Featured Speakers: Senator Robert P. Casey (D-PA) Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (D-CA)
Introduction by: John D. Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for American Progress Action Fund
As Congress returns from its August recess, it prepares to receive a new White House report on the situation in Iraq and hear testimony from U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus. The coming weeks will witness a series of hearings, debates, and votes on key legislation related to Iraq.
The Center for American Progress Action Fund hosts a breakfast discussion with two leaders in Congress who visited Iraq to assess the situation in August, Senator Robert Casey and Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher. Senator Casey and Congresswoman Tauscher will provide their observations from their meetings with U.S. officials and Iraqi leaders.
Friday, September 07, 2007 Program:
9:00am to 10:00am Admission is free.
A light breakfast will be served.
Center for American Progress Action Fund 1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor Washington, DC 20005 Map & Directions
Nearest Metro: Blue/Orange Line to McPherson Square or Red Line to Metro Center
RSVP for this Event
For more information, please call 202-741-6246.
Biographies
Senator Robert P. Casey is a new U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania focused on changing the direction in Washington. From expanding access to health care to preparing our children for the 21st Century to reducing our dependence on foreign oil to preserving our environment to protecting Americans at home and our interests abroad, Bob Casey knows that we face many challenges. In his short time in the U.S. Senate, Bob Casey has already joined the debate on one of his top priorities: increasing access to health insurance for children. This issue is not only one that is close to Senator Casey’s heart, it also runs in the family. The late Governor Robert P. Casey signed into law the children’s health insurance program on which the federal law is modeled. Casey serves on five Senate committees: Foreign Relations; Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; the Special Committee on Aging; and the Joint Economic Committee. In eight years as Pennsylvania Auditor General and two years as State Treasurer, Bob Casey compiled a record that focused on making government more accountable and responsive to the needs of Pennsylvanians. He has been a fiscal watchdog who made nursing homes safer, child care more affordable and government more accountable. He led the fight to reform Megan’s Law to better protect Pennsylvania communities and children. Casey and his wife, Terese, were married in 1985 and live in Scranton with their four daughters: Elyse, Caroline, Julia and Marena. Casey is the eldest son of the late Governor Robert P. Casey and his wife, Ellen. Throughout his public career, Bob Casey has been guided by the legacy of his father, and the principle that: “All public service is a trust, given in faith and accepted in honor.”
Congresswoman Ellen O. Tauscher is currently serving her sixth term representing California’s 10th Congressional district, which includes San Francisco’s suburbs in Contra Costa, Alameda and Solano Counties. In Congress she is a leader on defense, homeland security, high-tech, and transportation issues and is known as one of Congress’s leading experts on nuclear nonproliferation.
Ellen is currently serving her second term as the Chair of the House New Democrat Coalition, a sixty-member organization that ranks as the largest centrist coalition in the House of Representatives. The New Democrat Coalition is committed to enacting policies that maintain U.S.
competitiveness, meet the challenges posed by globalization in the 21st century, and strengthen our national security.
In the 110th Congress, Rep. Tauscher was appointed Chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, becoming only the third woman in history to Chair an Armed Services Subcommittee. During the last decade as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Tauscher has taken an active role in foreign policy and national security.
She has traveled to the Middle East six times since the start of the Iraq war, including four trips to Iraq, and has visited troops and met with foreign leaders in Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries while serving in Congress. This August, she led a bipartisan Congressional delegation to Iraq that met with General Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker, U.S troops and commanders, and members of the Iraqi Parliament.
John Podesta is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for American Progress. Podesta served as Chief of Staff to President William J. Clinton from October 1998 until January 2001, where he was responsible for directing, managing, and overseeing all policy development, daily operations, Congressional relations, and staff activities of the White House. He coordinated the work of cabinet agencies with a particular emphasis on the development of federal budget and tax policy, and served in the President’s Cabinet and as a Principal on the National Security Council. A frequent guest of Sunday morning news programs, Podesta is known for his straight talk, acerbic wit, and fierce defense of the Clinton Administration – which he also served from 1997 to 1998 as both an Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff. Earlier, from January 1993 to 1995, he was Assistant to the President, Staff Secretary and a senior policy adviser on government information, privacy, telecommunications security and regulatory policy. Podesta is currently a Visiting Professor of Law on the faculty of the Georgetown University Law Center, a position he also held from January 1995 to 1997. He has taught courses on technology policy, congressional investigations, legislation, copyright and public interest law. Podesta is considered one of Washington’s leading experts in technology policy, and has written a book, several articles and lectured extensively in these areas. Podesta has held a number of positions on Capitol Hill including: Counselor to Democratic Leader Senator Thomas A. Daschle (1995-1996); Chief Counsel for the Senate Agriculture Committee (1987-1988); Chief Minority Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittees on Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks; Security and Terrorism; and Regulatory Reform; and Counsel on the Majority Staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee (1979-1981). In addition, in 1988, Podesta founded with his brother Tony, Podesta Associates, Inc., a Washington, D.C. government relations and public affairs firm. A Chicago native, Podesta worked as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Honors Program in the Land and Natural Resources Division (1976-1977), and as a Special Assistant to the Director of ACTION, the federal volunteer agency, (1978-1979). He has served as a member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and the United States Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy.
Podesta is a 1976 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, and a 1971 graduate of Knox College.