{"database": "openregs", "table": "congressional_record", "rows": [["CREC-2018-12-31-pt1-PgE1739-4", "2018-12-31", 115, 2, null, null, "RETIREMENT OF MATTHEW PINKUS", "HOUSE", "EXTENSIONS", "RETIREMENT", "E1739", "E1740", "[{\"name\": \"Robert A. Brady\", \"role\": \"speaking\"}]", null, "164 Cong. Rec. E1739", "Congressional Record, Volume 164 Issue 206 (Monday, December 31, 2018)\n\n[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 206 (Monday, December 31, 2018)]\n[Extensions of Remarks]\n[Pages E1739-E1740]\nFrom the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]\n\n                      RETIREMENT OF MATTHEW PINKUS\n\n                                 ______\n\n                          HON. ROBERT A. BRADY\n\n                            of pennsylvania\n\n                    in the house of representatives\n\n                       Monday, December 31, 2018\n\n  Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I have the opportunity to\ninform colleagues that Mr. Matthew Pinkus, our Committee senior policy\nadviser and parliamentarian to House Administration Committee\nDemocrats, retired recently, concluding a congressional staff career\nwhich began as an intern in 1971 and included 19 years on our\ncommittee, the longest of the more than twenty different congressional\nprofessional positions he had held during that period, including time\nas chief legislative assistant to Rep. Michael Barnes (D) of Maryland\nfor the congressman's entire tenure in the House.\n  Whether working in House leadership, on five different congressional\ncommittees and in Members' offices, Matt excelled in a huge variety of\ntasks. A summer college job as a congressional intern in the House for\nRep. Benjamin Rosenthal of New York while attending Brandeis University\nprompted Matt to leave graduate school at U.C. Berkeley after receiving\nan M.A. in political science and work in Washington full time, first at\nCongressional Quarterly, then for a month in the Senate, and then the\nremaining decades in the House. He said of that path, ``I decided very\nearly on that, as much as possible, I would do things the way I wanted\nand try to have fun. Usually, that worked.''\n  Matt had an eclectic career path since his first full-time job here\nin 1976, when he left a political reporting job at Congressional\nQuarterly. He often chose to seek work in specific subject areas which\ninterested him, rather than follow the common alternate staff career\npath of attaching himself to one or two members and remaining in place.\nHe was first appointed to the Committee on House Administration\nDemocratic staff in 1991 by Rep. Sam Gejdenson of Connecticut to work\non campaign finance reform, and then moved on to the Brookings\nInstitution as a guest scholar on their ``Renewing Congress'' project\nbefore returning to the House in 1995 to work on oversight of the\nexecutive branch at the Committee on Government Reform. Between Hill\njobs in the 1990s, Matt had finished writing a book for Congressional\nQuarterly in 1998, How Congress Works, and was ready to once again\nreturn to the House. Then-House Administration Ranking Member Gejdenson\nasked him to work on election contests, and he remained here to work\nsequentially for Ranking Members Hoyer, Larson and Chairwoman\nMillender-McDonald.\n  Matt was probably best known on the Hill as one of the top experts on\nrules and process, serving on the Rules Committee staff and twice on\nthe Subcommittee on Rules of the House, including as subcommittee staff\ndirector. His most distinctive job was as parliamentarian of the House\nDemocratic Caucus for six years, which recognized and utilized his vast\nknowledge of the Caucus rules. It was a position created especially for\nhim and lasted through the service of Chairmen Robert Menendez, Jim\nClyburn, Rahm Emanuel and John Larson--all while he also worked\nsimultaneously on the House Administration Committee. He was known for\nalways being carefully prepared, totally candid, and was not\nintimidated by Members.\n  Matt was always our committee parliamentarian, managed floor\noperations, and worked on elections legislation, congressional\ncontinuity issues, and the Smithsonian Institution. He drafted and\nedited views on committee reports and other publications, and proofed\nspecialized historical books published by the House. He would discuss\nparliamentary strategy in the morning and then make an oversight visit\nto the National Zoo to learn about artificial insemination of Giant\nPandas in the afternoon, something made possible by CHA's very eclectic\njurisdiction.\n  Matt sat behind me for years on the Committee on House Administration\ndais when I was a junior member and helped provide advice on hearings\nand markups for Members but when I suddenly became chairman in 2007\nfollowing the death of Chairwoman Millender-McDonald, he was there with\nan intricately drafted manager's parliamentary script for my very long\nfirst markup. This was a totally new role for me. When I went off\nscript at some points and noticed Matt's look of concern, after\navoiding disaster, I told him that\n\n[[Page E1740]]\n\nwhile I might sometimes deviate from his text, he should just keep\nright on doing what he does.\n  Matt says he plans to travel, look for opportunities to write, and\nagain take up playing chess, which he learned at the age of four from\nhis father, AI, who was one of America's leading players in the mid-\n20th century.\n\n                          ____________________"]], "columns": ["granule_id", "date", "congress", "session", "volume", "issue", "title", "chamber", "granule_class", "sub_granule_class", "page_start", "page_end", "speakers", "bills", "citation", "full_text"], "primary_keys": ["granule_id"], "primary_key_values": ["CREC-2018-12-31-pt1-PgE1739-4"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0679790284484625, "source": "Federal Register API & Regulations.gov API", "source_url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/developers/api/v1", "license": "Public Domain (U.S. Government data)", "license_url": "https://www.regulations.gov/faq"}