Giffords aide Pia Carusone takes command of office
— -- When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords made a surprise Aug. 1 return to Capitol Hill to vote on debt legislation, her chief of staff, Pia Carusone, was at her side, at the center of the action but on the periphery of the spotlight.
The scene was defining for Carusone. Like most congressional aides, she is more comfortable in the background. But in the 11 months since a gunman shot Giffords in the head during a Jan. 8 constituent event outside Tucson, Carusone has proved herself an indispensible asset to the three-term Arizona Democrat.
Virtually unknown to the public before the tragedy, Carusone, 31, immediately became a fixture on national television as a Giffords spokeswoman.
Although she was chief of staff for fewer than two years at the time of the shooting and had only limited Hill experience, Carusone is largely credited for keeping Giffords' staff intact and her Washington and Arizona offices operating under the emotional and traumatic circumstances.
Earlier this year, Carusone worked extreme hours and straddled time zones as she shuttled among Washington, where she lives, Tucson and Houston, where Giffords continues her rehabilitation. Although staff members say Carusone would get away, she always stayed on top of the office's affairs.
It was only after Giffords went to Florida in May to watch her astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, rocket into space aboard the space shuttle Endeavour that the intensity of the media coverage subsided.
But Giffords' prolonged absence this year has meant new responsibilities for Carusone, who no longer can avoid the public eye.
She sometimes acts as the congresswoman's stand-in, such as at the February White House signing of a bill to name a new federal courthouse in Yuma after U.S. District Judge John Roll. Roll died in the same shooting in which Giffords was wounded.
Carusone also is one of the main gatekeepers controlling information about Giffords.
For the most part she fiercely protects details about Giffords' personal life and her recovery, often to the point of frustrating journalists and members of the public. But there have been other occasions when a less cautious Carusone has allowed a more revealing portrait of Giffords to emerge.
She frequently communicates with Giffords' constituents in ways normally reserved only for the elected official, such as issuing formal written statements or authoring newspaper opinion essays.
"The chief of staff oversees the three critical elements of any congressional office: policy, politics and communications," said C.J. Karamargin, Giffords' communications director from 2007 until August. "Mastering those things -- controlling those things -- is essentially what the chief of staff's job is about."
In their new book Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope, Giffords and Kelly make clear their appreciation of the "extraordinarily dedicated and loyal" Carusone.
"She became a trusted partner and friend to me while getting her boss through this horrible ordeal," Kelly writes. "We could not have managed without her."
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