PARTICIPANTS
Joe Jacquot
We didn‘t meet Joe until the late spring of 2003, when he became the new chief Republican staffer on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration-- David Neal‘s old job. Joe was working for the new Subcommittee Chair, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, whose take on immigration was very different from his predecessor Sen. Brownback.
Joe already had a lot of experience on the Hill-- he‘d worked for Sen. Connie Mack and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. He had his JD, but he was also an officer in the Navy, and ready to fight for his boss‘ point of view. Before we met Joe, many of the staffers we knew worked for Senators who were passionate about immigration issues, but that was not the case for Sen. Chambliss, who was assigned to the committee by Republican Leadership. Watching Joe and Sen. Chambliss work together was a great lesson in how the Senate works, and how powerful staffers truly are.
Joe stayed on the Judiciary Committee even after Sen. Chambliss left it -- the new full committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter hired Joe as his Deputy Chief Counsel. When Sen. Specter held a dramatic series of immigration mark-ups in 2006 Joe was at the center of the action, again. In 2007 he left DC and returned to his home state where he is now the Deputy Attorney General of Florida and Chief of Staff to Attorney General Bill McCollum.
In that capacity, Joe oversees 1,200 employees and a dozen offices throughout Florida to handle the state's legal work. In December 2009, Joe argued the case on Miranda rights, Florida v. Powell, before the U.S. Supreme Court. Joe teaches as an adjunct professor at the Florida State law school with his class, Federal Legislative Practice.
We're hoping he'll use How Democracy Works Now in his classes!
