Bijan ‘BJ’ Koohmaraie: Counsel, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.)

Bijan “BJ” Koohmaraie has had a hand in some of the biggest legislation prioritized by House Republicans in this Congress — including the H.R. 1 energy bill and the H.R. 2 border bill. But the former Energy and Commerce Committee staffer takes the most pride in a bill that got rare bipartisan support.

“My baby would be the TikTok bill,” Koohmaraie told The Hill, referring to legislation that would ban the app if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell it. President Biden signed the legislation into law earlier this year.

A March 2023 hearing with the TikTok CEO put fuel behind the effort. While his previous work with the Energy and Commerce Committee limited him to the single panel’s jurisdiction, working on the TikTok bill under House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) allowed him to pull together not only that committee, but also the House Financial Services Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party to set up a framework and process.

“We knew this was always going to have to be bipartisan, but we first focused on making sure we got our conference kind of aligned and behind a unified approach,” Koohmaraie said.

Work with Democrats and the Biden administration came later in the fall — including with the Department of Justice to make sure it could defend the legislation in court.

Koohmaraie caught the bug for the Capitol Hill as an undergraduate intern in the office of his hometown congressman, Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), and even after law school it never went away.

“There’s just something about the Hill that really pulled me in,” Koohmaraie said. “It’s chaotic. I really enjoyed the pace. I really enjoy long, grinding nights — and you know, there’s no shortage of that on the Hill. It’s really like the center of where you can make a difference in the policy realm.”