Illustration: Tiffany Herring/Axios
The appropriations process is getting under way, and the House and Senate are on a collision course.
- House Republicans are eying deeper cuts, going back to FY22 levels, while the Senate wants to stick to the debt limit agreement that was just made. We thought this would be a good time to look at some of the major players behind these decisions as the process gets going.
Senate
Evan Schatz, Senate Appropriations Democratic staff director
Schatz is a longtime aide to Sen. Patty Murray, and moved over to Appropriations when Murray became chair this year. He was previously her staff director on the HELP Committee.
- In that role, he helped oversee a lot of bipartisan work (remember Alexander-Murray?), which could come in handy in crafting a bipartisan spending agreement.
- While he’s staff director for the full committee, he certainly has a background in health care.
- He first started working for Murray in 2005, per LegiStorm. That’s a long history!
Mike Gentile, Democratic Labor-HHS Subcommittee clerk
Gentile is more directly overseeing health care spending under the new subcommittee chair, Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
- He previously worked as a professional staff member on the subcommittee for several years, per LegiStorm.
- Labor-HHS is always one of the more controversial appropriations bills, getting caught up in issues like abortion. But Senate Democrats will also be seeking to fend off the deep cuts that House Republicans have initially proposed in the area.
Betsy McDonnell, Senate Appropriations Republican staff director
McDonnell is a longtime staffer for Sen. Susan Collins, previously serving as her deputy chief of staff. She moved to her current role this year when Collins moved up to the top GOP spot on the committee.
- She was previously staff director for the Senate Aging Committee, which looked at health care issues like how COVID-19 affected seniors.
- Collins is sure to be a more moderate force on appropriations compared to House Republicans, including on issues like Ukraine funding, but also potentially on health care.
Lindsey Seidman, Republican Labor-HHS Subcommittee clerk
Seidman, who directly oversees health care spending for Republicans, most recently served on the HELP Committee before shifting over to Appropriations this year.
- She previously worked under former HELP Chair Lamar Alexander, starting at his office in the early 2000s, per LegiStorm. She eventually became deputy staff director for HELP under Alexander, then stayed on when Sen. Richard Burr took over the top role.
- Shielding bipartisan priorities like NIH from major cuts will be an area to watch amid the back and forth over broader cuts.
House
Anne Marie Chotvacs, House Appropriations Republican clerk/staff director
Chotvacs first worked for the House Appropriations Committee from 2004 to 2016 before taking a two-year break to work as a lobbyist for Boeing. During that Approps time she did serve as a staffer on Labor-HHS.
- She returned to the committee at the end of 2018 and became the staff director under then-ranking member Kay Granger in 2019.
- Granger has previously supported defunding Planned Parenthood, so now that she’s chairwoman, it seems likely there will be some contention over Title X family planning funds, some of which go to Planned Parenthood (though not for abortions) through the Labor-HHS bill.
- The Hyde Amendment rider that’s in the Labor-HHS bill, which Granger also supports, is sure to cause disagreement between both parties, as it always does.
Susan Avcin (Ross), Republican Labor-HHS Subcommittee clerk/staff director
Avcin is an experienced career Hill staffer, holding various positions in the House since 1996, with just a brief one-year stint off the Hill at Faegre Drinker in 2005.
- She’s been a staff member on the Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee since 2012, including when it was run by Rep. Tom Cole. She’s also worked for the House Education and Workforce Committee and the full House Appropriations Committee.
- Former subcommittee Chairman Cole is known as a big supporter of the NIH and has approved bills that increased the agency’s funding during his tenure.
Chris Bigelow, House Appropriations Democratic staff director
Bigelow was promoted to committee staff director in March.
- He’s worked as a professional House staffer since 2004, and at one point as the legislative director for former Rep. Nita Lowey, who served as the House Appropriations chair before retiring in 2020. Bigelow joined the Appropriations Committee under Lowey in 2010.
- He has expertise in defense spending, having served as a clerk for the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and assisted in passing supplemental Ukraine spending bills, as well as supplementals related to Jan. 6, natural disasters and Afghan refugees.
- Ranking member Rosa DeLauro, in contrast to Granger, has been an outspoken proponent of Title X funding and getting rid of the Hyde Amendment.
Stephen Steigleder, Democratic Labor-HHS Subcommittee clerk/staff director
Steigleder has been a staff member on House Appropriations since 2014, and has been the Labor-HHS Subcommittee staff director since 2019. He also had a previous stint on Approps from 2009 to 2011.
- In between those two periods he worked for the Center for American Progress as a policy analyst for two years and the Department of Labor as a legislative officer for a year.
