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Hoyer Announces Top Aide Shuffle

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer announced today that Terry Lierman, his chief of staff since 2007, is leaving the office Dec. 31 and heading to the private sector.

Hoyer’s floor director, Alexis Covey-Brandt, will take over as his top aide.

“He’s an amazing human being and has done a wonderful job for me for the last four-and-a-half years,” the Maryland Democrat said of Lierman. “I’m very sorry to see him go. … He wants to go back to the private sector. He was in the private sector. I think he thinks he’s done his time and he wants to go make some money, perhaps.”

Lierman, whom Roll Call named one of the 50 most influential staffers on Capitol Hill, plans to start a new venture capital company, Health Ventures International, and will be chairman of CSGI Inc., a health information technology company, according to a release from Hoyer’s office.

He will also stay on as treasurer of Hoyer for Congress and chairman of AMERIPAC, the No. 2 House Democrat’s leadership political action committee.

“I tell people they can go off the payroll, but they can’t go off the staff,” Hoyer said at his weekly pen-and-pad this morning.

Lierman has a long history in politics. A former staff director for the Senate Appropriations Committee, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2000 against then-Rep. Connie Morella (R) in Maryland’s 8th district. Morella would go on to lose to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D) two years later.

Lierman has also been a lobbyist for Capitol Associates and chaired the Maryland Democratic Party from 2004 to 2007, before joining Hoyer’s office.

Covey–Brandt started in Hoyer’s office as a staff assistant in 2003 and has worked her way through many positions in the office, finally becoming floor director in February 2009.

“She’s been through every chair; she’s done, in every instance, an extraordinary job,” Hoyer said. “I’m excited by the fact that Alexis Covey-Brandt will be leading our office.”

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