Hans Davis Riemer is an American non-profit executive, political activist, author, and currently serves as an at-large member of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Council. "Hans has sort of been enveloped in political activism as long as he's been around," according to his mother, Louise Rothman Riemer, who herself has been a long-time activist and is the current president of the League of Women Voters in Oakland. Rothman-Riemer noted that when Hans was a toddler, she and her husband, both longtime ACLU activists, carted him to women's rights groups and Alameda County Board of Supervisors meetings, "I just backpacked him and took him everywhere I went."
Background
Riemer is the son of Davis Riemer and Louise Rothman-Riemer. He is married to Angela Riemer, a government relations manager for Pfizer, and is the father of two children, Henry and Travis. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz in 1995, Riemer worked for the National Academy of Social Insurance, where he had interned during college. Then in 1995 he was hired as Public Policy Associate at the Save Our Security Coalition, under Arthur S. Flemming. In 1996 he founded the 2030 Center, a non-profit policy organization focused on protecting Social Security, improving health care, and supporting progressive solutions for fiscal challenges at the federal level. The 2030 Center testified before Congressional committees, White House panels, and conducted activist campaigns. He then served as Senior Policy Analyst and Social Security Campaign Director for the Campaign for America's Future. In that role Riemer organized a national campaign to fight against the privatization of Social Security. President George W. Bush had indicated support for privatization and then appointed the 2001 President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security. In 2004, Riemer started working for Rock the Vote as their political director. The organization helped nearly one million people, largely young voters, to register to vote in the 2004 election. Riemer led Rock the Vote's partnership with CNN to host a youth debate in the Democratic presidential primary. Riemer also ran the organization's campaign on the military draft, about which President Bush coined the phrase "on the Internets." In 2008 he joined the Obama presidential campaign, serving as the National Youth Vote Director. After the Obama campaign, Riemer worked for the AARP as a senior advisor on Social Security policy. In 2008, Riemer joined the Obama presidential campaign, serving in Chicago as the National Youth Vote Director. His responsibilities included supporting the Campaign's operations in the early states and working with student leaders to support the Students for Barack Obama network. Young voters were an important part of the Obama's early state voter coalition. After the Obama campaign, Riemer worked for AARP as a senior advisor on retirement security as well as community volunteerism. Riemer ran for the District 5 seat of the county council in 2006, losing to Valerie Ervin. He successfully ran for an at-large seat in 2010, winning re-election in both 2014 and 2018. From 2014 to 2018, Riemer served as the council president. He currently serves as Chairman of the Metropolitan Washington Air Quality Committee and one of only two county officials nationally on the FCC Intergovernmental Advisory Committee. In the Montgomery County Council, he serves as the Lead for Digital Government as well as on the Committees for Planning, Housing, and Economic Development and Government Operations & Fiscal Policy.
