Monday February 16, 2026

Sessions Nomination Could Create 3-0 Republican CPSC

A 3-0 Republican CPSC majority is being set up with the nomination of Karen Diebel Sessions. She would join Acting Chairman Peter Feldman and still-to-be confirmed nominee William Hewes III (PSL, 10/4/25), both Republicans.

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Sessions currently is a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Transportation, taking that position in April 2025. Other government experience was a short stint – December 2020 to January 2021 – as an advisor to the legislative affairs office at Department of Homeland Security. She was a city commissioner and vice mayor in 2007-2010 in Winter Park, Fla.

In 2010, she unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Florida's 24th U.S. House district. In 2011, she explored running for the then newly-created 26th district.

Private sector experience listed on her LinkedIn profile includes senior vice president at AI Data Holdings (2023-2025); senior vice president at ExteNet Systems (2021-2023); advisor to the board of EdgePresence (2020-2023); board member and chief external affairs officer at XG Communities (2015-2020); vice president of Millenium Challenge Corporation (2018-2019); vice president of administration for Westgate Resorts (2015-2017), vice president and director of public policy, law and security for Verizon (2001-2013); senior area manager at Allied Riser Communications (2000-2010); and senior manager and senior executive manager at MCI (1989-1998).

Since May 2015, and as of January 2026, she has been listed (bit.ly/46F3SP3) as the registered agent of Sessions Enterprises LLC of Winter Park, Fla. (An unrelated LLC of the same name is in Georgia.)

She has a 1989 business administration degree from Notre Dame and a 1993 MBA from the University of South Florida.

She is the wife of Republican U.S. Congressman Pete Session of Texas, where they reside. They married in 2012.

In 2002, her then-husband Donald Diebel, a physician, was killed on the Florida Turnpike assisting accident victims. The couple had three sons.