With Daniel Lippman FIRST IN PI — A FACELIFT FOR HOBART HALLAWAY & QUAYLE: Hobart Hallaway & Quayle Ventures is rebranding itself as Venture Government Strategies to try and capitalize on a surge of business over the past few years. The firm started as a one-person lobbying and consulting shop run by partner Rob Hobart, and added Ben Quayle, the former congressperson and son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, and Rashid Hallaway in 2015. Former Rep. Kevin Yoder joined in 2020. — The firm’s lobbying revenues climbed from just over $2 million in 2016 to nearly $7 million last year, and the firm is on track to blow past last year’s record in 2023, while its staff has doubled to eight since 2021. Their client roster includes notable names like LIV Golf, Altria, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Bayer, Capital One, Charter Communications and the International Franchise Association. — In an interview, Yoder said that the firm’s been able to benefit from his and Quayle’s active involvement in leading the firm and growing its business, in addition to their political insight and networks. “Ben and I like to joke that we're trying to redeem the reputation of former members of Congress,” he said. “Put[ting] your head down and working hard is not always the former member route.” — “We just see a need to have a bigger, larger presence and ability to offer greater services and capabilities to clients, and so a rebrand just kind of made sense to us,” Yoder told PI. The firm also recently moved into a larger office space above Capital Grille — and hired Cap Grille’s former maître d' — so the firm can host events and “continue to be a great access point for our clients as they engage with key policymakers,” he added. LOBBYING BY SCRUTINIZED CHINESE COMPANIES SOARS: Video app TikTok and its parent company ByteDance vaulted into the top 10 biggest lobbying spenders last quarter as Washington’s efforts to curtail the popular platform floundered. ByteDance alone dropped $3.8 million on federal lobbying from July through September, while TikTok spent another $340,000. — The $4.1 million spent by TikTok and its parent is a 68 percent increase from the previous quarter, which comprised the weeks following TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s widely panned debut on the Hill during which momentum appeared to build behind a bill that would grant the Biden administration new authority to restrict the app. — TikTok’s lobbying expenditures last quarter were also almost quadruple what the company spent during the same period last year. Only fellow tech giants Meta and Amazon spent more among corporations in Q3. — Lobbyists for ByteDance and TikTok reported outreach to the House, Senate, Executive Office of the President, and the FCC on a variety of issues last quarter, including privacy and data security, kids online safety, content moderation, the bipartisan RESTRICT Act and No TikTok on United States Devices Act. — The video platform isn’t the only popular internet company with ties to China ramping up its lobbying spending under scrutiny from Congress. SheIn, the fast fashion e-commerce juggernaut, spent $680,000 on lobbying last quarter, up from $600,000 the previous quarter and nearly triple SheIn’s lobbying spending in each of the two quarters before that. — SheIn, which retains Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and the newly renamed Venture Government Strategies, reported lobbying the House and Senate on “legislative and regulatory issues impacting the apparel industry and e-retailers” as well as general education about SheIn’s presence, operating footprint and impact on the U.S. economy, third quarter disclosures show. — Over the summer, the House Select Committee on China released a bipartisan interim report knocking the retailer and another popular fast fashion brand, Temu, over their trade practices and possible use of forced labor — allegations SheIn only recently went on the offensive to try and shake. — SheIn is also facing heat on the state level, after 16 Republican attorneys general urged SEC Chair Gary Gensler in August to require an independent investigation into its business practices ahead of a rumored initial public offering. Happy Tuesday and welcome to PI. Is Tom Emmer gonna be the one? Let me know what you think, and send along a tip while you’re at it: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. ONE INDUSTRY IN HIS CORNER: “Before Friday, the House speaker fight looked like it could be another blow to the beleaguered cryptocurrency lobby, slowing down industry-backed legislation from reaching the floor,” POLITICO’s Jasper Goodman reports. — Enter Emmer (R-Minn.), who emerged as Republicans’ nominee after five rounds of voting this morning, and who “has been Capitol Hill’s top crypto advocate for years, championing the industry well before most members of Congress took it seriously.” — “Emmer’s candidacy has opened the door to an unexpected win for crypto. It’s giving lobbyists a new reason to be hopeful amid a challenging political moment for the industry, which is being buffeted by daily headlines from the fraud trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and growing Washington scrutiny of the role digital currency may have played in financing Hamas.” — “Emmer ‘is the quintessential champion’ of crypto, said Cody Carbone, vice president of policy at the Chamber of Digital Commerce. ‘He has been the face of the industry in Washington.’” — “The former ice hockey player and coach is a bit of an unlikely crypto hero. But he has taken a lead role on the issue for much of his time in Congress, serving as co-chair of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus and introducing several digital currency bills.” — “He has been a fierce critic of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s crypto crackdown and has led work on legislation to block the Federal Reserve from launching its own digital dollar. House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), currently serving as acting speaker pro tempore, has called Emmer ‘an OG’ of the digital asset space.” TECH, LABOR GROUPS CALL FOR AI WORKER PROTECTIONS: A coalition of more than two dozen civil society, worker rights and tech advocacy groups is urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to carve out protections for workers in any bill to regulate artificial intelligence. — Schumer, who has been leading the charge in Congress to craft AI legislation, was set to huddle with industry leaders as recently as today, as policymakers scramble to get a handle on the technology’s rapid spread. — But groups including Public Citizen, Fight for the Future, the Tech Oversight Project, Accountable Tech and the Alphabet Workers Union argue top AI firms aren’t being sufficiently transparent about labor conditions for their workers and are warning that the adoption of AI by employers poses a number of potential threats to workers that lawmakers should enact protections against. — “Establishing robust protections related to workplace technology and rebalancing power between workers and employers could reorient the economy and tech innovation toward more equitable and sustainable outcomes,” the groups wrote in a letter to Schumer today, pointing to fears of worker displacement and allegations that major companies have already used AI to surveil and manage employees. To address those issues, "Congress should develop a new generation of economic policies and labor rights," the groups argued. STATES SUE META: “Forty-one states and the District of Columbia are suing Meta, alleging that the tech giant harms children by building addictive features into Instagram and Facebook,” The Washington Post’s Cristiano Lima and Naomi Nix report, in what is “the most significant effort by state enforcers to rein in the impact of social media on children’s mental health.” — “The barrage of lawsuits is the culmination of a sprawling 2021 investigation into claims that Meta contributes to mental health issues among young people. ‘Our bipartisan investigation has arrived at a solemn conclusion: Meta has been harming our children and teens, cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits,’ California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, one of the officials leading the effort, said in a statement.” — “Thirty-three states including Colorado and California are filing a joint lawsuit in federal court in the Northern District of California, while attorneys general for D.C. and eight states are filing separate complaints in federal, state or local courts.” — “The 233-page federal complaint alleges that the company engaged in a ‘scheme to exploit young users for profit’ by misleading users about its safety features and the prevalence of harmful content on its products, harvesting data from younger users and violating federal laws on children’s privacy. State officials claim that the company knowingly deployed changes to keep kids on the site to the detriment of their well-being, violating consumer protection laws.” — “Meta spokesperson Liza Crenshaw said in a statement that the company is ‘disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path.’”
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