Greg Speed leaving DCCC

Greg Speed, the communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), is leaving the committee for a job with Communities for Quality Education (CQE), a Washington-based education advocacy group.

Speed, who has been with the DCCC since March 2003, will be replaced by Bill Burton, who joins the committee after a short stint in the communications office of Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

Burton previously served as Midwest communications director for the John Kerry 2004 presidential campaign after serving as Iowa communications director for Dick Gephardt’s unsuccessful campaign.

Speed started at the DCCC in March 1997 and left in January 1998 to join the personal office of former Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas). Speed served in Frost’s personal office until 2003, when Speed rejoined the committee as a member of the communications staff.

He will remain with the DCCC until the end of next week and was expected to start his new job at the end of March or the beginning of April.

He will serve as CQE’s national communications director. Among its many agenda items, CQE is working to implement changes in the No Child Left Behind Act, as well as to fund fully the initiative.

Burton previously worked on the Hill as the press secretary for Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and former Rep. Bill Luther (D-Minn.). He hails from Buffalo, N.Y., and is a graduate of the University of Minnesota.

Patrick O’Connor