|
Delivered daily, Influence gives you a comprehensive rundown and analysis of all lobby hires and news on K Street. | | | | |  | | By Caitlin Oprysko | With help from Daniel Lippman ALPINE GROUP LOBBYIST HANGS A SHINGLE: Mike Henry has left Alpine Group after more than two decades to launch his own lobbying shop, Acorn Consulting. At least half a dozen clients for whom Henry lobbied have followed him to the new firm already, according to disclosures filed this morning, including oil giant Shell, sustainable materials company Origin Materials, ship propulsion and steering manufacturer Schottel and Louisiana’s Port of Terrebonne. PPHC LAUNCHES A NEW BRAND: Public Policy Holding Company, a partnership between D.C. lobbying firms Crossroads Strategies, Forbes Tate Partners and Alpine Group, as well as Boston-based O’Neill and Associates, public affairs firm Seven Letter and two others, has launched a new advisory company called Concordant. — Concordant is the first firm launched internally within the holding company, which until now had grown through acquisitions of existing firms. It’s helmed by Sarah Wills, formerly the executive vice president and chief corporate affairs officer at Cardinal Health and an alum of precision medicine company Tempus and GE. — The firm will aim to integrate organizational strategy and development with policy and strategic comms in an effort to better adjust to rapidly evolving markets shaped by political issues, from shifting supply chains, geopolitics and monetary policy to technology and AI and the energy transition, Wills said in an interview. — “Policy represents an inflection point or a crossroads between risk and growth for all sizes of companies, truly,” Wills argued. In conversations with corporate leaders, particularly those new to the C-suite, she added “they are looking for an integrated approach to strategy, policy, and communications,” because that broader lens “gives them more information, which gives them more control over their operating landscape.” ODD BEDFELLOWS: A broad coalition of civil society groups spanning the ideological spectrum is warning lawmakers not to slip an extension of so-called “702” surveillance authority for federal law enforcement agencies into a spending patch to keep the government open beyond this week. — In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, groups including the ACLU, Americans for Prosperity, Demand Progress, the Center for Democracy & Technology, FreedomWorks, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, PEN America and more cited reports that a Section 702 reauthorization is on tap to be included in a must-pass bill in spite of efforts on both sides of the Capitol to overhaul the new program to include new privacy guardrails. — The groups noted that even though Section 702 authority expires on Dec. 31, the federal government is operating under a contract to continue conducting surveillance until April, making an extension “unnecessary.” — “In its current form, this authority is dangerous to our liberties and our democracy, and it should not be renewed for any length of time without robust debate, an opportunity for amendment, and — ultimately — far-reaching reforms. Allowing a short-term reauthorization of Section 702 to be slipped into a must-pass bill would demonstrate a blatant disregard for the civil liberties and civil rights of the American people,” the groups wrote. Happy Monday and welcome to PI. Send tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.
| | | | GET READY FOR POLITICO’S DEFENSE SUMMIT ON 11/14: Russia’s war on Ukraine … China’s threats to Taiwan … a war in Gaza. The U.S. is under increasing pressure to deter, defend and fight in more ways — but not everyone agrees how. Join POLITICO's 3rd Annual Defense Summit on November 14 for exclusive interviews and expert discussions on global security and the U.S.'s race to bolster alliances and stay ahead of adversaries. Explore critical topics, including international conflicts, advanced technology, spending priorities and political dynamics shaping global defense strategies. Don’t miss these timely and important discussions. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | SCOTUS GETS ETHICS RULES: “The Supreme Court has adopted a formal ethics code for the first time in its history, bowing to public and congressional critics who demanded such a policy in the wake of reports about unreported luxury travel by justices and influence campaigns aimed at the court,” our Josh Gerstein reports. — “All nine justices endorsed the code released Monday. It generally tracks existing rules for lower court judges but includes some special provisions addressing the Supreme Court’s ‘unique institutional setting.’” — “The ethics policy lacks some of the teeth that some advocates and scholars have proposed as potential reforms, opting for what amounts to self-enforcement by the justices rather than allowing lower-court judges or an independent monitor to supervise compliance with the code,” and the early reviews from watchdog groups this afternoon were not great. — “Today’s so-called Supreme Court ‘Code of Conduct’ comes with no enforcement mechanism,” the Revolving Door Project’s Jeff Hauser complained, calling the rules an “unenforceable public relations document” that “serves absolutely no purpose other than to permit the media to revert to pretending that our unaccountable and unethical Supreme Court retains legitimacy.” — “Reiterating past policies that have been blatantly ignored by the justices only further proves that they aren’t up to the task of policing themselves,” End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller said in a statement, a reference to a statement from the justices accompanying the ethics rules that said they “for the most part” reflect the Court’s longstanding practice. TIKTOK PUSHES BACK ON NEW WAVE OF CRITICISM: “When congressional Republicans this month repeated their long-running calls for a nationwide ban on TikTok, they highlighted a data point they said was proof of the app’s sinister underpinnings: The number of TikTok videos with the #freepalestine hashtag is dramatically higher than those with #standwithisrael.” — “That gap, they said, offered evidence that the app, owned by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, was being used to boost propaganda and brainwash American viewers. But Facebook and Instagram, TikTok’s U.S.-based rivals, show a remarkably similar gap, their data show,” per The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell. — “The consistency of pro-Palestinian content across social networks, whether Chinese- or American-owned, undercuts an argument that has become central to the latest wave of anti-TikTok rage in Washington: that the Chinese government is manipulating TikTok’s algorithm to play up pro-Palestinian viewpoints and that the app, which has 150 million users in the United States, should be banned nationwide.” — The issue was the focus of an op-ed last week by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who leads the House Select China Committee, and became a flashpoint in Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate. New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon called on the Justice Department to force TikTok to register as a foreign agent. — But “in a blog post Monday, TikTok said it had been unfairly singled out for criticism based on ‘misinformation and mischaracterization,’ arguing that bluntly comparing video hashtag counts was a ‘severely flawed’ way to evaluate the app’s content. ‘Our recommendation algorithm doesn’t “take sides,”’ the statement said.” DOCTORS PIVOT: “Doctors’ groups don’t expect Congress to reverse Medicare payment cuts proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services earlier this month and instead are trying to limit the damage,” four people familiar with the groups’ efforts told POLITICO’s Daniel Payne. — “The best case scenario, said lobbyists for the groups granted anonymity to speak candidly, is likely the bill the Senate Finance Committee approved unanimously last week that would reduce the size of the cut to 2.15 percent.” — “‘That’s likely the best we’re going to get — if we get anything,’ one lobbyist for providers said. Even that is no guarantee, the doctors’ advocates said, given a House majority that is seeking significant spending cuts.” — “Publicly, doctors’ groups have said another reduction in reimbursement rates could push physicians to stop taking Medicare patients or even close their practices, seeing as it comes on top of a 2 percent cut in 2023 and years in which the rates have not kept pace with inflation.” — The American Medical Association, “which is meeting this week in suburban Washington, has made averting the 3.4 percent cut its foremost legislative priority.” Now, “some doctors’ groups are trying to get a provision mitigating the cuts into the continuing resolution Congress will need to pass by Nov. 17 to avoid a partial government shutdown,” a proposition House Speaker Mike Johnson hasn’t agreed to.
| | | — Firehouse Strategies has added Sarah Bartholemy as director of business development and Diego Gomez as a project director. Bartholemy previously managed client accounts at Edelman’s D.C. office and Gomez was previously with Berman and Company and Echelon Insights. — Kian Hudson has been promoted to be a partner at Barnes & Thornburg. — David Bonine is joining United as managing director/head of congressional affairs. He most recently was a special assistant to the president for legislative affairs. — Joe Bartlett is now director of federal policy at Skydio. He previously was a professional staff member for the House Armed Services GOP. — Robyn Boerstling is joining the National Marine Manufacturers Association as senior vice president of government relations. She previously was a vice president at the National Association of Manufacturers and is a DOT alum. — Todd O’Boyle is joining Chamber of Progress as senior director of tech policy, per Morning Tech. He previously directed competition, information integrity and elections for the U.S. public policy team at X, formerly known as Twitter. — Sean Lev, the legal director for Democracy Forward and previously the general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, is joining the law firm HWG LLP. — Ben Beachy is now special assistant to the president for climate policy, with a focus on the industrial sector and community investment. He previously was vice president for industrial policy at the BlueGreen Alliance. — Muriel Chase is now director of broadcast media at the White House. She previously was at Bully Pulpit Interactive.
| | Rustbelt Rosebuds (Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Summer Lee)
| | Friends of America, Inc (Super PAC) Jobs for the Valley PAC (Super PAC) Lincoln Reagan Committee (Hybrid PAC) New. Digital. Now. (Hybrid PAC) Project Liberal PAC (Hybrid PAC) RINO Hunters PAC (PAC) WaveYourFlag (Hybrid PAC) WIN MICHIGAN PAC (Hybrid PAC)
| | New Lobbying REGISTRATIONS | | Acorn Consulting: Origin Materials Acorn Consulting: Primoris Services Corporation Acorn Consulting: Schottel, Inc. Acorn Consulting: Sbt Distributors LLC Acorn Consulting: Williams & Lake, LLC Acorn Consulting: Morganza Action Coalition Acorn Consulting: Port Of Terrebonne Acorn Consulting: Shell USa, Inc. Actum I, LLC: The Palladium Group Alta Crest LLC: Genera Pr LLC Brody Group L.L.C. Public Affairs: The Barnes Global Advisors Holland & Knight LLP: The Citadel, The Military College Of South Carolina Mindset Advocacy, LLC: International Council Of Shopping Centers, Inc. Dba Icsc Mindset Advocacy, LLC: Cedar Innovation Foundation Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP: Schoeller Invest Gmbh Remitly Global, Inc.: Remitly Global, Inc. Resolute-Dc: Model Medicines
| | New Lobbying Terminations | | | Calgon Carbon Corporation: Calgon Carbon Corporation Jocelyn Hong & Associates: Manatee County Port Authority Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP: Bluefors Oy Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP: Standard General L.P.
| | | | GET A BACKSTAGE PASS TO COP28 WITH GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Get insider access to the conference that sets the tone of the global climate agenda with POLITICO's Global Playbook newsletter. Authored by Suzanne Lynch, Global Playbook delivers exclusive, daily insights and comprehensive coverage that will keep you informed about the most crucial climate summit of the year. Dive deep into the critical discussions and developments at COP28 from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12.. SUBSCRIBE NOW. | | | | | | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
