Representative Sean Patrick Maloney

Sean Patrick Maloney (born July 30, 1966) is an American attorney, diplomat, and politician who served five terms as a United States Representative from New York from 2013 to 2023 and later as U.S. ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 2024 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York’s 18th congressional district for the entirety of his House tenure, and in 2022 he was the Democratic nominee in New York’s 17th congressional district. Maloney campaigned as a moderate, was a member of the centrist New Democratic Coalition, and became the first openly gay person elected to Congress from New York State. He also served as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) from 2021 to 2023.

Maloney was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, where his American parents were living temporarily due to his father’s work as a lumberjack. He was raised in Hanover, New Hampshire, in what he has described as a “small Irish Catholic family,” alongside six siblings. He attended local public schools and graduated from Hanover High School in 1984. After high school he enrolled at Georgetown University, where he studied for two years before transferring to the University of Virginia. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations from the University of Virginia in 1988.

Following his undergraduate studies, Maloney spent a year volunteering with Jesuit priests in the slums of Chimbote, Peru, an experience that informed his later interest in public service and social justice issues. He then returned to the United States to pursue legal training at the University of Virginia School of Law, earning a Juris Doctor degree in 1992. Admitted to the bar, he began a legal and political career that would span private practice, corporate management, state government, and federal service.

Maloney’s national political career began in the early 1990s with Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. In 1991 he joined the Clinton operation as deputy to chief scheduler Susan Thomases, and in the 1996 reelection campaign he served as Director of Surrogate Travel. After Clinton’s reelection, Maloney joined the White House staff and, from 1999 to 2000, served as a senior advisor and White House Staff Secretary, becoming one of the youngest individuals to hold that position. Following the 1998 killing of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student, Maloney was one of two representatives President Clinton sent to Shepard’s funeral; contemporaneous reporting noted that he often referred to himself as “the highest-ranking openly homosexual man on the White House staff.”

In addition to his political work, Maloney built a substantial legal and business career. From 2000 to 2003 he served as chief operating officer of Kiodex, Inc., a technology and risk-management firm. He worked as a senior attorney at the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, during which time he represented the Matthew Shepard Foundation. In 2009 he became a partner at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and in March 2011 he joined Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe as a partner. After his congressional service, he became a senior advisor at the marketing technology startup Applecart, reflecting his continued engagement with both law and business.

Maloney first sought statewide office in New York in 2006, running for the Democratic nomination for attorney general. His fundraising and extensive travel across the state drew notice within party circles, and he received endorsements from the New York–based gay rights organization Empire State Pride Agenda and from Karen Burstein, the first lesbian to run for New York attorney general. Polling in single digits for much of the race, he declined an offer to run on the Liberal Party line, pledging instead to support the eventual Democratic nominee. In the September 12, 2006, primary he finished third with 9.4 percent of the vote, as former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo won the nomination. In his concession remarks, Maloney promised that “there will be another day,” signaling his intention to remain active in public life.

In January 2007 Maloney joined Governor Eliot Spitzer’s administration as First Deputy Secretary, serving under top adviser Rich Baum. During his tenure, the “Troopergate” political surveillance controversy emerged in July 2007, when the state attorney general’s office, led by Andrew Cuomo, admonished the Spitzer administration for directing the State Police to compile special records of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno’s movements. A New York Times editorial later suggested Maloney might have been involved in withholding emails during the investigation and cited those concerns in endorsing his 2012 congressional opponent. Other observers, including Cuomo’s then–chief of staff Steve Cohen, defended Maloney’s conduct, with Cohen calling the suggestion that Maloney impeded the inquiry “misinformed to the point of being laughable.” Maloney continued in a similar senior advisory role under Governor David Paterson, working with Paterson’s top adviser Charles O’Byrne and contributing to efforts to increase state aid to education. On December 3, 2008, he announced that he would leave the governor’s office to reenter private practice at Kirkland & Ellis.

In March 2012 Maloney announced his candidacy for Congress in New York’s 18th congressional district, a newly drawn district that had previously been numbered the 19th and was represented by freshman Republican Nan Hayworth. He purchased a home in Cold Spring, New York, prior to the election, drawing criticism from opponents who noted he had not previously lived in the district. Maloney won the Democratic primary on June 26, 2012, with 48 percent of the vote in a five-way contest, and also secured the Working Families Party line under New York’s fusion voting system. He received endorsements from former President Bill Clinton, The New York Times, Planned Parenthood, the AFL–CIO, and New York State United Teachers. Running as a moderate, he focused in part on LGBTQ rights, criticizing Hayworth for declining to say whether she would vote to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, even as she characterized same-sex marriage as a settled issue under New York law. In the November 2012 general election, Maloney defeated Hayworth by a margin of 52 to 48 percent. His victory made him the first openly gay person elected to Congress from New York.

Maloney served in the U.S. House of Representatives from January 3, 2013, to January 3, 2023, representing New York’s 18th congressional district throughout his tenure. He was reelected in 2014 in a rematch against Hayworth, again as part of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Frontline Program for vulnerable incumbents. Although he lost the Independence Party primary to Hayworth, he prevailed in the general election by fewer than 3,000 votes, receiving 84,415 votes (47.58 percent) to her 81,625 (46.01 percent). In 2016 he won a third term, after a potential primary challenge from Democrat Diana Hird failed to materialize on the ballot, defeating Republican Phil Oliva with 162,060 votes (55.6 percent) to Oliva’s 129,369 (44.4 percent). In 2018, while simultaneously seeking the Democratic nomination for New York attorney general, he secured the Democratic nomination for reelection to the House and ultimately defeated Republican James O’Donnell, an Orange County legislator, with 139,564 votes (55.5 percent) to O’Donnell’s 112,035 (44.5 percent). He was reelected again in 2020, winning 54.8 percent of the vote to Republican nominee Chele Farley’s 43.2 percent.

Maloney’s 2018 bid for New York attorney general marked his second attempt at statewide office. Entering the race in June 2018, he ran in a crowded Democratic primary that included New York City Public Advocate Letitia James and law professor Zephyr Teachout. Maloney indicated that if he won the primary he would abandon his House reelection campaign to run for attorney general in the general election. He received endorsements from several public figures, including then–Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, but finished third in the primary, which was won by James, who had the backing of Governor Andrew Cuomo; Teachout finished second. Because he remained on the ballot for his congressional seat, Maloney returned to the House after winning reelection that November.

Within the House Democratic Caucus, Maloney was identified with the New Democratic Coalition and positioned himself as a centrist. On January 3, 2021, the same day he began his fifth term in Congress, he assumed the chairmanship of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, placing him at the center of his party’s efforts to defend and expand its House majority in the 2022 midterm elections. His decade of service in Congress coincided with a period of significant national political polarization and shifting electoral coalitions, during which he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his Hudson Valley constituents on a wide range of issues.

Following New York’s post-2020 redistricting, Maloney chose to run in the redrawn 17th congressional district in 2022 rather than the new configuration of the 18th district. In the general election he faced Republican state assemblyman Mike Lawler. Despite his incumbency and national profile as DCCC chair, Maloney was defeated, marking the first time in decades that a sitting DCCC chair lost reelection. His term in the House concluded on January 3, 2023, after five consecutive terms in office.

After leaving Congress, Maloney was nominated and confirmed as the United States ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, serving from 2024 to 2025. In that diplomatic role, he represented U.S. interests within the OECD’s multilateral framework on economic policy, trade, and development. Alongside his diplomatic service, Maloney has remained active in legal practice, business, and public affairs, continuing a career that has spanned campaign politics, high-level executive-branch service, corporate management, and a decade in the U.S. House of Representatives.