Former Congressman Steve Israel served sixteen years in Congress and now directs the Cornell Institute of Politics and Global Affairs.
Former Congressman Steve Israel left Capitol Hill — unindicted and undefeated — to pursue a career as a writer. In addition to writing two critically acclaimed satires of Washington, he heads the non-partisan Cornell University Institute of Politics and Global Affairs in New York City.
Israel was a Member of Congress for sixteen years. He left in 2017, having served as House Democrats chief political strategist between 2011-2015 as Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He was one of only nine members of the House Democratic leadership, and has a singular behind-the-scenes understanding of how Washington officials think. As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for four years, Israel was the chief architect of House campaign strategies.
Israel is a regular political commentator on MSNBC and writes a weekly column in The Hill. His insights appear regularly in the New York Times, The Atlantic Magazine, as well as The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
Israel is currently the Director of the new nonpartisan Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University, the only academically-based institute of politics in the New York City metropolitan area. Its mission is to raise the discourse and deeper understanding of political issues and geopolitics.
