Richard Arenberg retired after more than thirty-four years on Capitol Hill in senior staff positions with Majority Leader Senator George Mitchell (Maine) and Senators Carl Levin (Michigan) and Paul Tsongas (Massachusetts). He served on the Senate Iran-contra Committee and helped Senators Mitchell and William Cohen write Men of Zeal analyzing those hearings. He was a principal negotiator of the Alaska Lands Act, which President Carter called “the most important piece of conservation legislation passed in the 20th Century.”
Arenberg is the author of Congressional Procedure: A Practical Guide to the Legislative Process in the U.S. Congress (2018, TheCapitol.Net). The book has been awarded five national awards including the Ben Franklin Book Award Gold Medal. Arenberg is co-author of Defending the Filibuster: Soul of the Senate (2012, Indiana U. Press) and Defending the Filibuster, Revised and Updated Edition (2014, Indiana U. Press). The authors were awarded a Congressional research award by the Dirksen Congressional Center in 2010. Defending the Filibuster was named “Book of the Year in Political Science” by Forewords Reviews in 2012. Richard A. Arenberg: Oral History Interviews was published by the Senate Historical Office in 2011 and can be read or heard on U.S. Senate website.
Arenberg has also taught at Northeastern and Suffolk Universities. He serves on the Board of Directors of Social Security Works and the Board of Directors of Social Security Works Education Fund, and a Senior Congressional Fellow at the Stennis Center for Public Service Leadership. He is a contributor at The Hill and Newsmax and his work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, USA Today, Politico, the Providence Journal and other publications.
