Kristine Lucius
Executive Vice President for Policy and Governmental Affairs
Kristine Lucius is executive vice president for policy and government affairs at The Leadership Conference. Kristine is well known in Washington government and policy circles having worked in all three branches of the federal government, including 14 years with the Senate Judiciary Committee as then-Chairman Leahy’s top legal and policy advisor. She is an expert on complex legislative issues including comprehensive immigration reform, online privacy, justice reform, and access to justice reform.
At The Leadership Conference, Kristine manages the organization’s advocacy work with Congress, the Executive Branch, and state and local elected officials. In addition to overseeing policy work and advocacy on The Leadership Conference’s priority issues, Kristine leads major coalition efforts on Supreme Court, lower court, and executive branch nominations. She also works with The Leadership Conference’s task forces to advance the coalition’s top legislative and oversight priorities.
In Congress, Kristine formed effective bipartisan coalitions to get a wide range of legislation signed into law. Among those successful efforts were the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization Act, the FOIA Improvement Act, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, the USA FREEDOM Act, and the Justice for All Act. In 2015, she was named by the National Journal as one of the 20 Most Powerful Women Staffers on Capitol Hill.
Before working for the Senate, Kristine worked in private practice with Jenner & Block, clerked for judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and served in the Office of Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Justice. Kristine is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and the Georgetown University Law Center.