Lisa Goeas

Chief of staff for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa)

Lisa Goeas never expected to go back to the Hill after working for former Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.) for a decade. But that changed when she met Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), for whom she is now chief of staff.

After a meeting with Ernst in December 2014, Goeas recalled that she went home and told her husband she was unsure about the job because of concerns about work-life balance. But then Ernst offered her the role the next day.

“It’s such an honor to work here especially if you really believe in the person,” Goeas said. “And I loved the fact that she was so down to earth and seemed like such a good representative of her state.”

Ernst is set to join Republican leadership in the next Congress as vice chair of the Republican Senate Conference. It’s the first time in eight years that a woman is in Senate GOP leadership.

Goeas got her start in politics as an intern right out of college in the communications department for the Bush-Quayle 1992 re-election campaign. After Bush lost, she sent her resume to every Republican congressman who won and got a call back from then-Rep. Hutchinson, who asked if she wanted to become a staff assistant. Goeas accepted the job with the idea of getting her foot in the door.

“It was a really random next step,” she said.

After working as a staff assistant/scheduler for a year, Goeas became a legislative assistant. When Hutchinson moved over to the Senate, Goeas became his deputy chief of staff. She still stays in touch with Hutchinson, who is now a lobbyist at Greenberg Traurig.

“I see him quite often because … he’s on the Hill a lot,” she said. “He was just such a good mentor.”

When Hutchinson lost his re-election bid in 2002, Goeas left the Hill to work as chief of staff at the Small Business Administration and then became vice president for political and grassroots operations at the National Federation of Independent Business.

One of the main differences between her first time on the Hill and now is the role of technology, Goeas said.

“We have so many different ways to get the message out than we used to … but it’s also harder when people have phones and they can record your principal all the time,” she said.

Among Goeas’ favorite parts of the job are working with her fellow chiefs of staff on both sides of the aisle, for whom she organizes weekly lunches, and meeting with officials like Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“I love the fact that as a chief of staff you have the honor of sitting in any meeting you want to with your boss,” she said. “You just get to meet the most incredible people.” — Marianne LeVine

Photos by M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO.

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