In normal times, managing the House Committee on Homeland Security is tough. But in the midst of a department shutdown, it gets even tougher. 

“It is a high-pressure environment where policy, politics and national security collide,” said Hope Goins, Democratic staff director. “My role is to bring focus and discipline, to keep the team grounded and to execute even when the stakes are elevated.” 

Goins said public service came naturally to her, as the daughter of a public school teacher and Army veteran. 

“I grew up in Grenada, Mississippi, a town of about 21,600 people, where service wasn’t something we talked about, it was something we lived,” Goins said. “I still remember being in my elementary school library and seeing a brand-new children’s book about Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. On the back was a photo of her standing with President Reagan in the Rose Garden. Something about that image stayed with me.” 

When Goins was getting her undergraduate degree at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., and her law degree at the University of Arkansas, she didn’t really plan a career in national or homeland security. “When I was a student, these just weren’t the types of things you decided to go........

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