Towns picks oversight committee staff members

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), incoming chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has chosen Ronald Stroman to be the committee’s staff director and Michael McCarthy to be deputy staff director.

“Ronald Stroman and Michael McCarthy are experienced oversight staffers who will provide continuity and help me implement an aggressive agenda,” Towns said in a Dec. 22 news release.

Stroman has a long history with the committee, having served as general counsel from 1988 to 1994. He was also staff director and chief counsel for the committee’s Human Resources and Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee from 1993 to 1994 and deputy minority staff director and procurement counsel from 1995 to 1997. He was assistant counsel to the Judiciary Committee’s criminal justice subcommittee from 1984 to 1988.

Since 2001, Stroman has been a managing director at the Government Accountability Office. He has a law degree from Rutgers University.

McCarthy was staff director and chief counsel for the Government Management, Organization and Procurement Subcommittee, which Towns has led for the past two years.

McCarthy was also minority counsel to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) for the committee’s investigations into contracting in Iraq and the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina. McCarthy is a graduate of Harvard Law School.