By Samuel Rubenfeld

The University has a role in the forming of the next administration.

Phil Schiliro, class of 1978, is the head of congressional relations for President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. He is in charge of coordinating with the House and Senate for the administration, to prepare the Congress for the new president. Schiliro also has a small role in planning the inauguration. He is widely expected to keep the job through the inauguration into the new Obama administration.

Schiliro, citing his obligations to the transition team, declined to comment to The Chronicle on his new role, or even about his past work.

After graduating from the University in 1978, he graduated from the Lewis & Clark Law School’s environmental law program in 1981 and headed straight to Washington. He worked for two Democratic congressmen before finding Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who Schiliro worked with for the last 26 years, organizing and leading key investigations into the Bhopal disaster, which led to the passage of the Clean Air Act, and into the allegations of the usage of steroids by Major League Baseball players.

“Phil was one of the most dedicated, committed and interesting students I’ve ever had,” said Herbert Rosenbaum, professor emeritus of political science who taught Schiliro as a freshman. “It’s very rare that students and teachers strike up a personal relationship, but we did.”

Schiliro has been involved politically as far back as high school, when he organized his neighborhood in Baldwin to prevent a pond from being drained and a building developed in its place, Rosenbaum said. He ran for Congress twice in the University’s House distrct: In 1992, the district was heavily Republican but Schiliro lost by a very small margin; in 1994, after the Republicans split their vote with the Conservative party, the Democrats asked him to run again, and the margin was larger but it was a toxic year for Democratic House candidates.

He has a history of being shy; a profile by Politico.com from February 2007 said he is so shy he “advised a reporter to find someone more interesting to profile.”

After an administration whose critics regulary chide it for poor relations with Congress, Schiliro’s long tenure on The Hill is sure to smooth the bumps in the road.

(politico.com)