of the chief of staff to ensure that everything runs smoothly.
Jason Gross, chief of staff for Rep. Joseph Courtney (D-Conn.), says managing his boss’s office is a demanding job – made all the more challenging since Courtney has been in Congress less than four months.
“My job is like an air traffic controller,” Gross said during an interview in the 2nd District congressman’s office last month. But before he could explain more, Rep. Courtney burst into the office.
“Are you going to Dodd’s thing in the morning?” Courtney asked his 37-year-old chief of staff.
“Yes,” Gross replied.
“We need to talk about where that is,” Courtney said, laughing.
“How about – I’ll come pick you up?” Gross affirmed reassuringly, before the congressman darted to his next meeting.
Gross, like his freshman boss, is still discovering the nuances of his new job – although he is no stranger to politics.
“The responsibilities are incredible. The first month was mind-blowing,” Gross said, explaining that under normal circumstances, a freshman congressman’s first month in office is mostly ceremonial, giving the staff “a chance to catch its breath.” But the Democratic congressional takeover during last November’s election could hardly be considered normal circumstances.
“What we were then facing was a whole legislative agenda that had been pent up because the Democrats hadn’t been in power for 12 years,” Gross said. “The problem was that we didn’t have a full operation to deal with it.”
Courtney, who has known Gross for about 10 years, said he chose his chief of staff in part because of his experience both on Capitol Hill and in the district. “There are just so many potential pitfalls that a new person not understanding the process can fall into – but with him, there wasn’t going to be any learning curve,” Courtney said. “Of course it didn’t hurt that he went to Tufts,” said the congressman, a fellow alum of the Boston-area university.
Having received his masters degree from the London School of Economics, Gross was serving as a foreign policy expert in European affairs for the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election campaign, when a friend introduced him to then-Rep. Sam Gejdenson’s chief of staff. Gross was hired and served as a legislative assistant for four years to the Democratic congressman – who represented the 2nd District for 20 years before losing the 2000 election to Republican Rob Simmons.
Although Gross had not previously worked in the district, he quickly learned its towns and people, Gejdenson said. “The entire office depended on his leadership,” he added.
Gross became more familiar with the district as he campaigned in the Groton area for Gejdenson in 1998 and 2000, and for Rep. Courtney in 2002 and 2006. “When Sam lost in 2000, the Democrats in Connecticut thought Joe was the person to turn to,” Gross said. “I wanted to help out Joe in any way I could.”
In Courtney’s office, which looks as though it hasn’t been lived in for very long, interns still complain about deficient computers inherited from the office’s previous inhabitants, and over who has to lead the next tour of Coast Guard cadets and contend with hour-long waits to enter the Capitol building.
“We’re starting from scratch,” Gross said. “When we got here, there were computers set up, kind of working; and there was furniture, kind of.”
Gross said it is his responsibility to “get a schedule going” and set a tempo for the office.
“My job is to make Joe as productive as possible” by organizing constituent events, briefing the congressman on current legislation on the House floor, corresponding with staffers from the district office, and preparing for committee hearings – Courtney is a member of the House Armed Services and Education and Labor Committees. “You can hardly fit it all into one day.”
“My job is about giving things fair balance, but prioritizing: knowing what has to happen right now, what has to happen in four hours; what has to happen by the end of the week, what has to happen by the end of the month,” he said.
Beverly Bell, executive director at the Congressional Management Foundation, said having an effective chief of staff is important to any congressional office. “The chief of staff is the chief operating officer to the member’s role as chief executive officer,” she said.
And what happens when Gross disagrees with his boss’s priorities? “It’s his name on the door, it’s his name on the ballot – in the end, all we can do is give him our best advice,” the chief of staff said.
But Gross, who said he normally comes into the office before 8 a.m. and leaves after 8 p.m., is also responsible for Rep. Courtney’s most basic needs. “Sometimes it’s my job to make sure he’s eaten that day – he can’t function if someone didn’t get him a sandwich,” Gross said.
Brian Farber, Courtney’s communications director, said Gross also is responsible for motivating the rest of the staff. “Jason runs a tight, but very responsible ship so that Congressman Courtney can best address the needs of the residents that he was elected to represent,” Farber said.
Another part of Gross’s job is carving out personal time for Rep. Courtney. “He’s separated from his family while he’s here [in Washington], and this is new for them,” Gross said of the congressman’s wife and 16- and 12-year-old children. “They have to have some time to themselves.”
Gross lives in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Northwest Washington and commutes to work either by subway or car, depending on his daily activities. His schedule is so crowded that he apparently hasn’t yet had enough time to decorate his Capitol Hill office, which is neat, but almost entirely devoid of personal effects.
But Gross admits that even after a long, exhausting day, he feels privileged to work on Capitol Hill – and is especially reminded of this privilege when he steps onto the House floor and when he leaves his office late at night and sees the Capitol dome lit. “Those moments will fill you with energy and get you going to the next day,” he said. “There’s just this energy – if you don’t feel it, you’re really working in the wrong place.”
And working for a member of Congress has other perks, too. Gross, who likes to read non-politically themed books in whatever spare time he has, particularly revels in his access to the Library of Congress. “Having this nation’s history of books which staff and members can check out is a great resource,” he said.
While studying political science at Tufts University, in Medford, Mass., Gross also served as the school-wide coordinator for former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis’s 1988 presidential campaign. But Gross said that he had been interested in politics long before that. Growing up in a Washington, D.C., suburb, he said “the city itself nurtures you.”
Gross said his parents, both retired economists who worked for the federal government, nurtured the “ideal of public service around the dinner table” which “got me involved in politics at a young age and made me respect how important it was.”
From 2000 to the start of his current position, Gross was managing director of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, a group that raises awareness about American engagement abroad. Given Courtney’s membership on the House Armed Services Committee, Gross said his background in national security and defense has been useful.
Gejdenson said he hopes Gross eventually runs for public office. “He would make a spectacular senator, congressman, governor, president, or whatever he decides to do,” the former congressman said.
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