In November 2010, Truman Scholars witnessed an historic first for our community when Chris Coons (DE ‘83) won election to the US Senate. A collaborative and intergenerational effort, the campaign embodied many of the values for which the Truman family is known: loyalty, camaraderie, and a commitment to public service.

For this article, Bill Rivers (DE ‘09) had a conversation with a few of the many Scholars who supported the Coons campaign: Terry Babcock-Lumish (PA ‘96), Eric Tucker (IA ‘01), and Russ Dallen (MI ‘83).  

Though regarded for his longstanding commitment to public service – as Delaware’s New Castle County Executive and for his work with the “I Have a Dream” Foundation – Chris Coons was not a household name across the country in early 2010. 

But for members of the Truman community, his recent Senate bid was not the first time they’d heard the name “Chris Coons.” Trumans are long familiar with this 2001 Staats Award recipient, a regular in the annual Truman Scholars Leadership Week in Missouri, a highly involved member of the Truman Scholars Association, and an active supporter of the Foundation’s efforts. Consequently, for many of us, the decision to get involved in Chris’s US Senate race was an easy one, a natural result of shared commitments and Truman friendships.

Last autumn, Eric Tucker traveled from Brooklyn to join Brendan Kelly (MN '97) and Terry Babcock-Lumish to help the Coons Campaign in the state’s southern, historically conservative Sussex County.

“I was interested in the campaign because I believe in Chris Coons and in his vision for our nation and the state,” Tucker said. “The decision for me was all about Chris. Thoughtful and reflective, he has both a global vision for justice and a commitment to Delaware and his neighbors. That made the decision for me.” 

Together, Tucker, Kelly, and Babcock-Lumish collaborated with local Democrats and the DC-based Human Rights Campaign to coordinate the down-state get-out-the-vote efforts.

Russ Dallen, a classmate of Senator Coons’ from the Truman Scholars Class of ’83, is further proof of Trumans answering the call. In 2000, he helped raise money in New York City for Coons’ very first campaign. At that time, Coons was running for Delaware’s New Castle County Council, the same body in which Joe Biden served before his first campaign to represent the First State in the US Senate in 1972.

“When Chris called me in early 2010 telling me that he would be running for Joe Biden's Senate seat, I knew the drill,” Dallen explained. Except this time, Dallen would help Coons fundraise in major cities across the country, not just New York. Bringing the Coons Campaign of 2010 full circle with the Biden Campaign of almost 40 years ago, he even helped organize a fundraiser in Miami with Delaware’s former US Senator, now Vice President Joe Biden.

“The Tea Party publicity was raising large sums of money for competing candidate Christine O'Donnell,” Dallen explained. “And the Coons campaign needed all the funds it could get its hands on. I am pleased that I was able to help.”

It worked. The Coons Campaign raised over $3.8 million dollars, with roughly 70% coming from individual contributions. But beyond money, the Miami event and others like it across the country highlight one of the Truman community’s most instantly recognizable features and an enduring constant of the Coons Campaign: fidelity to other Trumans.

“We have this ready-made network of help from politically-minded, driven leaders—some with time, some with expertise, some with connections, and others with money,” Dallen went on to say. “Other Trumans have also successfully tapped into [this] over the years to help in their campaigns.  I think that it may end up being the most powerful benefits of the scholarship.”

“Truman Scholars of all decades, from all over the country, came together for this,” Eric Tucker said. “They served as a national brain trust, raising money, introducing Chris to friends and potential supporters all over the country, and just being supportive. The Truman Scholarship community was a galvanizing force in bringing all these different supporters together.”

Traveling from England to support Chris’ Senate bid, Babcock-Lumish affirms that the bond of fellowship between Scholars runs deep. “Truman Scholars care greatly about each others’ professional efforts, of course, but it’s also personal.  To spend any time with Chris, his commitment to serving his community and our society is made abundantly clear – but one also learns just how much he loves his family, one learns what drives his ideas and efforts.  He is a role model,” she said. “What struck me was fielding calls and emails from Truman Scholars who had never met Chris and who were excited to learn how they might support the campaign. Chris was my Senior Scholar back in ’96, and I was hearing from Scholars across the country for whom I served as their Senior Scholar at TSLW.  This transcended generations of Truman Scholars, and I trust it will continue to do so.”

One of the most compelling reasons for such loyalty was the candidate himself.

Recalling the first time he met Chris Coons at TSLW, Tucker relates, “When he spoke about his professional experiences, how he balanced his deep commitment to his family with his desire to have an impact in the world, it was one of the most meaningful experiences of the week for me. Chris embodied integrity and compassion. To me, Chris Coons represents the best of what it means to be a Truman Scholar.”

Even among Republican circles in Delaware, the Amherst and Yale-educated Chris Coons is known for his integrity.

Bill Rivers managed several local and state representative campaigns in Delaware for the Republicans this cycle. Though not directly involved with the battle for US Senate, he was a keen observer: “Even if they disagreed with him—sometimes vigorously so—Republicans in the down-ticket races understood Chris Coons to be as honest as the day is long.”

Most of all, the campaign’s underlying theme was a serious commitment to Delaware, a fealty to home that is yet another hallmark of Truman Scholars. Senator Coons was raised in Northern Delaware, and throughout the campaign, “consistently spoke to issues for Delawareans,” Babcock-Lumish explains.

The commitment to home combined with the significance of the campaign for the Truman community led to some emotional moments, the most memorable of which was a rally held in the City of Wilmington, at which Vice President Joe Biden once again made an appearance, and delivered the opening remarks.

For Eric Tucker, the event was a historic moment. “It was fantastic for us as members of the Truman community to see Chris on that stage, standing up for Delaware. The continuity was impressive too, because Joe Biden made such a contribution during the time that he served in the seat. Chris at once embodied continuity of leadership, and was beginning the next chapter.”

“It was a special moment, simultaneously a homecoming and a send-off, as Delaware’s voters decided to put their trust in him as their newest US Senator,” Babcock-Lumish adds, reflecting on the rally.

*          *          *

Whether campaigning full-time like Tucker, Kelly, and Babcock-Lumish, leading Election Day voter protection efforts like Bryan Townsend (DE '03), or simply donning a “Chris Coons for US Senate” T-shirt and working the crowds at Sussex County’s world-famous Apple-Scrapple Festival like Abbas Ravjani (TX '03) and David Zipper (NC '99), Delaware witnessed an extraordinary effort from the Truman Community to elect one of their own.

No one is better-suited to speak to that effort then Senator Coons himself:

“I was deeply moved by all the encouragement and support I received in my 2010 campaign from Truman scholars young and old, from those I met many years ago, to those I have just met for the first time. Trumans contributed to the campaign, both financially and with volunteer time, from across the East Coast and across the world.  I got Facebook messages, emails and blog postings, online contributions and volunteer phone bankers, folks who came out for a weekend and folks who were with me every step along the way.  It was a great community effort, and I am eternally grateful!”

“The Truman community is like no other community I know,” Terry Babcock-Lumish confides. “I count Truman Scholars as trustworthy colleagues and as my closest friends.”

“Truman Scholars are family,” Eric Tucker concludes. “We keep each other honest. Senior scholars like Chris remind me of what’s possible from a life in public service, and the newer generation of scholars reminds me of my passion for making a difference.”

Now, thanks in no small part to so many Truman Scholars, Chris Coons can continue to play this role, now in the US Senate.

Bill Rivers (DE ‘09) is currently Executive Director of the A Rose & A Prayer Education Group (www.aroseandaprayer.org), a nonpartisan, interfaith, multiracial social action nonprofit working to lower the abortion rate in the First State. 

Eric Greitens (MO '95), a Navy SEAL who recently authored the book The Heart and the Fist, was interviewed on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report.

Watch the full episode.

By Jessica Sotelo (ID '00)

We are now less than three months away from our 2011 National Conference and I hope you are as excited as I am!

If you haven't heard, registration is now open. Please visit www.trumanconference.org and register now in order to get the "Early Bird" rate! The registration is a 2 step process so once you have input your information, you will need to click on the payment (Step 2) option and input your payment information.

I have a quick update about the White House Tour we are requesting for Friday, July 22. Our very own Kyle Gracey will be leading the tour! Kyle has experience with White House tours and its always nice to get "inside information" from someone who has worked there. As of right now we have over 35 people signed up for the tour!

Just a reminder that our confirmed keynote speakers include U.S. Senator Chris Coons (DE '83) and Ambassador Michelle Gavin (AZ '85), both Truman Scholars, as well as Clifton Truman Daniel, author and grandson of President Truman.

For more details about the agenda and speakers visit www.trumanconference.org and register now!

Jessica Sotelo (ID '00), executive director of Partners for Prosperity, is the 2011 National Conference Director.

The Truman Scholarship Foundation named Pat Gilbert (AZ '91) as recipient of the Elmer B. Staats Award for Public Service.

The Elmer B. Staats Award is presented annually to a Truman Scholar who has made substantial contributions in public service and has demonstrated commitment to Truman Scholars.  Named for the Chairman Emeritus of the Truman Foundation, who himself has had an extraordinary career in public service and continues to serve as an example to Truman Scholars, the Staats Award is the highest honor the Foundation bestows.

Pat Gilbert
1991 Truman Scholar from Arizona

Former Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel for Marc Center, Executive Director of Mesa Community Action Network and Assistant Attorney General, Pat Gilbert is reinventing his career path by re-entering private law practice and consulting focused on building nonprofit development capacity.

Even prior to his selection as a Truman Scholar, Pat was investing in his local community.  In 1988, he co-founded a nonprofit affordable housing corporation.  The corporation used a unique financing tool that has resulted in hundreds of families accessing homeownership.  In 1998, Arizona’s Public Housing Directors recognized his ongoing support for affordable housing.

In 1988, Mesa, Arizona recognized his efforts by naming him “Young Man of the Year.”  In 1998, he was honored as “Man of the Year.”  He has been a quiet advocate for children in the local court system and been named Advocate of the Year by the Children’s Law Project and as one of Arizona’s top 50 pro bono lawyers by the Arizona Bar Foundation.

While in school, Pat ran for and was elected to Mesa’s city council.  Serving two four-year terms, he also served Mesa’s Vice Mayor from 1994 to 1998.  He ran for mayor in 2000 losing by 1,200 votes in a tight election.  Many Trumans helped with the effort.  In the right circumstance, he might hint that he’s not quite done on the political battlefield.

For the last 15 years, his work has been in nonprofit management working to ameliorate poverty and expand opportunity for people with cognitive disabilities and mental illness.  In his new venture, he has been asked to lead a regional effort of a consortium of nonprofits dedicated to developing and operating permanent, supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals and families.  Some of his innovative thinking about the built environment has been featured by the Urban Land Institute.

Pat’s work on behalf of the Truman Foundation has been extensive.  Since 1993 he has served on the Phoenix regional selection panel.  He has been among the readers assembled to review the written applications, and he has been a Senior Scholar at Truman Scholars Leadership Week at least 4 times. Pat is an actual member of the Truman Scholar Association. He has also participated in a number of special projects designed to enhance the services the Foundation offers.

Pat is an Arizona State University law school and undergraduate.  While an undergrad, he was named a USA Today Academic First Team All-American and was selected as a Truman Scholar.  Since 2000, Pat has been a part of ASU’s Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation serving on its advisory board and occasionally teaching graduate level classes.

Pat’s most important accomplishment is being smart and lucky enough to have incredibly supportive family members: Rory, his wife of 39 years, Matt and Sada, his children and their spouses Amy and David, and his grandsons Morgan and Alex.  All of the effort has been as a team.

V. Paul Chattergy (HI ‘88) started work in April as the Investment Specialist with the State of Hawaii Employees' Retirement System (HIERS). He reports directly to the Chief Investment Officer of the approximately $11.5 billion pension fund, which provides retirement benefits to the employees and their dependents of the state, county, and judiciary of Hawai'i. He is very pleased to be back in the public sector, and able to bring his broad experience in financial markets to the position.

Ms. Shawn Vogt Sween (MN ‘99) was named one of Minnesota Lawyer's "Up & Coming" Attorneys for 2011: http://www.svslawoffice.com/2011/04/minnesota-lawyer-recognizes-shawn-vogt-sween-as-2011-up-and-coming-lawyer/ 

Wendi Adelson (FL '00) will begin a new position as Clinical Professor and Director of the Medical Legal Partnership at Florida State University College of Law in August. The Medical Legal Partnership at Florida State University, a collaboration between the Colleges of Law and Medicine, is an innovation in interdisciplinary education. Law students will partner with medical students, social work students, lawyers and physicians to examine patients’ social determinants of health. Wendi would love to connect with other Trumans working in public health.

Dr. Marcia Chatelain (IL ‘00) was appointed Assistant Professor of History at Georgetown University.   She and her husband Mark Yapelli will be moving to Washington, DC in August.  Her first book "South Side Girls: African-American Girlhood in Chicago, 1890-1950" will be published by the University of Illinois Press.a

Marie-Adele (Sorel) Kress (MD ‘04) was married to Jeremy Kress in Washington, DC on April 3. “It's great to be starting a new phase of life, and we're looking forward to a delayed honeymoon in Big Sur at the end of the month,” she said.

Sarah Sattelmeyer (GA ‘04) complete an MPP and an MPH at the University of California - Berkeley in May. She is returning to Washingotn, DC to work on health and welfare policy.

Anthony Shop (MO ‘04) was a member of the winning team in The George Washington University Business Plan competition (www.gwbizplan.com). He and his teammates received $25,000 in seed funding for their new venture, LeadDriver, which develops software. Shop will graduate from GWU with his MBA in May.

Pooja K. Agarwal (MO '05) is recently engaged to Chuck Rickert. Chuck, an "honorary Truman" pursuing a public service career in medicine, has met many a Truman over the years and he enjoyed the 20th Anniversary of TSLW in Independence, MO last year. They look forward to spending the rest of their lives together, in public service, and as part of the Truman community.

Brett Keller (AR '07) will be working this summer as an Epi Scholar with the New York City Department of Health, studying childhood lead poisoning in the city.

Growing up in rural Illinois, Maryland Delegate Heather Mizeur (IL ’94) never thought that her first Washington, DC, job would lead to a life there, let alone a successful political career in one of DC’s suburbs. Although believing she would return to the Midwest, this self-described “old soul” knew from an early age that she was gay, that she held strong Catholic spirituality, and that she saw her life in elected public service.

“I always thought I was heading back to Illinois” Mizeur said. “I moved to DC in 1994 and didn’t rule out moving back to Illinois until 2001―when I set roots and bought a house in Takoma Park, Maryland.”

Those roots quickly flourished. She ran and won a seat on the Takoma Park City Council in 2003. After serving for two years, she later ran for the Maryland House of Delegates, winning a seat in its 20th district in 2006. In the Maryland House, she has led on health care and LGBT equality, working specifically on a bill that increases low-income children’s access to health care. She successfully won reelection for her second term in 2010, and The Advocate magazine recently named her as one of the "Forty Under 40" emerging LGBT leaders.

Interview with

Heather Mizeur (IL ’94), Maryland Delegate for the 20th District

By Adam Amir (FL ’09), Policy Analyst, NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg

April 26, 2011

AMIR: What was your public service passion as an undergraduate and how has it changed, if it all?

MIZEUR: Health care has always been the issue I’ve been most passionate about. I got my start in politics as a child of the labor movement. My father was a member of the United Auto Workers. My Catholic background also tied me closely to social justice. I volunteered in missions in the Yucatan region of Mexico as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In terms of a policy issue in this country, I have always been tied to health policy: Medicare, Medicaid, and state child health insurance programs, and trying to expand access to these services. It’s what I focused on the federal, state level, and in my private practice.

AMIR: What do you think about the budget cuts proposed by the House Republicans? Is the gutting of Medicare or Medicaid merely political posturing?

MIZEUR: I think it poses a real threat. We need to mobilize seniors and low income folks to stand up for health care programs in the same way that the other side mobilized people to voice their opposition to health reform at town hall meetings last summer. We’ve got to take these cuts very seriously, agitate, and defeat these proposals. I had to work really hard this session to avoid a $20 million Medicaid cut in Maryland. In tough budget times, we need to be smart. We should still pay for it (Medicaid coverage) because people will still be sick no matter what. We can pay for their care in an emergency room where it is expensive or we can give them health insurance. You might as well give people access to primary care, which is more affordable. I don’t see it as a budget saving mechanism to be whacking away at the Medicaid program. 

AMIR: Insurance and Medicare are such complicated issues. How do you simplify the messages?

MIZEUR: I think about how I would explain it to my parents and my grandparents back in Illinois. I try to use human stories and explain what it means for individuals in a tangible way, rather than just talking about esoteric policy. But it’s an interesting blend, because in my district, I represent people who work in government and like to talk about policy specifics. I get to have it both ways.

Sometimes you have to use the media to get the message out, to larger constituencies. That’s where the message does have to be a little more simplistic.

AMIR: I saw that you had worked for John Kerry. Many in the Truman Scholar community work or have worked for an elected official. How do you transition from staffing an elected an official to becoming one?

I was with Senator John Kerry for almost four years. I think the biggest difference is that as a staffer you have one-fifth of the issues a legislator must understand. As a staffer, you’re really an expert on a certain small cadre of issues. You watch your principal hoping that they say the right thing. As a staffer, you compete with other staffers to push the issue you care about most and hope the Member agrees.

Now as the elected official, I can work on issues I cared about while working in other levels of government. Many of the good ideas I had staffing for a Member of the House of Representatives in the minority party, I later retooled to be part of my campaign platform— initiatives like expanding insurance coverage for young adults, allowing them to remain on their family’s plan until they are 25 years old. I worked with Senator Kerry to make this an element of his 2004 Presidential health reform plan and then turned it into a state initiative, and I actually got it done three years before it became a part of national health reform. It sounds cliché, but states really are the laboratories of democracy.

AMIR: Shifting gears a bit, I wanted to know how the disparity in partner benefits for same-sex couples affects you on both a personal and policy level.

MIZEUR: Well there are different tiers of discrimination. Even if we fixed everything at the state level, until the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is repealed there will still be unfair treatment of tax on the federal level. I’ve experienced this in Maryland. At one point, the Governor decided to bring domestic partners onto state employee insurance plans. My wife would be eligible to be on my state insurance policy, except that she would have to pay taxes on that benefit at the federal level. Something no straight married couple must pay. There are about 425 state benefits that come with a marriage certificate and nearly a thousand more at the federal level.

We have had a parallel approach in the General Assembly in Maryland. While working ultimately for marriage equality, my colleagues and I have attempted to address a range of individual issues like inheritance rights, visitation rights, and burial decisions for same sex partners at the state level.  We’ll chip away at those 425 rights, one-by-one, until we get full marriage equality.

AMIR: In a passionate and emotional floor speech about a marriage equality bill in the Maryland House, you described yourself as an “old soul.” What did you mean by that?

MIZEUR: The technical term might be more “self-actualized at a young age.” I knew at age seven a lot of things about myself that it takes others a lifetime to find out. I knew I was gay. I knew that I wanted a career in elected public service. I was also very tied to my Catholicism, and knew that it informed my identity, drive, and relationship with God. Sometimes it required extra work to reconcile these seemingly conflicting identities, but they motivated me at an early age.

AMIR: My last question is very controversial. Where is the best place to get blue crabs in Maryland while you’re in session?

MIZEUR: It’s not crab season during session in Annapolis. Though you can get crab cakes in the winter, you should  ask if they are pasteurized because they are not as good without fresh crabmeat. During the summer, my favorite place to pick get crabs is in Rock Hall, Maryland at a restaurant called Watermans.