BUSTOS REGISTERS TO LOBBY: Former DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos has signed her first lobbying client since leaving office earlier this year. The Illinois Democrat retired in January after a decade in Congress and joined Mercury Public Affairs to co-chair their Washington office and put down roots for the firm in the Midwest. — Bustos, who was a member of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team as well as a member of the House Agriculture and Appropriations panels, registered to lobby at the beginning of May on behalf of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, according to newly filed disclosures. — She and her son Nick Bustos will lobby for the group in support of a bipartisan biofuels bill that would require cars to be able to run on higher-octane fuels, which would allow for higher blends of ethanol. Cheri Bustos was the lead sponsor of a version of the bill introduced last Congress, but the measure never made it out of committee. — The former congresswoman is still subject to a one-year “cooling off” period before she’s able to lobby her former colleagues on the Hill but told PI in an email that she’ll be providing strategy and communications support in addition to talking with “the appropriate leaders” in the Biden administration, which she is not restricted from lobbying. THIS STORY HAS EVERYTHING: “FreedomWorks, the conservative group that came to symbolize the tea party movement, is shaking up the top of its ranks after a leadership struggle involving one of D.C.’s more notorious PR shops and an animal rights advocate who briefly helped lead the organization,” POLITICO’s Hailey Fuchs reports. — “The group, once one of the most formidable entities fighting Barack Obama’s agenda, had laid off 40 percent of its staff in March as it continued to deal with the aftermath of Republicans’ disappointing 2022 midterm cycle. It also appointed a new chief operating officer, Marty Irby, around the same time.” — “The changes thrust the organization into a civil feud and made it the target of outside critics. And now, Irby himself is gone. The COO left the group this week after enduring a barrage of attacks from a website named FreedomWoke, which had been agitating for his dismissal by citing his record lobbying for the legislative arm of the Humane Society and his work on behalf of Animal Wellness Action.” — “The entity behind that anti-Irby campaign is Berman and Co., a public relations firm founded by the PR executive Richard Berman, whose work for corporate interests led him to be dubbed by his critics as ‘Dr. Evil.’ Berman is no longer with the firm, but Berman and Co. confirmed its involvement.” — “It’s fairly uncommon for PR shops to wade into specific leadership battles within non-governmental entities. But Berman and Co. has a long and acrimonious history fighting animal rights groups.” For his part, “Irby accused FreedomWoke of waging a campaign against him to distract from what he called ‘corruption within the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.’ He argued for legislation called the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming Act that would reform the checkoff programs that provide funding for research and promotion of commodities.” — He also defended his conservative bonafides, which the FreedomWoke campaign had sought to cast doubt on, and said he plans to launch his own lobbying and PR firm focused on the upcoming farm bill. KNOWING ROE: The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey and Isaac Stanley-Becker profiled Axiom Strategies founder Jeff Roe, who they write “has rapidly become a major player in the Republican political consulting world, guiding the campaigns of thousands of candidates in recent years, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars and building a lengthy list of clients” — including the super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ imminent presidential bid. — The Post obtained a 36-page prospectus to potential investors in Roe’s political empire, which said the firm took $196 million in net revenue last cycle from political and corporate clients, pocketing more than $22 million in profit. Roe projected that revenues would climb to $250 million next year, with about $36 million in profit. — According to the prospectus, “Roe said his firm is working behind the scenes to target the party’s top donors and up-and-coming leaders to secure new business, along with creating an academy for a new generation of campaign consultants. The document also says Roe has launched a project called ‘Freemont’ to quietly shape the Republican Party’s leadership in an effort to benefit Axiom financially.” SOFTWARE LOBBY FLIES IN: The trade group representing the software industry huddled with lawmakers Wednesday to discuss how to regulate the fast-growing artificial intelligence sector following this week’s hearings on the Hill. — Members of BSA | The Software Alliance’s board of directors — which includes executives from Adobe, Salesforce, Workday, Siemens, Box, Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and IBM, met privately with Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), House Energy and Commerce leaders Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) as well as Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), who is part of a bipartisan AI working group in the Senate, according to the trade group. The executives also met with senior policy staff for McCarthy, Senate Homeland Security Chair Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). — “It’s clear that several different work streams are beginning to crystallize on AI in both the House and Senate,” Splunk Inc.’s Scott Morgan, who chairs BSA’s board, told PI in a statement, and while Morgan noted that lawmakers are working across the aisle on the issue, they are largely “in information-gathering mode, … and they are especially eager to educate themselves on the different types of AI, the ways in which AI is used, and the policy implications for consumers, different industries, and US competitiveness.”
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