The post-employment “cooling off” period didn’t even have time to expire before Antonia Ferrier found her way back to the Senate as part of the new Republican majority.  

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office announced Tuesday morning that the Kentucky Republican was bringing in Ferrier as as the new staff director of the Senate Republican Communications Center, replacing the departing John Ashbrook. It’s one of a series of moves as the GOP media and speechwriting operation reloads about a month into life as the majority.  

“I hope that whatever my future might hold, it’s something that I, at some level, can leave and get some satisfaction from being challenged,” the twelve-year Capitol Hill veteran told CQ Roll Call last summer while adjusting to work in the private sector as a senior vice president at Forbes-Tate.  

Ferrier has worked in leadership before — across the dome for Roy Blunt of Missouri when he was House majority whip and then Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio. Her most recent stop in the Capitol Complex was at the Finance Committee under Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah.  

In related moves, Brian Forest, a former aide to Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, is being promoted to be McConnell’s chief speechwriter and Laura Hendrickson is being elevated to communications manager. Other new hires for the Republican press shop are Hunter Hawkins as creative adviser and Scott Sloofman as communications advisor.  

Don Stewart, McConnell’s deputy chief of staff and the longtime head of his overall press operation, formally announced the moves in a Tuesday morning memo to reporters.  

Related:

Antonia Ferrier Settles Into New Role at Forbes-Tate


The 114th: CQ Roll Call’s Guide to the New Congress


Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call in your inbox or on your iPhone.