Leahy: President Taps Chief of Staff Ed Pagano as Presidential Assistant and WH Liaison to Senate

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The White House and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) announced Friday that Leahy Chief of Staff Ed Pagano will begin work next week as Deputy Assistant to the President and Senate Liaison.

Leahy is the Senate's second-most-senior member and chairs two major Senate panels, the Judiciary Committee and the Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on the State Department and Foreign Operations.  Pagano started his public service career as an attorney in Leahy's office in 1993 and has headed Leahy's staff since 2005, managing his offices in Washington and Vermont and overseeing Leahy's work on the Senate Judiciary, Agriculture and Appropriations Committees.  He is a graduate of the University of Vermont and also an alumnus of the Catamounts' basketball team, where he played power forward from 1981 to 1985 (wearing Number 42).  He earned his law degree from Fordham Law School.

During his tenure as staff chief Pagano has advised Leahy on the recently enacted Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, the first major reform of the patent system in 60 years; on the hearings and confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, and, most recently, on Leahy's difficult and successful work in securing disaster relief and renovation funds after Tropical Storm Irene ravaged Vermont last August.  He previously served as Leahy's Senior Counsel on the Judiciary Committee, where he focused on economic and criminal justice legislation including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the USA PATRIOT Act, anti-crime and victims' assistance programs, Leahy's Bulletproof Vest Partnership Act, and the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund.  He headed Leahy's work in drafting the charter for the nation's first-responder grant program, which Leahy included in the USA PATRIOT Act.  Leahy's all-state minimum grant formula in that charter has brought more than $100 million to Vermont's first responder firefighters, police and emergency rescue squads in the last four years.  He started his public service career as an attorney in Leahy's office in 1993.

Leahy said, "Ed is as exemplary and honest and modest a public servant as any I have known.  Now he is taking on another big job, with huge challenges, and it is a testament to Ed's stature and skill set that the President has picked the best person for a tough and vital job." 

SOURCE Office of U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy