Senate Democrats have filled staff vacancies in time for next year’s session.
Since October, the Senate Democratic caucus has hired three staffers, two of them from the House. One staff member has also assumed two jobs, memos provided to Arizona Capitol Times showed.
Carolyn Atwater and Chris Kotterman, both former House staffers, now serve as policy adviser to the Senate’s 13 minority party members and as policy adviser for education, respectively.
Atwater, not a stranger to the Senate, will also cover the Appropriations and Finance committees. Atwater first worked in the Senate in 1979 as assistant director of the research staff and as committee research analyst. Before she was hired by Senate Democrats, she served as a researcher for House committees.
Kotterman was a policy adviser for education in the House before joining the minority staff in the Senate.
Michael Mandell, currently general counsel, has also assumed the post of chief of staff for the Democratic caucus.
Jeanette Tejeda de Gomez, formerly assistant to Sen. Amanda Aguirre, D-24, is now the minority’s director for communications and constituent services. She may also serve as a policy adviser for one of the standing committees, the memos said.
“We are fully staffed now,” Tejeda de Gomez said.
Positions were vacant following the departure of Nikki Amberg, the former chief of staff, education policy adviser and director of communications, and of Greg Ensell, previously the appropriations adviser.
There were no similar staff changes in the Senate majority caucus, the majority information office said.