MORE NEW BUSINESS: Better Solutions for Healthcare, the business coalition targeting the hospital industry’s role in health care costs, has hired its first federal lobbyists as it ramps up its campaign at the national level. — The coalition added several high-powered employer and insurer groups to its membership earlier in year as part of that expansion, and now it’s hired Spangler Strategies and alb solutions to press the group’s interests, which include addressing consolidation among hospitals and enacting site-neutral payment, among other things. — Spangler Strategies is run by Kathryn Spangler, a longtime Senate health care staffer and former lobbyist for the American Benefits Council — one of the coalitions new members — while alb solutions is run by former Senate HELP staffer Adam Buckalew, who helped craft Congress’ surprise billing legislation. FEC TO WEIGH REGULATING DEEPFAKE ADS: The FEC this morning inched toward a potential rulemaking that would allow the agency to regulate the use of “deliberately deceptive” generative AI in campaign ads, which have already begun to creep into the 2024 presidential campaign. — After deadlocking in June on an initial petition for rulemaking on the issue from the watchdog group Public Citizen, the commission unanimously agreed to solicit comments from the public on a revised petition from Public Citizen as to whether the FEC should move forward with a formal rulemaking. — Despite Public Citizen updating its request to better comply with the commission’s regulations, as well as an entreaty by Democrats on the Hill for the agency to try and get ahead of so-called deepfake ads, GOP Commissioner Allen Dickerson reiterated his view that the agency has no authority to do so, despite having asked Congress for greater authority to police fraud by campaigns. — Even as he welcomed “serious legal arguments in favor of our authority to act in this area,” Dickerson contended that policing the use of AI would arguably already fall under such statutory authority independent of a specific rule on the technology, but would also have to be narrowly tailored so as not to infringe on any constitutionally protected speech. — Still, today’s vote does not mean action on the issue is imminent. The public comment period on Public Citizen’s request will likely wrap up in October, after which the commission will decide whether to move forward on initiating a monthslong rulemaking process. Congressional Democrats have also introduced their own proposals related to labeling deepfake political ads in the meantime, though they are sure to face Republican opposition. MEANWHILE, IN FLORIDA: “A federal judge on Wednesday put a permanent halt to a lobbying ban approved by voters in 2018, striking down a provision in the state constitutional amendment that bars officeholders from earning money in their private lives as lobbyists,” Mary Ellen Klas reports for the the Miami Herald. — “U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami sided with Miami-Dade County Commissioner René Garcia and Javier Fernández, the mayor of South Miami, who argued that the amendment language was too broad and poorly defined to comply with federal First Amendment protections on free speech.” — “Bloom had imposed a temporary injunction in February and her ruling on Wednesday makes it permanent. The amendment was placed on the 2018 ballot by the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission, a citizen-led group that has the power to recommend changes to the Constitution every 20 years,” and was approved with nearly 80 percent of support from voters. — While Bloom struck down the provision blocking elected officials from lobbying another government body — such as city or county governments and the federal government — she left in place a six-year ban on elected officials and appointees lobbying their former agencies — a provision that prompted several resignations within Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration earlier this year.
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