Amazon, Adobe enlist new outside help

From: POLITICO Influence - Friday Dec 15,2023 11:12 pm

Dec 15, 2023

Presented by

With Daniel Lippman

NEW BUSINESS: Amazon has added yet another outside lobbying firm to its already extensive stable of hired guns. The tech and e-commerce giant retained Sean McLean of Origin Advocacy last month, bringing the company’s total of outside firms on retainer to 21 (not counting the dozen or so additional firms retained by Amazon’s cloud computing arm or other subsidiaries).

— McLean is a former Commerce Department liaison to former President Donald Trump’s White House, and before that served as legislative director to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), now the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee. He’s lobbying on a number of issues under the Commerce Committee’s purview, according to a disclosure filing, including data privacy, consumer protection and issues related to drones.

— And Adobe has hired Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, one of K Street’s top lobbying firms, as part of the company’s bid to shape impending regulations for artificial intelligence. The Photoshop maker has been a constant presence at high-profile events around D.C. as policymakers have scrambled to formulate a plan to regulate the disruptive technology. Adobe leaders testified on the Hill this summer about thorny AI copyright issues and met with White House chief of staff Jeff Zients and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in September.

— Reggie Babin, one of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s top aides before heading to K Street last year, will work on the account for Akin Gump, in addition to Democratic lobbyists Ed Pagano and Virgil Miller and Republican lobbyists Casey Higgins, Galen Roehl and Hans Rickhoff. Akin Gump is Adobe’s second new lobbying hire this year, after adding no new firms in the past two years.

TGIF and welcome to PI. Send lobbying tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.

A message from Electronic Payments Coalition:

Home for the Holidays? Hill staffers may be ready to dash home for the holidays, but the Durbin-Marshall bill would eliminate the airline credit card reward programs used to book 15 million flights last year and points programs used to get discounts on gas for the drive. Learn how you can take action: handsoffmyrewards.com/travel

PGA TOUR’S TAX-EXEMPT STATUS FACES A BIPARTISAN THREAT: Capitol Hill’s clamoring over the PGA Tour’s move to join forces with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league may have died down in recent months, but the push to revoke the PGA’s tax-exempt status has picked up a key Republican supporter.

— Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), a senior member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, is the co-sponsor of new legislation with fellow Ways and Means member Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) that would make professional sports leagues with more than $1 billion in annual revenues ineligible to claim the tax code’s exemption for business leagues or trade associations.

— Bills challenging pro sports leagues’ tax-exempt status in recent years have primarily attracted support from either Democrats or Republicans, with little bipartisan crossover. And proposals targeting the PGA Tour following its sudden embrace of LIV Golf, which is bankrolled by a Saudi sovereign wealth fund, have seen only Democratic support.

— “With billions of dollars in annual revenue and record profits streaming in, coupled with their looming partnership with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, why in the world should hardworking American taxpayers subsidize the PGA’s tax-exempt status?” Buchanan, a former frontrunner to chair the Ways and Means Committee, asked in a statement. “We should be supporting local charities on Main Street, not foreign-backed professional sports organizations that are not dedicated to benefitting the American people.”

— The PGA Tour is one of the largest pro sports leagues that still enjoys tax-exempt status, after the MLB and NFL voluntarily gave up their tax-exempt statuses in 2007 and 2015, respectively, according to a fact sheet put out by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) earlier this year. The NBA and MLS were never organized as tax-exempt organizations, but the NHL and LPGA also still claim tax-exempt status.

THE LATEST FEUD BETWEEN HOSPITALS, INSURERS: “Hospitals that have repeatedly chafed at Medicare Advantage insurers' denials of medical care are asking the Biden administration to hit insurers where it hurts — their bottom lines,” our Robert King reports.

— “An industry group is pressing the administration to give poor marks to plans that regularly have their denials of medical care overturned on appeal. These federal grades — known as star ratings, with five being the highest — are critical for insurers because millions of people rely on them when selecting a plan. Should the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services agree, it could impact billions of dollars in revenue for plans and hospitals.”

— “The lobbying effort is the latest salvo in a spiraling brawl between hospitals and insurers and comes as more than a dozen health systems across the country no longer accept Medicare Advantage plans, the popular private insurance alternative to traditional Medicare that enrolls more than 30 million Americans.”

— “Insurers counter that they are a bulwark against physicians providing unneeded care. ‘Left to their own devices a lot of health systems and health professionals actually over-order and overuse unnecessary tests,’ said Sachin Jain, president and CEO of the nonprofit Medicare Advantage plan SCAN Health. But under Medicare Advantage, ‘they no longer have a blank check from their Medicare patients to do whatever they please.’”

THE NEXT FRONTIER OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE CAMPAIGNS: “A Russian propaganda campaign involving thousands of fake accounts on TikTok spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine has been uncovered by the BBC,” the outlet’s Olga Robinson, Adam Robinson and Shayan Sardarizadeh report.

— “Its videos routinely attract millions of views and have the apparent aim of undermining Western support. Users in several European countries have been subjected to false claims that senior Ukrainian officials and their relatives bought luxury cars or villas abroad after Russia's invasion in February 2022.”

— “The fake TikTok videos played a part in the dismissal last September of Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, according to his daughter Anastasiya Shteinhauz. The BBC has uncovered nearly 800 fake accounts since July. TikTok says it was already investigating the issue and says it has taken down more than 12,000 fake accounts originating in Russia.”

— “Using a combination of hashtag searches and TikTok's own recommendations, BBC Verify was able to trace hundreds of similar videos targeting dozens of Ukrainian officials. The accounts that posted them used stolen profile pictures, including those of celebrities like Scarlett Johansson, Emma Watson and Colin Farrell.”

— “With only a handful of exceptions, they posted just one video each — a tactic TikTok says is new and aimed at evading detection and manipulating the platform's system for recommending videos to users.”

A message from Electronic Payments Coalition:

SPOTTED on Mindset’s rooftop last night for its annual holiday party, per a tipster: Langston Emerson, Chris Brown, Lisa Peto, Jeb Mason, King Mueller, Brant Imperatore and Rick Dearborn of Mindset, Jen Flitton and Andy Blocker of Invesco, Erica Miles of Wells Fargo, Sam Hodas and Kelsey Wiseman of Nuveen, Ryan Eaton of Rocket Mortgage, Judd Smith of Amazon Web Services, Yana Miles and Greg Thomas of Primerica, Annie Webb of Nationwide, Nick Sanders of CNA Insurance, Kara Adame of Protective Life and Brian Peters of Stripe.

— And at a holiday reception at Sonoma hosted by the Tobacco Harm Reduction Community, per a tipster: Gabriella Boffelli of Rep. Jenniffer González-Colón’s (R-P.R.) office, Tim Costa of Rep. Dan Meuser’s (R-Pa.) office, Jeyben Castro of the House Office of Diversity of Inclusion, Erin Fleck of Sen. Thom Tillis’ (R-N.C.) office, Dee Buchanan, Jerome Murray and Jenn Dalby of Ogilvy, Emily Benavides of Benavides Strategies, Ebony Simpson of Stewart Strategies, Clifton Williams of Taft Law and Zachary Paulson, Moyer McCoy and Diego Zambrano of PMI.

— And ROKK Solutions’ held its annual "ROKK the Halls" holiday party at Yardbird, per a tipster: Erica Richardson of the Investment Company Institute, Lisa Hanna of Delta Air Lines, Mimi Braniff of ExxonMobil, Wells Ellenberg and Olivia Fahrmann of Southern Company, Aleis Stokes of the Independent Community Bankers of America, Stephanie Polis of the Plastics Industries Association, Anu Rangappa of Monumental Sports, Jeremy Wilson-Simerman of McDonald’s, Neil Grace of McKinsey, Jonathan Kott of Capitol Counsel, Erin Flior of Unity Health, Kasper Zeuthen of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Emily Loeb of Jenner Block; Frank Coleman of Frank Coleman Strategies, Cole Rojewski of RBW Group; Steve Rochlin of Impact ROI, James Davis of Touchdown Strategies, Sara Bonjean of Rose Strategies and Ron Bonjean, Rodell Mollineau and Kristen Hawn of ROKK Solutions.

POLITICO AT CES® 2024: We are going ALL On at CES 2024 with a special edition of the POLITICO Digital Future Daily newsletter. The CES-focused newsletter will take you inside the most powerful tech event in the world, featuring revolutionary products that cut across verticals, and insights from industry leaders that are shaping the future of innovation. The newsletter runs from Jan. 9-12 and will focus on the public policy-related aspects of the gathering. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage of the show.

Jobs Report

— Common Cause named Virginia Kase Solomón as its next president and CEO. She’s currently CEO of the League of Women Voters and will start her new role in February.

— Sidley Austin has promoted 29 attorneys to partner, including Laura Collins, Jacquelyn Fradette, Krista Kay Lewis, Ray Mangum, Jack Raffetto and Andrew Sioson in the D.C. office.

— Beth Collins is joining Walmart as senior vice president and chief counsel for regulatory and specialty legal. She was previously general counsel for the WWE and is a Caterpillar, U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and Boeing alum. Walmart also promoted Julie Kass to vice president and chief counsel for health and wellness.

— Catherine Crane has joined DDC as vice president of PAC compliance. She was previously an associate at Sutton Law Firm and is an Aristotle alum.

— Candace Moore has joined Race Forward as a senior strategic adviser. She was most recently chief equity officer for the city of Chicago.

— Delve has promoted Kyle Huwa to research manager, Alex Carpenter to lead analyst on the energy team and Kennedy Atkins to senior research analyst on the custom research team.

— Amy Mmagu has joined Schneider Electric to help lead government relations in California. She previously served as the California government affairs director at Newlight Technologies.

— Jocelynne Simbana is now a senior associate at the Dewey Square Group’s Latinovations practice. She most recently was an associate at SKDK.

— Karen Donfried and Michael Fuchs have joined WestExec Advisors as senior advisers. Donfried is currently a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and is a State alum. Fuchs is a special adviser at the Open Society Foundations and is a Biden White House and Vice President Kamala Harris alum.

— Boeing named Brian Moran as chief sustainability officer and Chris Raymond as president and chief executive officer of Boeing Global Services.

— The Biden reelect has hired Sara Schreiber as chief of staff, POLITICO’s Elena Schneider scooped. She most recently led the progressive nonprofit America Votes.

— Tommy Beaudreau is joining Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy as a distinguished visiting fellow. He is also serving as co-chair of WilmerHale’s energy, environment and natural resources practice and was previously deputy Interior secretary.

A message from Electronic Payments Coalition:

Congress: Don’t Make it Harder for Americans to Travel Home for the Holidays: The Durbin-Marshall credit card bill would eliminate funding for popular rewards programs, which help you go home for the holidays or take a much-needed vacation. Last year, credit card airline rewards were responsible for 15 million flights and generate nearly $44 billion in spending with travel-related businesses. In fact, 79% of U.S. cardholders will use rewards for gifts, travel or hosting family this holiday season. Learn how you can take action: handsoffmyrewards.com/travel

New Joint Fundraisers

Hertel Victory Fund (Hertel for Michigan, Michigan Democratic State Central Committee)

Josh Riley Victory Fund (Josh Riley for Congress, New York State Democratic Committee)

Scholten Victory Fund (Rep. Hillary Scholten, Michigan Democratic State Central Committee)

Vallejo Victory Fund (Michelle Vallejo for Congress, Texas Democratic Party)

New PACs

AMERICA FIRST NORTH CAROLINA (Super PAC)

Democratic Majority PAC (2024) (Super PAC)

Denton Congressional Exploratory Committee (PAC)

Imperialist Party (Super PAC)

Montana Outdoor Voters PAC (MOVPAC) (PAC)

Muslims United PAC (PAC)

SUBSCRIBE TO CALIFORNIA CLIMATE: Climate change isn’t just about the weather. It's also about how we do business and create new policies, especially in California. So we have something cool for you: A brand-new California Climate newsletter. It's not just climate or science chat, it's your daily cheat sheet to understanding how the legislative landscape around climate change is shaking up industries across the Golden State. Subscribe now to California Climate to keep up with the changes.

New Lobbying REGISTRATIONS

Clark Hill Public Strategies LLC: Caliber Holdings LLC

Dinino Associates, LLC: Cornerstone Government Affairs Obo Heliogen Holdings, Inc.

Donovan Strategies LLC: Teradyne Inc.

Foley Hoag LLP: Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Jeffrey J. Kimbell And Associates: Scpharmaceuticals, Inc.

Kaplan Kirsch & Rockwell LLP: City Of Ontario

Luke Holding, Inc.: Luke Holding, Inc.

Mehlman Consulting, Inc.: Arizona State University

Mercury Public Affairs, LLC: Delfi Labs

Navy Federal Credit Union: Navy Federal Credit Union

Origin Advocacy LLC: Amazon.com