Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Jamie Callahan

23. Jamie Callahan

Last time in this space we compared Senior Counselor and Deputy Chief of Staff Jamie Callahan – then a relative newbie in the enchanted land of Newsomworld – to a utility infielder for those great Yankees teams of Maris and Mantle. To stick with the baseball analogy, it looks like the horseshoe hit a home run, because Callahan has more than proven her mettle with all of the old guard. Speak to anyone close to the inner circle and they will sing her praises, unprompted. One might have thought Callahan would bug out alongside former chief of staff Dana Williamson, who essentially brought her into the fold what must feel like a million years ago now, but she did not. And good thing for Newsom that she didn’t. Because going back to her days in the Jerry Brown administration, where Callahan was the guru on external affairs, she knows how to get things done. More than that, she can do it while managing her boss’s mercurial moods, which is kind of a superpower unto itself. She has previously served as Newsom’s Deputy Cabinet Secretary and Chief of Staff for Liane Randolph at the California Air Resources Board.

Updated August 26, 2025