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By BILL PEACE; Times Leader Staff Writer
Monday, January 30, 1995 Page: 1A
WILKES-BARRE — Jeanne Lopatto can’t separate her professional life from
her political life.
And she wouldn’t want it any other way.
The Plymouth native was recently appointed press secretary for the Senate
Judiciary Committee. She landed the prestigious job through her boss, Sen.
Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who is the new chairman of the committee under the
Republican majority in Congress.
“I’m honored he appointed me,” Lopatto, 35, said Sunday during a telephone
interview form her Chevy Chase, Md., residence. “It makes me fell like I’m
accomplishing something in Washington.”
Her parents, Anne and John Lopatto of Plymouth are just as proud, according
to her mom, who said they’re excited about the appointment.
Lopatto is the liaison between Hatch and the media covering the Senate
Judiciary Committee. She also handles publicity for the high-profile senator.
And it’s no light task, Lopatto concedes.
The committee conducts hearings — set by Hatch — on such issues as crime,
anti-trust laws, and judicial nominations.
“We get a lot of media coverage on Capitol Hill by all the major networks
and newspapers,” she said. And it’s Lopatto’s job to explain it all.
One issue that will make its way to committee hearings as early as
February, she said, is the baseball strike. President Clinton recently ordered
baseball players and owners to resume talks on the strike, which began last
summer.
Clinton set a Feb. 6 deadline for both sides to show progress. If an
impasse still exists, he may call in a federal mediator.
“I’ve been talking with a lot of sports writers who are anxiously watching
these events,” she said.
The Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a daylong hearing on the
balanced-budget amendment, which was proposed in the Republicans’ Contract
With America. Lengthy debates on the amendment, which has already passed in
the House, are expected to start today on the Senate floor, she said.
Before taking the judiciary committee job, Lopatto worked for Hatch in the
press office of the Labor and Human Resources Committee and as the assistant
press secretary on his personal staff.
Lopatto, or “Gigi” as most of her schoolmates remember her, is a 1977
graduate of Wyoming Seminary Preparatory School in Kingston. In 1981, she
received a bachelor’s degree in American Studies at Dickinson College in
Carlisle.
There’s enough happening in the inner beltway to keep Lopatto busy, but she
says she visits Plymouth when she can, and “not just to get my car looked at,”
she joked. Her parents’ family business is the John Stenach Ford Co. on West
Main Street in Plymouth.
“I always tell people that I like coming home to the Wyoming Valley because
the people there are so nice,” she said, “Washington can be filled with
transient people.”
And the Potomac is no substitute for Harveys Lake.
“I visit Harveys Lake in the summer to go boating — my family has a
cottage there,” she said. “I do miss the people of the Wilkes-Barre area, it
gives you a great small-town feeling.”