[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 206 (Monday, December 31, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1739-E1740]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      RETIREMENT OF MATTHEW PINKUS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROBERT A. BRADY

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, December 31, 2018

  Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I have the opportunity to 
inform colleagues that Mr. Matthew Pinkus, our Committee senior policy 
adviser and parliamentarian to House Administration Committee 
Democrats, retired recently, concluding a congressional staff career 
which began as an intern in 1971 and included 19 years on our 
committee, the longest of the more than twenty different congressional 
professional positions he had held during that period, including time 
as chief legislative assistant to Rep. Michael Barnes (D) of Maryland 
for the congressman's entire tenure in the House.
  Whether working in House leadership, on five different congressional 
committees and in Members' offices, Matt excelled in a huge variety of 
tasks. A summer college job as a congressional intern in the House for 
Rep. Benjamin Rosenthal of New York while attending Brandeis University 
prompted Matt to leave graduate school at U.C. Berkeley after receiving 
an M.A. in political science and work in Washington full time, first at 
Congressional Quarterly, then for a month in the Senate, and then the 
remaining decades in the House. He said of that path, ``I decided very 
early on that, as much as possible, I would do things the way I wanted 
and try to have fun. Usually, that worked.''
  Matt had an eclectic career path since his first full-time job here 
in 1976, when he left a political reporting job at Congressional 
Quarterly. He often chose to seek work in specific subject areas which 
interested him, rather than follow the common alternate staff career 
path of attaching himself to one or two members and remaining in place. 
He was first appointed to the Committee on House Administration 
Democratic staff in 1991 by Rep. Sam Gejdenson of Connecticut to work 
on campaign finance reform, and then moved on to the Brookings 
Institution as a guest scholar on their ``Renewing Congress'' project 
before returning to the House in 1995 to work on oversight of the 
executive branch at the Committee on Government Reform. Between Hill 
jobs in the 1990s, Matt had finished writing a book for Congressional 
Quarterly in 1998, How Congress Works, and was ready to once again 
return to the House. Then-House Administration Ranking Member Gejdenson 
asked him to work on election contests, and he remained here to work 
sequentially for Ranking Members Hoyer, Larson and Chairwoman 
Millender-McDonald.
  Matt was probably best known on the Hill as one of the top experts on 
rules and process, serving on the Rules Committee staff and twice on 
the Subcommittee on Rules of the House, including as subcommittee staff 
director. His most distinctive job was as parliamentarian of the House 
Democratic Caucus for six years, which recognized and utilized his vast 
knowledge of the Caucus rules. It was a position created especially for 
him and lasted through the service of Chairmen Robert Menendez, Jim 
Clyburn, Rahm Emanuel and John Larson--all while he also worked 
simultaneously on the House Administration Committee. He was known for 
always being carefully prepared, totally candid, and was not 
intimidated by Members.
  Matt was always our committee parliamentarian, managed floor 
operations, and worked on elections legislation, congressional 
continuity issues, and the Smithsonian Institution. He drafted and 
edited views on committee reports and other publications, and proofed 
specialized historical books published by the House. He would discuss 
parliamentary strategy in the morning and then make an oversight visit 
to the National Zoo to learn about artificial insemination of Giant 
Pandas in the afternoon, something made possible by CHA's very eclectic 
jurisdiction.
  Matt sat behind me for years on the Committee on House Administration 
dais when I was a junior member and helped provide advice on hearings 
and markups for Members but when I suddenly became chairman in 2007 
following the death of Chairwoman Millender-McDonald, he was there with 
an intricately drafted manager's parliamentary script for my very long 
first markup. This was a totally new role for me. When I went off 
script at some points and noticed Matt's look of concern, after 
avoiding disaster, I told him that

[[Page E1740]]

while I might sometimes deviate from his text, he should just keep 
right on doing what he does.
  Matt says he plans to travel, look for opportunities to write, and 
again take up playing chess, which he learned at the age of four from 
his father, AI, who was one of America's leading players in the mid-
20th century.

                          ____________________