| Leon Panetta The 21st White House Chief of Staff, under Bill Clinton, Leon Panetta served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1976-1994. Earlier, he was a legislative assistant to U.S. Sen. Thomas Kuchel (R-Calif.) and later served as assistant to the U.S. Cabinet Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and to the mayor of New York City. While in Congress, Panetta wrote the Hunger Prevention Act and the Fair Employment Practices Resolution and served on the U.S. House Committee on the Budget, where he served as chairman. After leaving politics in 1997, Panetta and his wife founded the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy at California State University of Monterey Bay. He also teaches at the University of California at Santa Cruz and at his alma mater, Santa Clara University. In 2006, Panetta served on the Iraq Study Group, also known as the Baker Commission. He lives in Carmel Valley, Calif. |