Washington, D.C. — Today, the Center for American Progress announced that former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) has been named Chair of the Board of Directors at CAP. Daschle has been a member of the CAP Board of Directors since 2008 and is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow.
“As a longtime friend to the Center for American Progress and a distinguished leader in public service, we are pleased to welcome Sen. Daschle in his new role as Board Chair at CAP,” said CAP President Neera Tanden. “Sen. Daschle has dedicated himself to advancing progressive ideas and policies for decades, and his broad knowledge, expertise, and leadership on so many issues will only deepen CAP’s commitment to addressing our country’s most pressing challenges through progressive action and just policy. As we continue to work on critical issues such as expanding economic opportunity; ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable, quality health care; and expanding America’s leadership in the world, Sen. Daschle will help guide us forward.”
“Never has CAP’s work or its contribution to progressive public policy been more important than it is now. The organization’s leadership is essential to our continued success. I am honored to serve as Chair,” said Sen. Daschle.
Sen. Daschle was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978, where he served for eight years. In 1986, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and eight years later became its Democratic leader. Daschle is one of the longest-serving Democratic Senate leaders in history and the only one to serve twice as both majority and minority leader.
During his tenure, Sen. Daschle navigated the Senate through some of its most historic economic and national security challenges. In 2003, he chronicled some of these experiences in his book, Like No Other Time: The 107th Congress and the Two Years That Changed America Forever. Since leaving the Senate, he has continued his work in health care policy—authoring the books Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis and Getting It Done: How Obama and Congress Finally Broke the Stalemate to Make Way for Health Care Reform—and has emerged as a leading thinker on climate change and renewable energy policy.
Today, Sen. Daschle is a senior policy advisor in DLA Piper’s government affairs practice, where he also serves as a senior advisor to the Global Board. He provides clients with strategic public policy advice on a wide range of international and domestic issues; including healthcare, food security, energy, and trade issues.
In 2007, he joined with former Senate Majority Leaders George Mitchell, Bob Dole, and Howard Baker to create the Bipartisan Policy Center, an organization dedicated to finding common ground on some of the most pressing public policy challenges of our time. Sen. Daschle serves on the board of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a member of the Health Policy and Management Executive Council at the Harvard School of Public Health and serves as an advisory board member of ZocDoc, Sindicatum, Accumen, Cognosante, Accenture Federal Services, and Doctor on Demand.
Born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Sen. Daschle graduated from South Dakota State University in 1969. Upon graduation, he entered the U.S. Air Force, where he served as an intelligence officer in the Strategic Air Command until mid-1972. After leaving the Senate in 2005, Sen. Daschle joined Alston & Bird LLP as a special policy advisor.
For more information, contact Chelsea Kiene at [email protected].
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