More companies warm to election objectors

From: POLITICO Influence - Wednesday Jul 06,2022 10:35 pm

Jul 06, 2022

With Daniel Lippman

MORE COMPANIES DITCH JAN. 6 DONATION PAUSE: As the midterms approach, more companies that previously paused giving to objectors of election results are resuming their donations.

— Analysis from Accountable . The U.S. shared first with Influence found that in May, for the first time since the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, a number of companies or trade associations gave to lawmakers who voted against certifying the 2020 election. Among them were food and beverage giant Kraft Heinz Company and the insurance company MetLife.

— After the events at the Capitol, AmerisourceBergen announced that its political action committee would suspend the entirety of its political giving to elected officials. Within months, it began some giving again. In May, it gave $5,000 to Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), who was among the election objectors (a company spokesperson declined to comment).

— Kraft Heinz gave $1,000 each to Reps. Samuel Graves(R-Mo.) and Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.). The PAC of engine manufacturer Cummins gave $1,000 to Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), $3,000 to Rep. Greg Pence(R-Ind.), $1,000 to Rep. John Rose(R-Tenn.), and $3,000 to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

— Cummins’ PAC “contributes to a limited number of elected officials from both sides of the aisle,” said Jon Mills , a company spokesperson. “Prior to any contribution, a thorough and rigorous process is conducted to ensure each elected official meets several key criteria, including being aligned with CIPAC business objectives and values.”

— Guardian Life Insurance gave $1,000 to Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.). When asked about the donation resumption, Sandra Waite, the company’s enterprise chief communications officer, said in a statement that the PAC board considers “the entire public service record of the Congress member in question and whether that record aligns with our priority to support the financial well-being of Americans.”

— With Republicans expected to take back Congress and groups including Accountable.US spotlighting those who restart their giving, the politics of the decision to withhold campaign dollars has become increasingly complicated.

Greetings from PI, and happy Wednesday. My name is Hailey Fuchs, and I’m taking the reins of the newsletter this week. Send me all your money + influence tips to hfuchs@politico.com, and follow me on Twitter @Hailey_Fuchs.

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AVOIDING THE A-WORD: Telehealth lobbyists are staying clear of conversations around abortion “because they don’t want to jeopardize their chances of extending the pandemic-related rules that have been a boon to the sector,” my colleague Megan Wilson reports.

— “The industry consultants and advocates are continuing their approach — even after the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade — because they don’t want to derail their congressional legislative goals to expand access to virtual care or weaken a coalition they’ve built over the last two years.”

— “Eased as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the telehealth rules are widely popular and wouldn’t involve abortion care as a vast majority apply to the Medicare program. But advocates fear that abortion politics could find a way into their negotiations to extend the relaxed rules that are tied to the public health emergency — which could end as early as October, though the Biden administration is likely to extend it beyond that date.”

— “‘The telehealth industry and telehealth advocates want to maintain our bipartisan support, and this obviously complicates that,’ one advocate for the telehealth industry said of the Roe decision. ‘We, as an industry, are just trying to make as many gains as we can, however we can, while maintaining that bipartisan support and bipartisan credibility.’”

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HORSE OR PONY?: A top European Union digital lobbyist is facing a steep fee after selling a supposed pony that was declared a horse, Charlie Duxbury reports for POLITICO Europe.

— “A Danish court has ruled that Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, director-general of Brussels-based lobby group DigitalEurope, must pay 941,881 Danish kroner (€126,612) plus interest after a competition pony she sold was declared to be a horse.”

— “The curious case involves Spartacus, a gelding that court papers show was sold by Bonefeld-Dahl to a buyer called Sara Torabi in late 2016 for Torabi’s daughter Lea to ride in elite pony competitions in Denmark and abroad.”

— “At an international competition in 2018, however, Spartacus was measured to be a horse rather than a pony — a fact that greatly reduces his market value. Bonefeld-Dahl won her original court fight over the matter, but an appeals proceeding decided on May 19 that she had not performed her duty of informing the buyer about a key detail, namely that a measurement prior to the sale had suggested Spartacus was too tall to be a pony.”

WARNOCK’S CAMPAIGN FUND CONTROVERSY: Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) is facing questions for dipping into his campaign coffers for some legal expenses, POLITICO’s Natalie Allison reports.

— “The case, first filed in 2019 by Atlanta resident Melvin Robertson, involved baffling and seemingly baseless allegations against Warnock that date back to 2005 when he was a pastor. It was dismissed by a federal district court judge in Georgia without any of the defendants being served.”

— “But Robertson refiled a similar lawsuit in April 2021, outlining the same allegations against Warnock while also suing Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he has long served as senior pastor, and other public figures.”

— “This time, Warnock was serving in the Senate. And he enlisted his campaign attorneys from Elias Law Group to represent him in the case, along with an Atlanta firm, Krevolin & Horst , which assisted ELG.”

— “The issue for Warnock is whether this was a proper use of campaign funds.”

Jobs Report

— Kaitlin Kirshner has been promoted to Amazon Web Services’ U.S. lead for third-party communications and engagement.

— Thomas Jensen, UPS ’ former top multimodal transportation lobbyist, joins TuSimple as Vice President of Government Affairs.

— Matthew Porterfield joins the Climate Leadership Council as vice president of policy and research. He most recently served as deputy director and adjunct professor at the Harrison Institute for Public Law at Georgetown University.

— Tanner Daniel has joined Citi as a director on the federal government affairs team. He is an alum of the American Bankers Association and the office of Rep. David Scott (D-Ga,), among others.

— Zainab Chaudary, Shani Drake Duncan and Kirami Bah join New Heights Communications as senior vice president, director and associate, respectively. Chaudary was comms director at the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice, Duncan was director of marketing and public engagement at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, and Bah was a communications specialist at the Washington Area Community Investment Fund.

— Amy Liu begins as the interim president of the Brookings Institution on July 7. Liu is Brookings’ vice president and director of Brookings Metro.

— Bree Raum is joining BP as senior federal government affairs manager from the American Clean Power Association, where she is head of federal affairs.

— Keith Noreika , former acting comptroller of the currency under President Donald Trump, is now executive vice president and chairman of the banking supervision and regulation group at Patomak Global Partners. Noreika was previously a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

— Scott McAbee, who was a lawyer at Alston and Bird, is now counsel to the head of the DOJ’s antitrust division, Jonathan Kanter.

— Katie McAuliffe, formerly of Americans for Tax Reform and Digital Liberty, is a senior director of telecom policy at the Information Technology Industry Council.

— Stacey Black, who served as an assistant vice president for federal spectrum policy at AT&T, is retiring from the company. He will still consult through Black Telecommunications Consulting.

— Aisha Pittman , who was most recently vice president of policy at Premier, will be senior vice president of government affairs for the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations.

New Joint Fundraisers

None

New PACs

Western Conservatives (Super PAC)

Duty First PAC (Affiliated with Sam Brown for Nevada)Transparency in Politics (Super PAC)

American Institute for Children's Rights (Super PAC)

Stop Gun Violence PAC (PAC)

FTW Fuel The World (Super PAC)

El Sueno Americano (Leadership PAC: Mayra Nohemi Flores)

New Lobbying Registrations

None

New Lobbying Terminations