Why Should Delaware Care?
Governors largely carry out their policy goals through the work of their senior staff — particularly when it comes to negotiating with lawmakers. With the naming of a new chief of staff, Gov. Matt Meyer is now shifting his day-to-day office management away from a person he relied upon since his time in county government.
Three days before the end of the Delaware legislative session, Gov. Matt Meyer held an all-staff meeting to address what he has said were unfounded rumors about a personnel shakeup within his office.
In the day before the meeting, several lawmakers had told Spotlight Delaware that they had heard the claim that certain senior staffers in the governor’s office, including Meyer’s Chief of Staff Vanessa Phillips, had either been fired or reassigned.
About a week later, Spotlight Delaware asked the governor during a press conference what had happened during that all-staff meeting. In response, Meyer said he told his staff that “rumors travel around the world before the truth can put on its shoes” – an adage that illustrates how conjecture spreads more rapidly than credible information.
At the press conference, Meyer also said that “all the firing and reorganization rumors — that I found very entertaining — are not true.”
Two weeks later, on Thursday, the governor’s office announced that it is reorganizing, with Meyer having reassigned Phillips to a new role of senior advisor to the governor.
Phillips has worked in senior roles for Meyer since 2017 when he first became New Castle County’s executive.
The Thursday announcement also revealed that Meyer had promoted his deputy legal counsel, Misty Seemans, to become his next chief of staff.
Seemans has performed legal analysis on multiple key issues and pieces of legislation, handled commutations and immigration policies for the office, and worked on a range of legal issues from criminal justice reform to social justice efforts, according to Meyer’s office’s announcement.
Before working in the governor’s office, she served as statewide Family Court Supervisor at the Delaware Office of Defense Services, the official name for the public defender’s office, where she handled multiple jury and bench trials, ranging from misdemeanors to capital murder. A native Delawarean, she also serves as an adjunct professor at Delaware Law School.
In the statement, Meyer congratulated both Seemans and Phillips, whom he called “an indispensable partner in advancing our agenda.”
“As Senior Advisor, Vanessa will continue to lend her strategic vision and counsel on our most complex challenges,” he said.
Meyer’s deputy chief of staff, Nick Merlino, said in an interview on Thursday that Phillips’ new role “lets her flourish more as a high-level driver of the governor’s mission.”
When pressed, he also said Phillips’ reassignment was not a demotion.
Asked if the move was a result of Meyer not achieving all of his budget priorities in recent negotiations with lawmakers, Merlino said the governor’s office is “satisfied with the outcome” of the 2025 legislative session, which ended on June 30.
On July 2, Spotlight Delaware sent an open records request to the governor’s office seeking emails or texts about potential firings or reorganizations. That request is pending.
