Michael Myers

He earned a master's degree in political science, also from Columbia University, in 1981.

From 1981 until 1986, Myers worked as the Washington, D.C., representative for the Anglican humanitarian relief group, Church World Service,working primarily with refugees around the world.

Kennedy and Clinton Aide

In 1987, Myers got his first job on Capitol Hill as a foreign policy adviser for Kennedy, when the Massachusetts senator was heading the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs.

Myers stayed with Kennedy for six years, and in 1993, moved to Bill Clinton's Defense Department, where until 1995 he was the director of policy for the Office of Humanitarian and Refugee Affairs, overseeing mine reduction programs and the military's civilian assistance programs.

After two years in Defense, it was back to the Hill. Myers returned to the Senate Judiciary Committee's Immigration subcommittee as a special counsel on immigration from 1995 to 1996. In 1997, he became Democratic staff director of that subcommittee.

In 1998, Myers became the minority staff director and chief counsel for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee, on which Kennedy was ranking member. In 2006, when Kennedy became HELP chairman, Myers ascended to the committee's staff director, still maintaining his second role as chief counsel.

After Kennedy was diagnosed with a rare brain cancer in 2008, the senator stepped down from his Judiciary duties to focus on passing health-care reform in the 111th Congress.

When Kennedy passed away in late 2009, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) became chairman of the HELP committee. Myers stayed on as a senior adviser to Harkin, and it was in that role that he saw Kennedy's lifelong battle for health-care reform finally become law in 2010. As of 2011, Myers no longer works for the HELP committee.

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