U.S. Representative

Representative Chrissy Houlahan

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan

U.S. Representative

U.S. Representative Chrissy Houlahan is an Air Force veteran, engineer, entrepreneur, and educator who is continuing her career of service as the first woman ever to represent Pennsylvania's 6th District in Congress.

Chrissy is the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors who came to America with nothing. She grew up in a military family; her parents met when her father and grandfather flew P3s in the same Navy squadron. She earned her engineering degree from Stanford with an ROTC scholarship that launched her service in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserves, and later earned her M.S. in Technology and Policy from MIT.

Chrissy has helped lead several thriving Southeastern Pennsylvania companies including AND1, a basketball apparel company headquartered in Paoli, and B Lab, the organization that launched the B Corporation movement. She went on to serve in Teach for America as a chemistry teacher at Simon Gratz High School in North Philadelphia, and then led and scaled a non-profit helping thousands of underserved students all across America build their literacy skills.

These experiences helped shape her political vision of a great nation united by common values that leaves no one behind. She is committed to fighting for access to quality, affordable healthcare, common sense gun safety, government accountability and transparency, and working to build a strong, stable economy with good jobs and good benefits for everyone.

Chrissy is a leader driven by a spirit of service. A longtime resident of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and a first-time congressional representative heading to Washington to solve real problems for the people and communities of Pennsylvania.

On November 4, 2021, Chrissy Houlahan participated in Rising Leaders Series: Meet Representative Chrissy Houlahan

Honorary Advisory Board Member: Former U.S. Representative Jane Harman

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Jane Harman is an internationally recognized authority on U.S. and global security issues, foreign relations, and lawmaking. Among her many achievements, Harman is a Distinguished Fellow and President Emerita of the Wilson Center, one of the world’s most highly regarded think tanks.

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Harman recently completed a decade as its first female President & CEO. Congresswoman Harman has long been a national expert at the nexus of security and public policy issues, and has received numerous awards for her distinguished service, including the Defense Department Medal for Distinguished Service, the CIA Agency Seal Medal, the CIA Director’s Award, and the Director of National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service Medal.

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She began her political career as the staff director for Senator John Tunney, before joining the Carter White House as special counsel to the Department of Defense. 

In 1992, she was elected to represent the 36th district of California, one of the record-breaking 37 women to be elected to Congress that year - subsequently labeled the “Year of the Woman”.

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She went on to become a nine-term member of Congress who served decades on all the major security committees in the House of Representatives: six years on Armed Services, eight years on Intelligence, and eight on Homeland Security. 

During her time in Congress, Harman also earned a reputation as a supporter of a diverse set of causes, from promoting information sharing across the federal government in the interest of national security, the creation of a Cabinet-level homeland security department, to a partial ban on semi-automatic weapons.

[Harman watches President Obama sign the Reducing Over-Classification Act, 2010]

Drawing upon a career that included service as President Carter’s Secretary of the Cabinet and hundreds of diplomatic missions abroad, Harman holds posts on nearly a dozen governmental and non-governmental advisory boards and commissions.

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[Cong. Jane Harman with Michael Chertoff at The Common Good]

[Cong. Jane Harman with Michael Chertoff at The Common Good]

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Harman co-chairs the Homeland Security Experts Group with former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.  She serves on the board of Iridium Communication Inc, a NASDAQ traded satellite communications company, and is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group, the Advisory Board of the Munich Security Conference, the Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission, the Presidential Debates Commission and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. She is a member of the Defense Policy Board, the State Department Foreign Policy Board, and the Homeland Security Advisory Committee. Harman is a Trustee of the Aspen Institute and an Honorary Trustee at the University of Southern California. 

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Her upcoming book, Insanity Defense: Why Our Failure to Confront Hard National Security Problems Makes Us Less Safe, offers an insider's account of America's ineffectual approach to some of the hardest defense and intelligence issues in the three decades since the Cold War ended.

Originally from Los Angeles, she is a product of California public school, as well as a graduate of Smith College and Harvard Law School. 

[Jane Harman speaking at Smith College’s Commencement ceremony in 2006]

Harman has participated in several events at The Common Good, including Combating Misinformation with Clint Watts and Cong. Jane Harman, and the “World View: Security Challenges & Opportunities” panel alongside Ambassadors Bill Burns and Nicholas Burns, moderated by Financial Times’ Edward Luce, at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards, 2019 and in the National Security Threats event alongside Michael Chertoff.

[L-R, Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Ambassador Bill Burns (now CIA Director), Cong. Jane Harman, FT’s Ed Luce at The Common Good Forum]]

Seth Moulton

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Seth Moulton

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts

Seth Moulton is a father, husband, Iraq War Veteran, and Congressman. He now serves the 6th District of Massachusetts, with an office just ten minutes from where he grew up, but he first began serving our country when he was 22.

It was the minister at his college church at Harvard who inspired Seth to serve. “It’s not enough to just support those who serve,” Rev Peter Gomes said, “You have to go out and do something yourself.” That advice resonated with Seth, and he decided to join the Marines.

9/11 happened a few months after his graduation, and little more than a year later, Seth was an infantry platoon commander in the first company of Marines to enter Baghdad in 2003. Despite his disagreements with the war, he insisted on returning for a total of four combat deployments so nobody would have to go in his place.

Seth went to business school on the GI Bill and worked in the private sector in Texas building the country’s first high-speed railway, but missed the sense of purpose he had in the Marines. Serving in Iraq with some of the best Americans he has ever met—while feeling let down and left behind by the politicians in Washington who sent them there—inspired Seth to run for Congress in 2014. He took on a nine-term incumbent backed by the party establishment, calling for a new generation of leadership in Congress, and overcame a 54-point deficit to win. He’s been keeping the promises of that campaign ever since.

In just three short terms in Congress, Seth has worked tirelessly to guarantee good-paying jobs for hard-working people—helping revitalize the biggest city in his district, the old factory city of Lynn, by organizing state and local leaders of all backgrounds. He’s become a leading voice on foreign policy and national security, serving on the Armed Services Committee and holding the Pentagon accountable while introducing bills to transform our national defense and combat foreign influence in America’s elections. And determined to lead by example, he held more town hall meetings in the 114th Congress than any other Democrat in the House or Senate—making sure that the voices of his constituents would be heard in Washington. He’s also fought for veterans health care while upholding his promise to continue getting his own care at the VA.

After the election in 2016, Seth recognized that America needs leaders who have faced challenges more difficult than losing an election or standing up to President Trump. So he used his organization, Serve America, to help change Washington by electing more service-driven leaders to Congress. Seth and his team mentored the candidates, raised millions of dollars for them, and campaigned alongside them in tough, Republican-held districts across the country. On election night, that hard work paid off: twenty-one of Serve America’s candidates won, accounting for half of all Democratic pickups in the House and flipping districts that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016.

Seth lives in Salem, Massachusetts with his wife, Liz, and his daughter, Emmy.

Congressman Seth Moulton was hosted by The Common Good as part of our 2020 Presidential Candidates Series on July 29, 2019 where spoke on on his experience as a veteran of the Iraq War as well as a Congressman. He also addressed any questions concerning him running for president.

Twitter: @sethmoulton

Speaker Nancy Pelosi

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi

U.S. Speaker of the House

Nancy Pelosi was elected as a member of the House of Representatives in 1987, winning a special election of California’s 8th district. As a member of the House of Representatives, she has served on the Appropriations Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In 2002, Pelosi was selected to be the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, making her the first woman in history earn the honor. Four years later, she again broke new ground for women in U.S. politics. After the Democrats won majorities in both the House and the Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, Pelosi was chosen to become the first woman to take the post of speaker of the House.

As the leader of the Democratic Party in the House under a Republican president, Pelosi was a vocal critic of President George W. Bush’s stance on the war in Iraq and advocated for the withdrawal of troops from the region. Pelosi remained House speaker until November 2010, when Republicans gained control of the House and elected John Boehner to the role, relegating Pelosi to minority leader. After Democrats reclaimed control of the House in the 2018 midterms, Pelosi was once again elected House speaker at the beginning of 2019, placing her on the front line in the battle with President Donald Trump over his demand for $5.7 billion for a wall spanning the U.S.-Mexico border. The stalemate turned into a contentious 35-day government shutdown, with the speaker drawing most of the president’s ire for her control over congressional funding. However, shortly after Pelosi effectively canceled the traditional State of the Union address, scheduled for January 29, President Trump agreed to temporarily reopen the government.

Speaker Pelosi was hosted by The Common Good in 2012: House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Twitter: @NancyPelosi

Representative Adam Schiff

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representative Adam Schiff

U.S. Representative for California's 28th congressional district

Congressman Adam Schiff represents California's 28th Congressional District. Schiff currently serves as the Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. 

In addition to his committee work, Schiff has been fighting to enact tax relief for small businesses, to assist them with access to capital, and to remove burdensome regulations. Schiff has also been a leader on national security and foreign policy efforts in Congress, and has pushed for a broader strategy that emphasizes diplomacy, intelligence reform, and efforts to stabilize countries that are at risk of becoming future failed states.

Congressman Schiff has emerged as one of the most consequential members with leadership on many issues. He now serves on the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol tasked with discovering facts, circumstances and causes of the attack.

Prior to serving in the House of Representatives, Schiff completed a four-year term as State Senator for California's 21st State Senate District, chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate Select Committee on Juvenile Justice and the Joint Committee on the Arts. During his time in Sacramento, he led legislative efforts to guarantee up-to-date textbooks in the classroom, overhaul child support, and pass a patient's bill of rights. Before serving in the Legislature, Schiff served with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles for six years, most notably prosecuting the first FBI agent ever to be indicted for espionage.

On January 05, 2022, Adam Schiff participated in January 6th Capitol Attack: One Year Later

Twitter: @RepAdamSchiff

Cong. Nita Lowey

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representative Nita Lowey

U.S. Representative for 17th district of New York

Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey is currently serving her sixteenth term in Congress, representing parts of Westchester and Rockland Counties. She was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1988 and served in the Democratic Leadership in 2001 and 2002 as the first woman and the first New Yorker to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She is also the first woman to chair the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

Lowey is a leading Congressional proponent of educational opportunity, health care quality and biomedical research, improved homeland security preparedness, stricter public safety laws, environmental protection, women's issues, a leading international role for the United States, and national security. An outspoken supporter of transportation, nuclear, and infrastructure security, Lowey was appointed to the Select Committee on Homeland Security and recognized by the New York Post as “a key general in the battle to rebuild New York” for her leadership in securing over $20 billion for recovery efforts after September 11, 2001. She has been a champion of education throughout her career, fighting for school modernization, teacher development, and literacy programs. Under Lowey’s leadership, federal funding for after-school programs has increased from $1 million in 1996 to $1 billion today.

Twitter: @NitaLowey

Representative Greg Stanton

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Greg Stanton

Arizona Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives

Greg Stanton is currently Representative for Arizona’s 9th congressional district, having entered the office in 2019.

Stanton served as mayor of Phoenix between 2012 and 2018, when he resigned to run for Congress. Under his mayoral leadership, Phoenix became the  first U.S. city to  end chronic homelessness among veterans, and Stanton’s H.E.R.O. initiative is emerging as an example for how to match veterans —especially post-9/11 vets —with local employers and good jobs. Stanton attended Marquette University on the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, and earned a law degree from the University of Michigan. Before he was elected mayor in 2011, Stanton served nine years on the City Council and as Arizona’s Deputy Attorney General. He and his wife, Nicole, who is a prominent local attorney, are both working parents of two young children.​

Twitter: @gregstantonaz

Cong. (ret) Jim Leach

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the honorable Jim Leach

Academic, politician

James “Jim” Leach is a congressman and academic. He served as ninth Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2009 to 2013 and was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa (1977–2007).

Leach was the John L. Weinberg Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University. He also served as the interim director of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University from September 17, 2007, to September 1, 2008.

Previously, Leach served 30 years (1977–2007) as a Republican member of the House of Representatives, representing Iowa’s 2nd congressional district (numbered as the 1st District from 1977 to 2003). In Congress, Leach chaired the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services (1995–2001) and was a senior member of the House Committee on International Relations, serving as Chair of the Committee’s Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs (2001–2006). He also founded and served as co-chair of the Congressional Humanities Caucus. He lost his 2006 re-election bid to Democrat Dave Loebsack.