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Presented by the Coalition for Medicare Choices: Delivered daily, Influence gives you a comprehensive rundown and analysis of all lobby hires and news on K Street. | | | | |  | | By Caitlin Oprysko | Presented by the Coalition for Medicare Choices | With Daniel Lippman KROGER HIRES SQUIRE: Grocery giant Kroger is bringing in the big guns in its bid to secure federal approval to merge with rival grocery chain Albertsons, enlisting former House Speaker John Boehner and a team of bipartisan lobbyists at Squire Patton Boggs to rally support for the deal despite antitrust concerns. — Boehner’s former deputy chief of staff David Schnittger and Trump White House alum Tommy Andrews, who both hail from Kroger’s hometown of Cincinnati like Boehner, will work on the account along with Caren Street, who previously served as chief of staff to now-Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. — The former speaker still has no plans to register to lobby on the merger, and will instead serve as a strategic adviser to the grocer, Schnittger told PI. The team will aim to highlight what the companies say are “tremendous benefits” to shoppers, staffers and communities, arguing the union will result in lower prices for customers “especially as customers stretch their budgets by eating more meals at home.” — But the $25 billion deal between two of the country’s top grocery companies immediately faced blowback when the merger was announced last October. The CEOs of both companies were hauled in front of a Senate antitrust panel within weeks of the announcement, where they were grilled by lawmakers skeptical of the companies’ protestations that the merger wouldn’t impact prices or hurt competition in the industry. — Unions representing grocery store workers and independent grocers have also slammed the proposal, and state attorneys general have filed lawsuits aimed at blocking Albertsons from paying out a $4 billion dividend to its shareholders ahead of the merger, one of which a Washington state judge declined to take up earlier this year. — The proposed union is also facing an administration intensely focused on scrutinizing corporate consolidation, with the Justice Department just this week suing to block JetBlue’s proposed takeover of Spirit Airlines. “Kroger is committed to working cooperatively with the FTC throughout this process, and we'll be working to share the merger benefits for customers, associates and communities on the Hill as well,” Schnittger said. Welcome to PI, where we love to see folks give the fly-in a whole new meaning. What else is going on out there? Fill me in: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.
| | | | A message from the Coalition for Medicare Choices: Despite strong bipartisan support for Medicare Advantage, the Administration is considering harmful cuts to the program that would result in higher premiums and fewer benefits. 85% of voters with Medicare Advantage believe that President Biden would be breaking his promise to protect Medicare if cuts are made to Medicare Advantage. More than 30 million seniors and people with disabilities depend on Medicare Advantage for high quality, affordable health care. Don’t cut their care. | | | | | | | A message from the Coalition for Medicare Choices:   | | | FIRST IN PI — COMSTOCK LAUNCHES FINTECH CONSUMER GROUP: Former Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock will lead a newly launched advocacy group aimed at representing consumer voices as Washington works to craft guardrails for the increasingly popular fintech and digital asset industries. — The American Consumer & Investor Institute will focus on expanding and maintaining consumers’ access to fintech platforms like online and app-based banking and investing and improving financial literacy while pushing back on overregulation that the group argues could cut into the benefits fintech has to offer. — Comstock, who is now a senior adviser and lobbyist at Baker Donelson, focused on tech and cybersecurity issues during her time in Congress and the Virginia legislature. The launch of her new group comes amid heightened scrutiny of the fintech boom from all over Washington. — The crypto industry of course has been under the microscope more than ever following the implosion of FTX last year, but regulators like the CFPB have also proposed stepped up oversight of fintech platforms and services that have exploded in popularity since the pandemic. — ACII appears poised to push back on some of those rules, chiding “paternalistic” policymakers who “question whether many Americans are capable of using these products and services responsibly to make their own financial decisions." Instead, the group says it supports free market policies to combat fraud and prevent abuse. RUNAWAY TRAIN: “President Joe Biden’s effort to toughen railroad safety regulations is setting up a collision with an industry used to getting its way in Washington,” POLITICO’s Tanya Snyder reports in a look back at how the rail industry has historically flexed its lobbying muscles. — “Just three months ago, Biden bowed to the industry’s economic heft by blocking a threatened strike by freight rail workers, a move that angered many of the president’s labor supporters. That move came amid the industry’s warnings that a work stoppage would devastate the economy by choking off vital supplies such as grain, fuel and drinking water chemicals.” — “Now the administration is pushing for a series of toughened safety requirements for freight rail in response to last month’s toxic derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio. But veterans of past battles with the freight railroads — which carry 70 percent of the nation’s coal and more than a third of its grain exports — say it won’t be any easier to defeat them this time, despite the bipartisan uproar over the Ohio crash.” — “Wielding rail’s control over vital transportation routes is a playbook the industry knows well, said former Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), who until last year chaired the House Transportation Committee that oversees the rail industry,” and told Tanya the railroads dangle potential service disruptions in response to complaints about their practices. — Sure enough, “partisan rifts emerged Thursday during the first congressional hearing on the derailment,” Tayna reports in a dispatch from the hearing, in a sign that “nascent efforts to pass a bipartisan rail safety bill may be difficult.”
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | LEO’S NEXT MOVES: “A few months ago, Leonard Leo laid out his next audacious project. Ever since the longtime Federalist Society leader helped create a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, and then received more than a billion dollars from a wealthy Chicago business owner to disburse to conservative causes, Leo’s next moves had been the subject of speculation,” ProPublica’s Andy Kroll and Andrea Bernstein and Documented’s Nick Surgey write. — “Now, Leo declared in a slick but private video to potential donors, he planned to ‘crush liberal dominance’ across American life. The country was plagued by ‘woke-ism’ in corporations and education, ‘one-sided journalism’ and ‘entertainment that’s really corrupting our youth,’ said Leo amid snippets of cheery music and shots of sunsets and American flags.” — “Leo revealed his latest battle plan in the previously unreported video for the Teneo Network, a little-known group he called ‘a tremendously important resource for the future of our country.’ Teneo is building what Leo called in the video ‘networks of conservatives that can roll back’ liberal influence in Wall Street and Silicon Valley, among authors and academics, with pro athletes and Hollywood producers. A Federalist Society for everything.” — Records obtained by ProPublica and Documented “show Teneo’s members have included a host of prominent names from the conservative vanguard, including such elected officials as U.S. Sens. J.D. Vance of Ohio and Missouri’s Josh Hawley, a co-founder of the group” as well as Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), senior aides to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), a federal judge, conservative media figures, pro athletes and dozens of corporate executives and industry leaders. “Leo joined Teneo’s board of directors as chairman in 2021 and has since become a driving force.” FLYING IN: The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation kicked off a hybrid fly-in today with more than 175 advocates meeting with more than 200 offices, including several dozen advocates who previously were unable to participate in an in-person fly-in because of infection prevention control standards. — Advocates are set to meet with party leadership offices, members of the Senate HELP Committee including Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and ranking member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), according to the foundation, and will lobby for bills that would prohibit the practice of “copay accumulators” and incentivize antimicrobial drug development targeting the most threatening infections.
| | | | DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS– DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID. | | | | | | | | SPOTTED at a kickoff event on Wednesday for the Congressional Cigar Caucus last night with the Cigar Association of America, per a tipster: Reps. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), Troy Carter (D-La.), Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), David Trone (D-Md.), John Rutherford (R-Fla.), Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Javier Estades and Millie Lukose of Tabacalera USA, Glenn Wolfson and Rich Neuwirth of Drew Estate Cigars, Tanisha Sanders, Patrick Rooney and Alexandra Wich of ITG Brands, Chris Howard and Michael Morrow of Swisher and Drew Estate, Mary Szarmach of Smoker Friendly, Jake Perry of Jake Perry + Partners, Robert Dotchin of Dotchin & Associates, Brittani Cushman of Turning Point Brands and David Ozgo, Frank Coleman, Brian Fojtik, Mudi Kpohraror and Dan Cotter of CAA. — And at a reception at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld’s Capitol Hill office to welcome new GOP members to the House Ways and Means Committee, per a tipster: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa), Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas), Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.); Hunter Bates, Jeff McMillen, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Zach Rudisill, Geoff Verhoff, Clete Willems, Joe Fawkner, Casey Higgins, Justin McCarthy, Brendan Dunn and Julie Nolan of Akin Gump; Noah Jacobson of AT&T, Jodi Chandler and Elizabeth Oblinger of eBay, Travers Garvin of KKR, Emma Rindels-Hill of Lyft, Drew Wayne of Siemens, Charles McCray of Salesforce, Kathleen Black of Visa, Jake Colvin of the National Foreign Trade Council, Mike Ward and Judd Smith of Amazon, Hun Quach of Levi Strauss & Co., Paul Jackson of the Business Roundtable, Tracie Letterman of the Humane Society Legislative Fund. — Megan Bailey is joining the federal affairs team at Americans for Prosperity. She was most recently director of operations and scheduling for Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). — Brett Meeks has been promoted to executive director of the Health Innovation Alliance. He previously served as vice president of the coalition. — Rachel Jones is now director of government relations for the Maryland Department of Agriculture. She most recently was a Covid-19 recovery associate at Employ Prince George’s and a delegate for the Maryland General Assembly. — Marcus Flowers, Olivia Troye and Fred Wellman are launching Mission Democracy, a new national political action committee supporting Democratic congressional candidates. Flowers is a former congressional candidate for Georgia’s 14th District. Troye is a former adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence and a George W. Bush administration alum. Wellman is a former Lincoln Project staffer. — Elisabeth Reynolds is now a partner at Unless. She previously was special assistant to the president for manufacturing and economic development at the White House. — Mandy Schaumburg is now a vice president at Caprock Strategies. She previously was chief counsel and education deputy director with the House Education Committee. — Maya Cohn is now director of policy and programs at the Rachel Carson Council. She most recently was a legislative assistant for former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).
| | | Team Biggs (Rep. Andy Biggs, Building Innovative Good Government Solutions PAC)
| | | Run, Ron, Run! (PAC)
Texas RINO Hunters (Super PAC)
You Lose Fund (Super PAC)
| | New Lobbying Registrations | | Bgr Government Affairs: Advancing Mental Health For Military Families, LLC
Bgr Government Affairs: Career Education Colleges And Universities
Bgr Government Affairs: Coach USa
Bgr Government Affairs: Greater Orlando Aviation Authority
Bgr Government Affairs: Novartis
Bgr Government Affairs: University Of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Bgr Government Affairs: York Space Systems
Capitol City Group, Ltd.: Hch Enterprises, LLC
Desimone Consulting, LLC: Douglas County Public Utility District
Dutko Worldwide, LLC: National University
Forbes-Tate: Versum Materials US, LLC
Forbes-Tate: We Realize, Inc. Dba Realize
G S Proctor And Associates, Inc: Ann'S Circle, Inc
Williams And Jensen, Pllc: Invest In Education Coalition
| | New Lobbying Terminations | | Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP: Barr Brands International
Bgr Government Affairs: Baudax Bio, Inc. (Formerly Known As Recro Pharma, Inc.)
Bgr Government Affairs: Icu Advisory Limited
Bgr Government Affairs: Lyndra Therapeutics
Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, LLP: Dan Gertler
| | | | A message from the Coalition for Medicare Choices: Medicare Advantage is facing billions in cuts that would hurt the more than 30 million Americans who depend on Medicare Advantage for high-quality, affordable health care.
The consequences of cutting funding to Medicare Advantage are dire. A majority of senior voters with Medicare Advantage believe that cuts would impact their ability to afford health care.
Funding Medicare Advantage is an extremely important issue for senior voters. Voters with Medicare Advantage overwhelmingly believe that it is important for the federal government and the Administration to fully fund Medicare Advantage to cover increasing health care costs.
Medicare Advantage provides affordable health care to more than 30 million seniors and people with disabilities. 32% of Medicare Advantage enrollees are racial and ethnic minorities – compared to 21% of original Medicare enrollees.
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