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Presented by Facebook: Delivered daily, Influence gives you a comprehensive rundown and analysis of all lobby hires and news on K Street. | | | | | |  | | By Caitlin Oprysko | | | With Daniel Lippman @JACK HITS THE ROAD: Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey announced this morning that he will resign from the social media platform that has become a pillar of everyday life and a mainstay of global and political communication — and a top punching bag for policymakers. Dorsey, who’s been hauled before Congress numerous times during his tenure, has signed off on some of Twitter’s most politically contentious decisions during that time, POLITICO’s Emily Birnbaum reports. That includes Twitter’s decision in January to permanently ban then-President Donald Trump and its move to block political ads in the wake of meddling in the 2016 election. — Those decisions stemmed from accusations the social network hasn’t done enough to stamp out disinformation and abuse on its platform, and helped fuel persistent allegations of bias against conservatives, all of which put the company in the crosshairs of both Democratic and Republican members of Congress as often as its tech peers such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. Still, Twitter has markedly smaller federal lobbying outlays than the other Silicon Valley giants, many of whom rank among K Street’s highest spenders, according to a PI analysis of lobbying disclosures. — That could be the result of Twitter’s smaller size and relatively more focused business model — fellow Silicon Valley heavyweights have delved into areas such as health care, cloud computing, digital currencies and more, or have acquired smaller competitors, drawing antitrust scrutiny in the process. Twitter only retains four outside lobbying firms: The Joseph Group, Twinlogic Strategies, Winn Strategies and Integrated Solutions Group. (Of course, Twitter is also a member of trade groups such as the Internet Association and Information Technology Industry Council, which also spend heavily on lobbying.) — Through the end of September, the company has spent $1.4 million on lobbying in 2021 — a fraction of what some of its peers in Silicon Valley have spent in a single quarter this year. By comparison, Meta, which owns rival media platform Facebook, has spent $14.7 million — more than 10 times Twitter’s total — on lobbying this year, and retains more than two dozen outside firms. — And while Amazon and its subsidiaries have hired a legion of 105 lobbyists in Washington to advocate on a range of issues for the e-commerce giant, according to the money-in-politics nonprofit OpenSecrets, Twitter only retains about a dozen, according to the site, though Twitter’s roster of lobbyists nevertheless includes a number of veterans of key congressional committees, like House Energy & Commerce, Senate Commerce and House Judiciary. Good afternoon and welcome back to PI. Hope you all had a lovely holiday. Let me know what I missed: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. | | A message from Facebook: Facebook’s industry-leading investments are stopping bad actors
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It's working: in just the past few months, we took down 1.7 billion fake accounts to stop bad actors from doing harm.
But there's more to do. Learn more about how we're working to help you connect safely. | | | HOW THE LAST YEAR ALTERED CORPORATE POLITICAL GIVING: “The number of S&P 500 companies that have either stopped political giving or plan to disclose it hit a record in 2021 after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and recent social justice protests,” according to Reuters’ Jessica DiNapoli. According to a study from the Center for Political Accountability viewed by Reuters, “U.S. companies see new risks in political giving in light of the country's hyper-partisan environment, leading corporations to either halt contributions or disclose them.” — “‘Unrest and angry political conflict have defined the past two years,’ according to the study, which cited as examples the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, the two-time impeachment of former President Donald Trump and attempts to overturn the 2020 election. ‘In these explosive times, companies are taking action. … They’ve adopted political spending policies to avoid or mitigate heightened risk,’ according to the study.” U.S. TELECOM ADDS 2: USTelecom | The Broadband Association announced a pair of new hires and a promotion in its D.C. office. Diana Eisner joins the trade group as vice president for policy and advocacy after most recently serving as director of federal regulatory affairs at Frontier Communications. Nicole Henry, previously a legislative aide to Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), will be senior director for government affairs. Hawley Stanton , who joined the association in 2017, has been promoted to senior director for government affairs. She is a Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) alum. | | | | DON’T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO’s new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE. | | | | | PAID LEAVE ADVOCATES TRAIN THEIR SIGHTS ON SCHUMER: “Unconvinced that moderate Sen. Joe Manchin is dead set against paid family and medical leave, advocates are turning their focus this week to another Democrat,” POLITICO’s Eleanor Mueller reports: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. — “Their goal: ensure that Schumer does not sever the program from the House-passed version of the Build Back Better package in an effort to appease Manchin before the bill hits the Senate floor. They are betting that — if it comes down to it — Manchin (D-W.Va.) will not blow up the legislation over his opposition to the proposal.” — “A coalition of advocacy groups including Paid Leave for All as well as Paid Leave for the U.S., A Better Balance and others spent most of 2021 lobbying Manchin in his home state, on the Hill and elsewhere . They kept up those efforts over last week’s recess, running digital, radio and print ads in West Virginia and sending texts to West Virginia voters. Now, as Congress returns, it's Schumer in their crosshairs. The coalition is preparing to launch New York-centric ads and planning to release new polling about how paid leave could affect Democrats’ chances in battleground states come midterm elections.” THE RISE AND FALL OF THE LINCOLN PROJECT: “It was the darling of the resistance for savagely attacking Donald Trump. But now, everyone keeps rolling their eyes at the Lincoln Project and fears they may be clearing a path for the former president’s reemergence,” write POLITICO’s Chris Cadelago and Meridith McGraw. — “The outside political organization headed by disaffected Republicans and other top Democratic operatives has experienced caustic blowups, internal disputes over beach house-level paydays, and disturbing allegations involving a disgraced co-founder. A recent campaign stunt evoking the march on Charlottesville to close the Virginia governor’s race earned them near universal scorn. And one of the organization's most recognized members is facing blowback for rooting for another Trump nomination on grounds that he’d be the easiest Republican to beat in the general election.” — “Officials working for the Lincoln Project contend they’re simply being practical — even shrewd — about the new political climate, in which Trump is likely to be the GOP nominee anyway and brass-knuckle tactics are now the norm. President Joe Biden even called one of the Lincoln Project co-founders Steve Schmidt after the 2020 election to say thank you for the group’s work helping him get elected, according to a person familiar. … But a year after delighting liberals with their insistence on bringing guns to a gunfight, operatives across the spectrum now say the group is, at best, ineffective and prodigal, at worst, counterproductive.” | | | |   | | | | | | — Anna Pilato is now director of federal public policy at the Christian Medical & Dental Associations. She is the former senior adviser and deputy assistant secretary for external affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services in the Trump administration. — Zaid A. Zaid is now head of U.S. public policy at Cloudflare. He most recently was head of North America for strategic response policy at Facebook/Meta, and is an Obama White House counsel’s office alum. — Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association , is now deputy assistant secretary of Defense for threat reduction and arms control, per Morning Defense. | | | | BECOME A GLOBAL INSIDER: The world is more connected than ever. It has never been more essential to identify, unpack and analyze important news, trends and decisions shaping our future — and we’ve got you covered! Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Global Insider author Ryan Heath navigates the global news maze and connects you to power players and events changing our world. Don’t miss out on this influential global community. Subscribe now. | | | | | | | | None. | | | Aaronson, Rutherford and Jones (Super PAC)
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