Senator Alexander Announces Staff Changes

  • Thursday, December 8, 2016

Senator Lamar Alexander on Thursday announced the following staff changes:

Liz Wolgemuth will be promoted to senior communications director and speechwriter, replacing Jim Jeffries, who is moving to Seattle. Margaret Atkinson will be promoted to communications director.

Senator Alexander said, “Washington, D.C.’s loss is Washington state’s gain.

Jim Jeffries is one of the savviest and most reliable media advisers in the nation’s capital. He has surely earned my respect during our eight years together. While I will greatly miss him, I am delighted he has this excellent professional opportunity with Paul Allen.”

Ms. Wolgemuth and Ms. Atkinson will oversee all of Senator Alexander’s press efforts, in Tennessee, as chairman of the HELP committee, as chairman of the Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and as a member of the Senate’s committees on energy and rules.

Mr. Jeffries is leaving one Washington and moving to another—in January, he will join Seattle-based Vulcan, Inc., as head of executive communications for Paul Allen. Mr. Jeffries joined the Alexander team in 2009 and served as communications director over Senator Alexander’s personal office and the HELP Committee since 2013. Mr. Jeffries was Senator Alexander’s principal communications advisor and media spokesman. He started in Congress in 2002 with then-Congressman Buck McKeon (R-Ca.), after which he served as speechwriter for then-House Republican Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce (R-Oh). Immediately prior to joining Senator Alexander’s team, Mr. Jeffries was a writer for Frank Luntz’s language-strategy firm. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University, and he and his wife, Rachel, have three sons. 

Ms. Wolgemuth, previously Senator Alexander’s senior communications advisor and speechwriter at the HELP committee, will assume the role of senior communications director overseeing Alexander’s press efforts. She previously served as Senator Alexander’s committee press secretary and was a press secretary in his Senate office. She was a senior editor at U.S News & World Report in Washington, D.C., before joining Senator Alexander’s team. She was previously a business reporter at the Northwest Herald in Illinois. She earned a Master of Science in Journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and a B.A. in English at Fordham University in New York City. She and her husband, Tim, have two children.

Ms. Atkinson, previously press secretary at the HELP Committee, will be Senator Alexander’s communications director. She joined the Alexander team in 2010 after graduating from the University of Georgia with a B.A. in Journalism and worked in Senator Alexander’s personal office until moving to the committee in 2014. She is from Memphis.


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