Matt Gallivan: Staff director, Senate HELP Committee

The only person who could bring Matt Gallivan back to Capitol Hill was his former — and now current — boss, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.). 

Gallivan is the staff director for Republicans on Cassidy’s HELP Committee.  

“I want to make sure that I'm having an impact while being here. And that helps when you work for a boss that you're so aligned with,” Gallivan said, describing it as a relationship where they can finish each other’s sentences. 

Gallivan left Capitol Hill in 2018 and became firmly ensconced in the private sector. He was a lobbyist and then CEO of his own health consulting firm. Returning to the daily grind of Congress wasn’t an easy choice, and he said friends and family were questioning the decision. 

"You were just starting your own thing, living in Charleston near the beach and the golf course, with a 3-year-old and a 6-month-old. Are you insane? Why are you coming back to this?” Gallivan said. 

Still, “I think most people, once they leave the Hill, there's a little bit of adrenaline and an experience that they no longer have that they crave and miss.” 

Leaving the D.C. bubble was an important breath of fresh air, he said 

“I still like politics, but I'm living life as a normal person, and so ... it's a good gut check on ... not getting too myopically focused on sort of internal palace intrigue, stuff that really doesn't matter,” Gallivan said.  

Gallivan is a veteran of reconciliation fights, having worked as Cassidy’s health policy director during the failed GOP effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act during the first Trump administration.  

“When you're having conversations about health care, there's a lot of past scar tissue to fall back on and share with people,” Gallivan said. 

Gallivan said he tapped into that experience to guide committee staff to a more successful outcome this time.  

“It felt like a bookend, in many ways, to what was happening in 2017 because there were similarities and overlaps, and then in other ways, it felt completely new and different and refreshing, especially because I'm not [Sen. Cassidy’s] health care guy anymore,” Gallivan said.