House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is adding to his staff a veteran of early-1990s era Republican politics who helped the GOP win a majority in the chamber for the first time in 40 years.
The California Republican this week announced Dan Meyer had joined his leadership office as chief of staff, touting the operative’s career-long dedication to “helping shape conservative Republican policy solutions and lead the fight for them every day.”
The move comes 30 years after Meyer joined the staff of House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, who for a decade had advocated a more aggressive approach to battling the Democratic majority in place since 1955. In November 1994 Republicans finally won the House majority on a plank of smaller government.
That skillset for digging out of minority party status is in high demand now for House Republicans, as the party finds itself in that position after the Democratic rout of 2018. With a presidential election looming next year, Republicans’ prospects for a return to the majority are iffy. “Wave” elections of the past quarter century that have flipped party control in the House have come in off-year, midterm elections — Republicans in 1994 and 2010, and Democratic wins in 2006 and 2018.
“From his time working with Speaker Gingrich and the Republican Revolution that won the House to leading to President George W. Bush’s legislative affairs operation to his continued support for Members and staff through the Congressional Institute, Dan is wholly committed to the cause,” McCarthy said in a statement. “As Chief of Staff, he will apply his breadth of personnel, policy, and political acumen to our House Republican conference dedicated to achieving results for the American people and winning back the majority. I am thrilled Dan is joining the team and I look forward to getting right to work.”
Meyer replaces Barrett Karr, who’s been McCarthy’s chief of staff for the last two years but is now leaving Congress for a private-equity firm.
Until his hire, Meyer was president of The Duberstein Group, a D.C.-based lobbying firm of which he became partner in 1996. The Minnesota native departed The Duberstein Group for the last two years of the Bush administration before returning to the company.
During a 16-year tenure on Capitol Hill starting in 1981, Meyer served on the legislative staff of former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, R-Minn., working his way up the ranks to become the senator’s legislative director. He then accepted a position as former Republican Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber’s chief of staff before being poached by then-House Republican Whip Gingrich for the same role in 1989.
“Following the election, Mr. Gingrich became Speaker and asked Meyer to be his Chief of Staff in the Speaker’s office where he helped lead the transition to a Republican majority for the first time in forty years,” Meyer’s biography on the Duberstein Group’s website states. “In addition to coordinating the Speaker’s office and the Republican leadership staff, Meyer was a main point of contact for House Republicans with the Clinton White House during the consequential and tumultuous 104th Congress.”
Meyer is also chairman of the Congressional Institute’s board of directors, which oversees the not-for-profit corporation aimed at helping members of Congress serve their constituents better by sponsoring conferences, among other programs.
