Dan Maffei
American politician

Daniel Benjamin Maffei ( mə-FAY; born July 4, 1968) is an American politician and professor who served two non-consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before being appointed as a commissioner to the Federal Maritime Commission, serving as chairman from 2021 to 2025.
He was the United States representative for New York's 24th congressional district from 2013 to 2015. Maffei previously represented the district, then numbered as New York's 25th congressional district, from 2009 to 2011. He has also worked as a senior adviser at law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.
On November 6, 2012, Maffei defeated incumbent 25th district Republican Ann Marie Buerkle in the race for the redistricted 24th, avenging his 2010 loss. Maffei lost his 2014 reelection campaign to Republican nominee John Katko.
He then served as Commissioner of the Federal Maritime Commission from 2016 to 2018 and was re-appointed in November 2018 to a term ending in 2022. During the four month lapse in his Maritime Commissioner post, Maffei was a professor of practice at George Washington University.
Early life, education, and early career
Maffei was born in Syracuse and currently resides there. He graduated from Nottingham Senior High School in 1986, and continued on to receive a B.A. in history from Brown University in 1990, an M.S. in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1991, and an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1995.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Dan Maffei” is american politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Maffei, American and politician, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american politician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1159112. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1968, 2021, 2025 and 2013.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Dan Maffei”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Dan Maffei primary sources, Dan Maffei archive and Maffei research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dan Maffei”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Dan Maffei” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.