As a Tisch College visiting fellow, the former White House strategist wants to have the kind of thoughtful conversations about politics that can be hard to come by in a divided society
Public policy expert and former White House strategist Louisa Terrell, J91, P25, says she’s always “had a hard time choosing at the buffet.” But it’s that ability to appreciate and synthesize an array of choices that has shaped her journey from interning in a mayor’s office to advising senior policy makers and presidents, with stints directing public policy strategy at McKinsey & Company, Meta, and Yahoo. She’s now an advisor to the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris.
This fall Terrell is sharing her insights into American politics with the Tufts community as a visiting fellow at the Jonathan M. Tisch College for Civic Life through a series of workshops and other programming. Her first session in September was a deep dive on presidential campaigns for which she brought in guest experts from both sides of the aisle, including Roger Lau, deputy director of the Democratic National Committee; Matt Mowers, the field director for former President Trump’s 2016 campaign; and Betsy Ankney, former campaign manager for Nikki Haley for President.
“In some ways Tufts is very core to my journey,” said Terrell. As an American Studies major, she relished not having to pick one area of study. “I saw how different disciplines could be woven together and how that interconnectivity added to intellectual and academic knowledge.”
That preference continued post-Tufts, when, as a young lawyer, she found her greatest satisfaction exploring broad policy questions that impacted many people.
Terrell cut her political teeth as an intern for the mayor of Cambridge. A stint in the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General later gave her a taste of big impact litigation, and she headed to Washington, D.C., where she “caught the political bug.” As a young Capitol Hill staffer, she put to good use her love of forging connections to make an impact.
She’s served an array of public policy leaders, including Federal Communications Commission Chair Tom Wheeler; Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey); President Barak Obama; and Joe Biden, as both senator and president. As Biden’s director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs and as special assistant for legislative affairs in Obama’s second term, she had a hand in the shaping and passing of numerous pieces of legislation.
And while Terrell does have a distinguished career in Democratic politics, she also has longstanding relationships across the political spectrum and a track record of getting things done even in a divided Washington.
While Terrell says that asking what achievement makes her proudest is like asking a parent to name their favorite child, she picks as standouts those that “created tangible new opportunities for my family, my community, and people I don’t know.”
Among them are reauthorization of a strengthened Violence Against Women Act, passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and, most recently, passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Terrell, who has a child with Type 1 diabetes, found it personally moving to advance the ACA, which protects millions of people like her daughter from being denied health care because of pre-existing conditions, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which caps insulin prices for seniors and includes unprecedented measures to fight climate change—another issue close to her heart.
“How lucky am I to be part of the teams working on positive changes and to be inspired by leaders who made these things happen,” she said.
Despite the acrimony in politics, Terrell says that nine times out of ten, people in public service are working really hard. “It is not a job for the lazy.”
Also high on her list is being part of the team that worked for the successful confirmation to the Supreme Court of Kentaje Brown Jackson. “That was an amazing experience that I think of with particular pride as judicial nominations have become very partisan,” she said.
Terrell learned the art of negotiation years ago as the deputy chief of staff to the man she calls the legislative “Jedi master,” Joe Biden, but she acknowledges that finding consensus has become more difficult in a highly politicized environment. “When I was a baby Capitol Hill staffer, it was not political suicide to do bipartisan work,” she said. Today, it’s much harder, though not impossible, to have quiet conversations outside the political noise.
Despite the acrimony, she says that nine times out of ten, people in public service are working really hard. “It is not a job for the lazy.”
Essential to success is a fundamental pleasure in connecting with people and understanding what they care about most deeply. “You need to have a lot of conversations about stuff that may seem irrelevant to what you’re negotiating about,” said Terrell. “It means picking up the phone knowing someone might rip off your face because they’re mad. Or, they might want to talk about their kids’ soccer game or about how groundbreaking nuclear energy should be part of our tax structure.”
Also key, said Terrell, is building the right team, a “full orchestra” as one of her mentors put it, with the varied skills to be successful with different stakeholders, “not just people you want to have dinner with on Saturday night.”
She encourages young people interested in public affairs to jump in and to keep in mind that interesting opportunities abound at the state and city levels.
As a Tisch College visiting fellow, Terrell aims to facilitate thoughtful conversations about politics that can be hard to come by in an often divided society. “I want to learn from students and have my ideas probed and challenged. I want to share my war stories but at the same time get out of my own bubble. It’s a two-way street.”
The Tufts community’s approach to political discourse has impressed her. “It’s early in the semester, but so far I’ve been struck by how students try to find a broader framework for even passionately held ideas.” That, she says, is critically important in finding durable solutions to pressing problems.
In life as well as career, it’s helpful to think of the journey as an “ebb and flow,” said Terrell. “Don’t think of it as always being on the side of angels or side of devils. The nature of life, of all good things, is that you make some tradeoffs. Don’t worry about it.”