President Joe Biden will appoint prominent California Republican and public policy expert Lanhee Chen to oversee the operation of America’s public passenger rail system.
Chen, whom Biden selected for the Amtrak board of directors, is a nationally known Republican figure who served as chief policy director for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. He also advised Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential run and served as a senior policy adviser to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Chen ran for California controller in 2022. He lost to Democrat Betty Yee but mounted one of the strongest statewide campaigns for a Republican in the last decade, flipping 10 counties and earning more votes than any other statewide GOP candidate that year.
Former President Barack Obama appointed Chen in 2014 to the Social Security Advisory Board, on which he served until 2018. He was also a senior Department of Health and Human Services official during the George W. Bush administration.
