In normal times, managing the House Committee on Homeland Security is tough. But in the midst of a department shutdown, it gets even tougher. 

“It is a high-pressure environment where policy, politics and national security collide,” said Hope Goins, Democratic staff director. “My role is to bring focus and discipline, to keep the team grounded and to execute even when the stakes are elevated.” 

Goins said public service came naturally to her, as the daughter of a public school teacher and Army veteran. 

“I grew up in Grenada, Mississippi, a town of about 21,600 people, where service wasn’t something we talked about, it was something we lived,” Goins said. “I still remember being in my elementary school library and seeing a brand-new children’s book about Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. On the back was a photo of her standing with President Reagan in the Rose Garden. Something about that image stayed with me.” 

When Goins was getting her undergraduate degree at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., and her law degree at the University of Arkansas, she didn’t really plan a career in national or homeland security. “When I was a student, these just weren’t the types of things you decided to go into.” 

Now she’s spent nearly two decades working for Democrats on the committee and is entering her 10th year as staff director. Starting as counsel and then as staff director of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, she was thrust into issues most staffers don’t deal with. “I came to the Hill in early 2008. The committee was fairly young at the time, things were growing and evolving.”

Mentorship was a constant — and she’s been paying it forward in more ways than one. 

“Members were very encouraging, especially ranking member Bennie Thompson. I have also been very blessed with the support of colleagues on and off the Hill,” Goins said, citing women-centered professional networks in Washington, such as the Women’s Congressional Policy Institute and the Black Women’s Congressional Alliance.

She’s seen the committee change over the years, increasingly becoming more partisan. She also served as a counsel on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. “We used to be bipartisan on everything except border enforcement. But now everything has a partisan angle. Yet you have to remember who you’re serving: it’s the public that we are trying to serve, it’s the workers at the Department of Homeland Security.” 

Nonetheless, she still sees times where Republicans and Democrats can work together. “Some of these chairmen still need Democratic votes.”

Her approach to helping junior staff involves “being a learner and seeking out resources myself.” 

“I’m a mentor on and off the committee. Sometimes I look up and there are people connecting with me through LinkedIn or my email, with someone saying, ‘So-and-so said I had to talk to you.’ And I’ve had Republican colleagues send people my way,” she said. “I don’t know how it happened, but I woke up one day and wound up being ‘everybody’s girl.’ And I’m thankful for it.”

And it hasn’t just been junior staff. “When I worked on the January 6th Committee, I was surrounded by all these attorneys that didn’t know much about the Hill,” Goins said. Her leadership was recognized in 2023 by the Washington Government Relations Group, which gave her the Bennie G. Thompson Champion of Diversity Award. 

One staffer she mentored was Lydia Grizzell, who interned for the Homeland Security panel in 2021 and is now the policy and advocacy manager for the Mississippi ACLU, after serving a one-year stint at the White House. Grizzell met Goins at an event in Jackson. “As a young girl in the South you could only dream of going to work in Washington,” Grizzell said. “It was great seeing someone who looked like me working in such an important role.”

“Getting adjusted to the Hill can be difficult, especially for a Black girl. She exuded so much grace that she made it look easy,” she said, adding Goins impressed upon her “that we always have an obligation to protect those we serve.”

Now Goins has added an unusual element to her resume: children’s book author. “The Adventures of Chloe and Chris: The Three Branches of Government” was published in 2022. The first in a series, it began because she “kept encountering people just forgetting their basic civics.” 

“I tell the story of the government through the lens of two young children. Hopefully they’ll read it with their parents,” Goins said. “I’ve been invited to several groups where I’ve read it in front of parents, and they say, ‘Oh, I learned too.’”

Bradford Fitch is the former CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation, a former congressional staffer, and the author of “Citizen’s Handbook for Influencing Elected Officials.”