In Senate Speech, Elizabeth Warren Honors Chief of Staff Jon Donenberg
Warren: “Jon, I am grateful down to my toes for the years we have worked together. I will miss having you by my side, but I know the President, the nation, and the world will be better off because of the challenges you will help tackle in this new role [as deputy director of the National Economic Council].”
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) delivered a floor speech honoring Jon Donenberg, her Chief of Staff and longtime advisor. Donenberg will join the Biden White House as Deputy Director of the National Economic Council after over a decade of service on Capitol Hill.
The full text of her remarks are available below.
Remarks as Prepared by Senator Elizabeth Warren: Honoring Jon Donenberg
October 31, 2023
Mr./Madame President, I rise today to recognize an extraordinary public servant who is leaving my office for a new role.
Jon Donenberg has been one of my most trusted senior advisors since 2011, when I first ran for the U.S. Senate. After his stint advising me on policy during the 2012 campaign, I asked Jon to serve as my first legislative director in my Senate office. Jon was my LD for six years, then senior advisor and policy director for Warren for President. For the last four years, he has served as my chief of staff.
After nearly a dozen years of working together, I have come to know Jon pretty well. So I can say with some authority that he is one of the best policy nerds and sharpest minds on economic policy in the business. When I arrived in the Senate, I knew more than pretty much anyone else in the world about a very specific slice of commercial law. I had also spent a lot of time thinking about how middle-class families were getting crushed by an economy that didn’t work for them – and thinking about how to fix it.
This was a good start, but being a senator means doing work on a much, much broader range of issues. Jon was the person I turned to for counsel as I developed that broader agenda, drawing on his deep expertise with policy, his facility for digging into data, and his formidable technical training. Also, importantly, Jon has good values—the long-standing belief that government is here to serve, not the richest and most powerful, not those who can hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers, but here to serve the people who are trying to build a future for themselves and their families.
Jon and I were a good match. And when I say that, I’m not saying that we always saw our next moves the same way. But he has a lightning-quick mind, a staggering command of both domestic and foreign policy topics, and instincts honed by years of working in Congress. And those qualities allowed him to see around corners I didn’t even know existed. He is good with numbers, and he has never been afraid to change his mind based on what the data show him.
Our relationship has always been energetic. Jon hasn’t been afraid to tangle with me when he thought I was getting something wrong. He would tell me I was making a mistake, and I would tell him he didn’t know what he was talking about. We would size each other up, and I would start lobbing fastballs at him, just like I was back in the classroom, trying to figure out if a student had done the reading and was on solid ground in their arguments.
Jon, of course, has always, always done the reading. He would grab those fastballs out of the air and zing them back at me with a spin – often highlighting an aspect to the issue I had failed to consider. Sometimes I would try a new angle. Play devil’s advocate to see if he could defend his position. Back and forth until I had – often in the space of ten or fifteen minutes – pressure tested an argument more thoroughly than seemed possible.
Now I’m not saying Jon won all these arguments. But I’d give him a fifty-fifty lifetime record – which is pretty respectable in my book. And I’ll also say this: one hundred percent of the time, my thinking about an issue got deeper and sharper as a result of running my views through the gauntlet of Jon’s scrutiny.
Given all these attributes, it should come as no surprise that Jon had a very specialized skill that is rarely employed among adults outside elected office: Jon was a whiz at debate prep. He has worked with me and several other senators during our races, helping candidates prepare for pre-election debates. He put all of us through our paces, forcing us to confront the frustration—and the opportunities—of butting heads with our opponents – and doing it in one-minute chunks. For all of us who managed to survive those debates far better than we expected, we owe Jon our thanks.
When he came to work for me, Jon brought with him years of experience in Congress. Before joining my office, Jon served as Chief Counsel to Senator Richard Blumenthal. Before then, he served as a health law advisor to Representative Henry Waxman on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
I asked Henry Waxman for a few words about Jon, and he had this to say:
“Jon started his congressional career as a precocious young staffer in my office working on the Affordable Care Act. He's leaving Senator Warren's staff as a veteran chief of staff with many distinguished legislative accomplishments. What's been constant is the gratitude and respect he's earned from everyone who has been lucky enough to work with him along the way”
Jon’s first experience working in Congress has a special resonance for me: Jon was a legal fellow for Senator Ted Kennedy, the senior senator from Massachusetts who served for 47 years in the seat I now hold. I think Senator Kennedy would be pleased to know that the young man that he first brought in for work in the federal legislature ended up contributing so much to this work.
There is one more aspect of Jon’s leadership that I want to make sure to highlight. He is a dedicated mentor who has trained scores of policy staffers in how to make this country work better for families who don’t always have someone in government looking out for them. Year after year, I have observed as Jon invests in the staff on my team and throughout the government – supporting them, teaching them, and challenging them—and always making them better at what they do.
Congress is a hard place to work, in a lot of ways. Jon often tells me that trying to make change by working in the Senate can feel a lot like running face first into a brick wall, over and over and over again. You have to keep standing up and sprinting back at the wall because, even though history suggests you’re going to smack right into it, just like the last time, the only way you ever smash through the bricks is by taking one more run at it.
Jon is the kind of colleague who makes you want to take another run at knocking down the wall that has never been knocked down before. Who will help you dust yourself off and then sprint beside you.
I’ve watched as these staffers who Jon has trained have transformed from eager, gifted beginners into seasoned strategists. And Jon and I have stood proudly, side-by-side as we’ve seen them leave our office and take their talents to go make change somewhere else. Jon’s commitment to mentorship means that today we have more dedicated public servants doing top-notch work all around the country, and doing it better because of their time learning from him.
Now Jon is the one who is taking his talents to another public service post. He is headed to the White House to serve as a deputy director of the National Economic Council. I know Jon will bring with him to this position an abiding commitment to helping working families – as well as the best policy brain in the business.
One last note: Jon is a good man. He is honest. He is principled. He is generous. He is funny. He cares about people. He loves his family deeply and he is always there for his friends. He tries to live his life every day according to deeply held moral values. I admire him.
Jon, I am grateful down to my toes for the years we have worked together. I will miss having you by my side, but I know the President, the nation, and the world will be better off because of the challenges you will help tackle in this new role.
Thank you for your work, both past and future.
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