Marie Gluesenkamp Perez makes key staff hires and prepares to take office in January

Wash­ing­ton State will soon have a new mem­ber of Con­gress: Marie Glue­senkamp Perez, who at thir­ty-four will be one of Con­gress’ youngest members.

Hav­ing pre­vailed over ultra MAGA Repub­li­can Joe Kent in the con­test for U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Wash­ing­ton’s 3rd, just as NPI’s research showed she could, Glue­senkamp Perez is now get­ting ready to take office on Jan­u­ary 3rd.

She will join a con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion that includes Pat­ty Mur­ray, Maria Cantwell, Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Dan New­house, Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land. (With the excep­tion of Sen­a­tor Cantwell, all of them were just reelect­ed to new terms.)

Democ­rats last won the 3rd in 2008 when Bri­an Baird sought a final term. Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler suc­ceed­ed Baird in ear­ly 2011 after Repub­li­cans cap­tured the dis­trict in the 2010 midterms. Her­rera Beut­ler won sev­er­al con­sec­u­tive reelec­tions before los­ing to Kent and Glue­senkamp Perez last August. Her vote to impeach Don­ald Trump had made her per­sona non gra­ta with the Repub­li­can base.

Ken­t’s can­di­da­cy prompt­ed Glue­senkamp Perez to jump into the race last Feb­ru­ary; the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty wast­ed lit­tle time in unit­ing behind her, with anoth­er Demo­c­rat even with­draw­ing his can­di­da­cy in the inter­est of uni­ty. Glue­senkamp Perez pre­vailed in the August 2022 Top Two elec­tion against a frac­tured Repub­li­can field and then defeat­ed Kent in the gen­er­al elec­tion by few­er than three thou­sand votes in what has become a solid­ly Repub­li­can district.

Now that the cam­paign is won, Glue­senkamp Perez is prepar­ing to gov­ern. Her team announced today that she has decid­ed on her key staff hires and will be open­ing an office in Van­cou­ver very close to Her­rera Beut­ler’s cur­rent office.

“I ran for Con­gress to get things done for work­ing fam­i­lies like mine across the Third Dis­trict, and I’ve brought togeth­er an expe­ri­enced, bipar­ti­san team that is ready to hit the ground run­ning on day one,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive-elect Glue­senkamp Perez. “I’m delight­ed that two mem­bers of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Her­rera Beutler’s staff will be join­ing our dis­trict office, and I can’t wait to start work­ing with my new team to get the job done for South­west Washington.”

Here’s an overview of the team, cour­tesy of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tive-elec­t’s office:

WASHINGTON, D.C. OFFICE

Chief of Staff Jes­si­ca Killin will lead both the Wash­ing­ton, D.C. and Dis­trict teams. She is a U.S. Army vet­er­an who has over 20 years of expe­ri­ence work­ing in and with Con­gress. She pre­vi­ous­ly served as chief of staff to sev­er­al mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and in the offices of Sen­a­tor Tom Carp­er (D‑DE) and for­mer Sen­a­tor Bill Nel­son (D‑FL).

Senior Advi­sor Phil Gard­ner will pro­vide coun­sel to the Rep.-elect. Phil has worked in Wash­ing­ton state pol­i­tics for over 15 years, most recent­ly as Rep.-elect Glue­senkamp Perez’s cam­paign man­ag­er, and served as a long­time aide to Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Den­ny Heck.

Leg­isla­tive Direc­tor Emi­ly Kolano will lead the Rep.-elect’s leg­isla­tive team and dri­ve leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties. Pre­vi­ous­ly, she served as leg­isla­tive direc­tor for Rep. Jason Crow (CO-06) and spent years work­ing in the Wash­ing­ton del­e­ga­tion on the teams of for­mer Rep. Den­ny Heck (WA-10) and Rep. Derek Kilmer (WA-06).

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Han­nah Crook will be the spokesper­son for the Rep.-elect and man­age the com­mu­ni­ca­tions depart­ment. She most recent­ly was a spokesper­son for Rep. Cindy Axne (IA-03) on both her offi­cial and polit­i­cal teams and spent the ear­ly years of her career work­ing in Mary­land politics.

Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions Zev Moses will man­age all sched­ul­ing and D.C. office oper­a­tions. He pre­vi­ous­ly served as direc­tor of sched­ul­ing and oper­a­tions for Rep. Cindy Axne (IA-03) and worked in inter­na­tion­al rela­tions and gov­ern­ment affairs for five years pri­or to enter­ing pub­lic service.

Leg­isla­tive Cor­re­spon­dent Vale­ria Met­z­gen will help man­age con­stituent com­mu­ni­ca­tions. She recent­ly worked as a staff assis­tant in the Wash­ing­ton, D.C. office of Rep. Raul Ruiz (CA-36) and as an intern for the Con­gres­sion­al His­pan­ic Cau­cus Insti­tute. Vale­ria is a DACA recip­i­ent and will use her expe­ri­ences to advo­cate on behalf of South­west Washington’s immi­grant communities.

Staff Assis­tant Kendall Smith will pro­vide admin­is­tra­tive sup­port while han­dling tour requests, flag requests, and the office’s intern­ship pro­gram. She is a Wash­ing­ton state native and is the for­mer oper­a­tions man­ag­er for Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Murray’s re-elec­tion campaign.

DISTRICT OFFICE

Dis­trict Direc­tor Sarah Kohout will over­see all oper­a­tions in the Dis­trict Office to ensure Third Dis­trict res­i­dents and orga­ni­za­tions receive top-notch con­stituent ser­vices. Sarah is a famil­iar face in South­west Wash­ing­ton, hav­ing served as Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell’s out­reach direc­tor for the region.

Deputy Dis­trict Direc­tor Tim Gowen will assist in man­ag­ing the case­work team and dis­trict out­reach. Tim will bring his knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence as a small busi­ness own­er to man­age ser­vices and advo­cate for the needs of constituents.

Case­work­er Tony Sprauge has spent the last year serv­ing Washington’s Third Dis­trict res­i­dents in the office of out­go­ing Repub­li­can Rep. Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler (WA-03) as staff assis­tant, and will con­tin­ue this crit­i­cal work in the Rep.-elect’s office.

Case­work­er Gwen Palin, who also served on the staff of out­go­ing Repub­li­can Rep. Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler (WA-03), will con­tin­ue work­ing to pro­vide time­ly con­stituent ser­vices to Washington’s Third Dis­trict residents.

Dis­trict Aide Peter San­difer will pro­vide admin­is­tra­tive sup­port for the case­work team. He most recent­ly worked on the Rep.-elect’s cam­paign for Congress.

OFFICE LOCATIONS:

The Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Office will be locat­ed at 1431 Long­worth House Office Build­ing, Wash­ing­ton, D.C. 20515.

The Dis­trict Office will be locat­ed at 1053 Offi­cers Row, Van­cou­ver, WA 98661, just steps away from out­go­ing Rep. Jaime Her­rera Beutler’s Van­cou­ver Office.

Two of the key hires are com­ing over from Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cindy Axne’s office. Axne, an Iowa Demo­c­rat, is leav­ing Con­gress after los­ing reelec­tion to Repub­li­can Zach Nunn. Axne came close to hold­ing on, gar­ner­ing 49.6% of the vote, but ulti­mate­ly could not pre­vail. Iowa will not be send­ing any Democ­rats to the 118th Con­gress for the first time in decades. The state is also set to lose its key posi­tion atop the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s nom­i­nat­ing cal­en­dar for the 2024 cycle.

NPI con­grat­u­lates Rep­re­sen­ta­tive-elect Glue­senkamp Perez on this impor­tant mile­stone and we look for­ward to her swear­ing in next month.