Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Staff Biographies

Hannah Sistare
Staff Director, Counsel

When Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee became chairman in 1997, he didn't look far to fill the top staff job. The Tennesseean tapped Sistare, his legislative director since he became a Senator in 1995. She knows the panel's work cold, having been minority staff director in the late 1970s, when Sen. Charles H. Percy of Illinois was the ranking Republican on the committee. She went on to become Percy's chief of staff from 1980-84. "Hannah is first-rate, knows the Senate inside out, and is very savvy regarding government reform issues," said Paul Light of the Brookings Institution. Of her reticent style, "she doesn't rise to every opportunity to put her two cents in," he said. "Hannah chooses her words very carefully." A native of Fairhaven, Mass., the 54-year-old Sistare has worked in the private sector, serving as vice president for public policy at Joseph E. Seagram and Sons Inc. from 1986-89. She also ran her own consulting business. Sistare, who graduated from Mount Holyoke College, received her law degree from Catholic University.

Fred Ansell
Chief Counsel

Ansell, 37, has spent much of the year as the point man on reauthorization of the independent-counsel law, which expires on June 30. He was the lead staffer on the hearings that helped to set the boundaries for the upcoming debate over whether the law should be rewritten or allowed to die, and says he found the experience "very satisfying." He's taken an occasional potshot for not always being forthcoming with others on the staff, but no one disputes his deep knowledge of the issues or his close relationship to Thompson. Those ties began when he served the Senator as chief counsel on the Judiciary Youth Violence Subcommittee. Ansell, who hails from Londonville, N.Y., also worked for Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa as minority counsel to the Judiciary Courts and Administrative Practice Subcommittee, from 1991-95. He gained his litigation experience from 1988-91, mostly with Wiley, Rein & Fielding, after graduating from Dartmouth College and the University of Chicago Law School.

Paul Noe
Senior Counsel

Noe was one of the few staff members asked to stay on when Thompson took the panel's reins in 1997. He had "a great reputation" at the committee, said Sistare, which he had joined as a professional staff member in 1995. His specialty is regulatory reform and federalism. Because regulatory reform proposals have historically attracted some Democratic support, Noe has worked closely with staff on the other side of the aisle. That approach smoothed the way for passage of a bill out of committee in May. His focus on federalism is in keeping with Thompson's somewhat quixotic quest to restrain Congress's penchant for extending federal authority into areas such as criminal law enforcement. The 36-year-old Noe, a Cincinnati native, graduated from Williams College. He received a law degree from Georgetown University and then worked about four years in private practice in Washington on environmental issues at two prominent law firms: Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and Ropes & Gray.

Kristine I. Simmons
Staff Director, Oversight Subcommittee

Simmons, 32, has played a leading role on federalism for the GOP for the better part of a decade. She came to the full committee as a professional staff member in 1997 after seven years with the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. In February, she jumped to the subcommittee to become staff director. "She really hit the ground running," Sistare said. Simmons also acts as one of Majority Leader Trent Lott's top liaisons to the states. As a House staffer, Simmons helped craft proposals to end requirements that cities spend their own money on federal initiatives. Ultimately, those measures became the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995. Simmons graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology. She hails from Williamsville, N.Y.

Joyce Rechtschaffen
Minority Staff Director, Counsel

When Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut became the ranking Democrat on the panel this year, following the retirement of John Glenn of Ohio, he turned to a trusted aide to take the top staff slot. Rechtschaffen, 44, has worked for Lieberman since the Senator was sworn in, in 1989. She's been legislative assistant and counsel and handled Lieberman's work on the Environment and Public Works Committee. The Brooklyn, N.Y., native has developed good working relationships with GOP staff. She and Sistare have weekly one-on-one meetings and communicate regularly by e-mail. As a newcomer, she is free from the taint of having been with the committee during its bitter hearings over campaign fund-raising issues. Rechtschaffen also benefits from the amicable relationship between Thompson and Lieberman-a marked change from Thompson's often-testy dealings with Glenn. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Rechtschaffen came to Capitol Hill after seven years as an environmental litigator in the Justice Department and an earlier five-year stint at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, a prominent New York City-based law firm.

Laurie Rubenstein
Minority Chief Counsel

The 34-year-old Rubenstein clearly has the confidence of Lieberman, as evidenced by her role as his principal aide during the fund-raising hearings. She is "serious and ambitious," said a source very familiar with her work on the committee. Although she is one of only three Democratic staffers who remained after working on those contentious hearings, Rubenstein said that she has not felt any fallout from that period. During the hearings, some Democrats were put out by Lieberman's seeming willingness to work with Thompson, even as Glenn and others painted the proceedings as partisan. These days, Rubenstein, a native of East Williston, N.Y., appears to have her fingers on lots of issues-from nuclear espionage and juvenile justice to Y2K liability and Internet crime. A graduate of Cornell University and Yale Law School, she spent several years at Mayer, Brown & Platt, before joining Lieberman's personal staff in 1996. In 1997, when Lieberman became the ranking member of the Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia Subcommittee, Rubenstein became minority staff director. She moved into her current post when the Senator became the committee's senior Democrat.

Linda Gustitus
Minority Chief Counsel, Investigations Subcommittee

One of the veteran warriors of this committee, Gustitus, 51, has been on the staff since 1980 and has served as Michigan Sen. Carl Levin's eyes and ears on the panel. Levin has total trust in her, and Gustitus is one of the most tenacious infighters on the committee's staff. She has worked on three reauthorizations of the independent-counsel law and has negotiated with the GOP staff on the regulatory reform bill, a priority of Levin's that puts him at odds with Lieberman. This subcommittee historically has given its minority plenty of latitude to conduct its own investigations. Gustitus and other Democratic staff have made the most of it and are working on a money-laundering investigation. The Rockford, Ill., native, who investigated the Wedtech scandal and Defense Department kickback cases years ago, graduated from Oberlin College and Wayne State University Law School. High-stakes probes are Gustitus' specialty. She cut her teeth prosecuting under-cover narcotics and consumer fraud cases in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office. After that, she joined the Justice Department and litigated civil fraud cases from 1977-79.