Tag Archives: Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs

Asst Secretary for Legislative Affairs Mary Elizabeth Taylor Resigns Over Trump’s Response to Racial Injustice

June 19, 2020 By in Functional Bureaus, Political Appointees, Resignations, State Department, Top Ranks, Trends, Trump Tags: , ,

 

Via state.gov:
Mary Elizabeth Taylor is the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs for the U.S. Department of State.  Previously she served as senior advisor in the Office of the Counselor.  From 2017 to 2018, Ms. Taylor was Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs at the White House.  In that role, she led the process and strategy guiding Senate nominations, spearheading the successful confirmations of more than four hundred nominees, including the high-profile confirmations of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, and CIA Director Gina Haspel.  Previously she served in the office of United States Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, working on the Senate floor as the Senior Cloakroom Assistant and acting as a liaison between the majority and minority leadership to negotiate agreements on legislative and executive matters.  Ms. Taylor also provided Members of Congress with parliamentary advice and counsel on floor strategy during consideration of pending legislative matters.  A Washington, D.C. area native, Ms. Taylor holds a B.A. degree in political science and Spanish from Bryn Mawr College.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs (H) coordinates legislative activity for the Department of State and advises the Secretary, the Deputy, as well as the Under Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries on legislative strategy.

By The Numbers: State Department Congressional Response 2015

February 12, 2016 By in Congress, Functional Bureaus, Govt Documents, Oversight, State Department, Technology and Work, Trends Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted: 1:39  am EDT
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This past January, Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Julia Frifield appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (HOGR) to testify on the State Department’s response to Congressional requests for documents in 2015. Below is extracted from her prepared testimony (PDF):

160,000 pages: provided to the Committee for its investigation of embassy construction

6,000 pages: provided to the Committee on the Jakarta New Embassy Compound

5,000 constituent cases: response provided to members of Congress – everything from lost passports to missing constituents overseas to helping with visas for constituents’ family members.

2,500 briefings: provided to the Hill on foreign policy issues

2,137 Consular Notifications pages: provided to the Committee on overseas construction

1,700 Congressional letters: provided response to congressional inquiries

536: Congressional Member and staff delegation trips abroad.

168 Hearings: Congressional hearings where State Department officials appeared in 2015

21 staffers:  people dedicated to processing documents with support from new legal and information technology personnel for the Congressional Document Production Branch.

9 Investigations: currently with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the State Department is working on

1 Congressional Document Production Branch: new unit created at the State Department to “enabling us to respond to more committees simultaneously than ever before.”

 

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