Mr David R. Riemer

Formerly: Legal Advisor to Wisconsin Governor Patrick Lucey (1975-1976); Legal Advisor to the US Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy (1978-1981); Senior Staff Director for Human Resources, National Conference of State Legislatures (1981-1982); City of Milwaukee, Director of Administration (1996-2002 and 1989-93), Chief of Staff to Mayor John Norquist (1993-96), and Budget Director (1988); Budget Director for Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle (2002-03); Candidate for Milwaukee County Executive (2003-2004); Director, Wisconsin Health Project (2004-07).

Riemer is a co-founder of The New Hope Project. He was an Eisenhower Fellow in Hungary in 1999. Riemer worked as an Atlantic Fellow in Public Policy in London and Oxford, England, in 2002; his research focused on supplementing low-income workers’ earnings through the tax system. As a Rockefeller Foundation resident in Bellagio, Italy, in 2012, he began work on “Putting Government In Its Place”. Riemer returned to Oxford in 2023 as a Visiting Fellow at Harris Manchester College and Fellow in Residence at the Rothermere American Institute.

After graduation from Harvard College (AB 1970) and Harvard Law School (JD 1975), Riemer spent much of his career developing and advancing local, state, and federal legislation--some of which became law--to provide low-income workers with transitional jobs, higher incomes, and health insurance.  He is the author of "The Prisoners of Welfare: Liberating America's Poor from Unemployment and Low Wages" (Praeger: 1988), "Putting Government In Its Place: The Case for a New Deal 3.0" (Henschel Haus: 2019), and numerous articles on reducing poverty, improving health care, and strengthening public administration.

A member of the Board of Directors, The American Ditchley Foundation.