OpenAI is expanding its policy team amid Capitol Hill fights over artificial intelligence industry regulations, reportedly hiring Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) daughter, Jessica Schumer, for a top policy job. Jessica Schumer, Amazon’s former top public-policy official in New York, is said to be joining OpenAI to handle…
Page F2From§Eachthe milkman edition — 8 September 2026
Senator whose name means guardian, watcher, watches OpenAI hire his daughter for government outreach.

As it ran on the front
My nephew Danny is in his second year of law school, out at Fordham, and he's the one person in this family who doesn't sigh when I call him about something I read. Last week I called and said, "Danny, what do you call it when the family of the fella who's supposed to be watching the henhouse goes and takes a job with the fox?" He didn't laugh at me. He said, "Uncle Lou, that's a conflict of interest, there's a whole body of law on it, it's not just an expression." Danny takes it seriously. I take his word for it, because he's the lawyer in the family and I'm the guy who reads the paper on the porch.
So here's what I called him about. I got the piece here — hang on, I had it right on the table and my wife moved it for the mail — here it is. OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company, hired a woman named Jessica Schumer for a job they're calling government outreach and partnerships. This is happening while Capitol Hill fights over how, or whether, to regulate that industry. Jessica Schumer is the daughter of Senator Chuck Schumer. Before this, it says here, her job was top public-policy official for Amazon, in New York. Now I want to ask Danny something, and I'm asking you too: is "public-policy official" a different job from "government outreach," or is that the same seat with a different coat hung on it?…
…(cont) Here's the second piece I had him look at. Back in 2010, Senator Schumer gave an interview to a Jewish radio program, a man named Nachum Segal, and the Senator said his own name comes from the word shomer — guardian, watcher — and that his ancestors were guardians of the ghetto wall, in a town called Chortkov. He said he believed he was given that name for a reason. I'm not putting words in his mouth. That's him, on the radio, in 2010. I wrote the year down because Danny told me dates matter.
I've got both of those pieces of paper out on the porch rail this week — not the kitchen table, I gave the kitchen a rest, I lean on that table too much as it is — and I keep looking at them side by side. One says a man believes his own name means watcher. The other, from this month, says his daughter took a job with a company his own chamber is fighting about, doing outreach to the government he's part of. I'm not saying those two papers don't belong on the same rail. I'm asking whether they do.
I drove out to the cash lane at the toll plaza Tuesday — the fan belt's been slipping and I don't trust the E-ZPass anyway — and I got to talking with a fella who used to run the old inspection booth before the state automated it. I asked him, hypothetically: if an inspector's kid got hired by the trucking company that was lobbying to raise the weight limits, would that show up on the inspector's next review, or would it just show up nowhere, because writing it down isn't anybody's job? He didn't know. Neither do I. That's Danny's department, not mine.
Oh — before I let you go, one more thing, because Danny made me promise I'd mention it. The Washington Examiner ran a piece on September 2nd, a video segment, going through what they're calling Senator Schumer's "many compromises to maintain political power." It's dated the same month as the hire. I haven't watched the whole thing — I like a page I can hold, not a screen — but it's out there, dated, same month, same story. So here's my question, and then I'll let you go: is guardian, watcher, the word anybody at that company is using for the new job title on his daughter's business card?
“They're calling it "government outreach," which is one hell of a euphemism for the senator's own kid landing a paycheck from the company his chamber's supposed to be regulating. This ain't new for the guy — the trade press ran a whole segment on his "many compromises to maintain political power" the same month this hire went through. When the watcher's own family gets hired by the watched, the only ones left holding the bag are the people who thought the regulation was actually going to happen.”
“Jessica Schumer has a real resume — Amazon public policy, New York experience, this is a hire based on qualifications, not family — did I say not family, obviously it's related to family, that's not what I meant. Look, everybody in this town hires people with Hill relationships, that's called institutional knowledge, not access. It's not a conflict, it's an efficiency, is what I'd say if I were saying anything at all.”
The receipts
· Chuck Schumer’s many compromises to maintain political power from the morgue, 30 Aug 2026
· Inside Scoop: Political impact of 9/11, Schumer’s many compromises, ticket-splitting making a comeback? from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.