STAFF
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see Staffer tag
Steven Law poster boy(got beat on strange/moore?)
neglected, see revolving door tag and node
see also incubator doh KOCHADEMIA GMU LAW AND ECONOMY
FCC on NN 2 of 3 ex-staffer (one liar pai)
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GGL 6 26
Staff Pipelines: The Koch apparatus acts as a political training ground, with many former staffers and network leaders moving into senior roles on Capitol Hill (such as the Senate Finance Committee) and inside presidential administrations. [1] SLUDGE KOTCH?
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https://kpfa.org/episode/against-the-grain-october-2-2017/
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When the Senate Worked for Us
The Invisible Role of Staffers in Countering Corporate Lobbies
Author(s): Michael Pertschuk
Every politically sentient American knows that Congress has been dominated by special interests, and many people do not remember a time when Congress legislated in the public interest. In the 1960s and '70s, however, lobbyists were aggressive but were countered by progressive senators and representatives, as several books have documented.
What has remained untold is the major behind-the-scenes contribution of entrepreneurial Congressional staff, who planted the seeds of public interest bills in their bosses' minds and maneuvered to counteract the influence of lobbyists to pass laws in consumer protection, public health, and other policy arenas crying out for effective government regulation. They infuriated Nixon's advisor, John Ehrlichman, who called them "bumblebees," a name they wore as a badge of honor.
interview:
https://kpfa.org/episode/patriotic-millionairescongress-workingtrump-vs-nfl/
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https://dirtydeputies.org/
https://thinkprogress.org/dirty-deputies-fill-trump-administration-9e78a260e62b/
The Trump administration has recruited officials to fill its top energy and environmental staff positions from fossil fuel lobbying groups, Koch brothers-funded think tanks, and climate-denying lawmakers’ offices, according to a new database from the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Launched Monday, the project tracks political appointments to energy and environment positions and their past affiliations. Of the more than 100 political staff working on energy and environmental issues, close to one-third have ties to the fossil fuel industry and petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch, according to the tracker.
Their industry ties often put them at odds with the stated missions of their agencies, especially for appointees working to address air and water pollution and protect federal lands, raising questions about the policy goals of their bosses?—?Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Influx of anti-regulation political appointees turns EPA’s mission on its head
Trump’s EPA viewed as most anti-environment in a generation.
“These staffers are tasked with making decisions about the air we breathe and water we drink, yet many of them have worked for industries and organizations that have been fighting for years to undo environmental protections and prolong the life of dirty energy,” Erin Auel, research associate for the Center for American Progress Action Fund, said in a statement. ThinkProgress is an editorially independent news site housed within the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
The website, DirtyDeputies.org, will maintain a running list of political appointees for energy and environment and their previous employers. It will allow users to sort the political appointees by their special interest affiliations. The public is invited to submit tips on any of the appointees or new staff who have been hired.
“It’s not surprising that the Trump administration is the next stop on the career paths of old hands in the big oil, Koch, and climate denial networks,” Kevin Connor, director of the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit group that researches business and government corruption, said in an email to ThinkProgress. “This kind of capture of the federal regulatory apparatus is something they’ve been preparing for, and something that will have real consequences for public health and the environment, as we’ve seen play out on the state level.”
“This kind of capture of the federal regulatory apparatus… will have real consequences.”
Given the backgrounds of the officials filling these high-level positions, “we should be prepared for them to be particularly extreme in their abdication of responsibility to the public, in favor of their masters in polluting industries,” Connor warned.
David Bernhardt, one of political appointees listed in the Dirty Deputies tracker, is awaiting confirmation by the full Senate to become the second-highest ranking official at the Department of the Interior. Bernhardt, who runs the natural resources department at lobbying and law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, has spent the last several years working on behalf of oil and gas companies and large agribusiness to weaken environmental protections.
“A vote for Bernhardt is a vote for the Koch brothers and big industry and a vote against public lands, people and health,” Randi Spivak, public lands program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.
Doug Matheney now works as a top assistant to Perry after previously serving as the state coordinator for the Count on Coal initiative. He also worked as a coordinator for the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity.
The database also lists Mandy Gunasekara, who joined Pruitt’s staff at the EPA in March as a top adviser. Gunasekara worked as the National Association of Chemical Distributors’ senior director of legislative affairs where she lobbied for reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act. She also previously worked as a staffer for Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a position in which she handed a snowball to Inhofe on the Senate floor. The Republican senator argued the existence of the snowball in winter disproved global warming.
Matt Kasper, research director at the Energy & Policy Institute, emphasized that the Trump administration’s appointed staffers now represent the mainstream of Republican ideology. “The Republican Party has adopted positions that deny the science behind climate change, wants to gut the EPA in order to prevent it from carrying out its mission, and prevent further air and water safeguards,” Kasper told ThinkProgress.
According to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the tracker will help increase transparency of the political appointees who are “pulling the strings on Trump’s dirty energy agenda.”
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obama staffers subnational:
Former Obama administration environmental staffers are preparing for combat against the officials in their former jobs.
President Trump's victory in November threw many Obama aides out of jobs and dramatically changed career prospects for those hoping to work on energy policy in a Hillary Clinton administration. Now, as they prepare to fight Trump's environmental agenda for the next four years, many former Obama staffers are flocking to new gigs on Capitol Hill and in state governments.
E&E SERIES
People to Watch 2017 logo
E&E News rounds up key players on energy and environmental policy. Click here to view the series.
Since taking office in January, Trump has made rolling back President Obama's environmental agenda central to his policy goals. Last week, Trump issued a sweeping executive order that knocked down some of Obama's most significant actions on climate change.
And the left, forced to rewrite its playbook, is increasingly looking to state leaders and members of Congress to play defense.
Democrats' multipronged approach to fighting Trump from outside the executive branch includes states attorneys general banding together to fight the administration in court (Greenwire, March 1), lawmakers beefing up their oversight on Capitol Hill and state officials aiming to advance aggressive environmental policies despite a retreat by the federal government.
"[T]he political power that can make the biggest difference resides with the governors, mayors and other elected officials who can pick up the climate-change mantle abandoned by the Trump administration and help the United States lead by example," John Podesta, who was chairman of Clinton's presidential campaign and Obama's top environmental adviser, wrote in a recent op-ed in The Washington Post.
"Working together, these leaders can serve as a powerful counterbalance to the lack of climate policy ambition that the Trump administration is demonstrating at the national and international levels."
'Gravitating toward states'
A spate of former Obama officials have landed in state government gigs since leaving the administration.
"It's not surprising that a lot of folks are gravitating toward states," said Ali Zaidi, a former energy official in the Obama White House who's now a senior adviser at Morrison & Foerster LLP.
Those jobs are attractive to Obama energy staffers because "it's an opportunity to ensure that some of the actions being contemplated and undertaken by this administration don't have the impact that the rhetoric would suggest that they might," Zaidi said.
Liz Purchia, who was a U.S. EPA communications aide under Obama, said work in the states will be similar to what happened under the George W. Bush administration, when California and a consortium of Northeastern states advanced their own aggressive climate change policies.
John Blair
John Blair. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.
"There will be exponentially more than that happening at the state and local level now that the threats of climate change are better understood and more severe," said Purchia, who recently helped launch a communications firm that's been countering the Trump administration through messaging.
In New Mexico, former Interior Department official John Blair was named deputy secretary of state late last year. Blair was Interior's director of intergovernmental and external affairs after working in the House for Democratic Reps. Dan Kildee of Michigan and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. Even though the governor of New Mexico, Susana Martinez, is a Republican, Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver is a Democrat who was elected independently.
Former energy and transportation aide Shoshana Lew started this week as chief operating officer at the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, the agency announced. Lew was chief financial officer and a deputy assistant secretary at the Transportation Department under Obama; she was also a senior adviser at the Interior Department and a White House energy and climate adviser.
Shoshana Lew
Shoshana Lew. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.
In Montana, former Obama aide Patrick Holmes was appointed natural resource policy adviser to Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock in January. Holmes worked at the Agriculture Department under Obama as chief of staff to the undersecretary for natural resources and environment.
Shara Mohtadi has joined the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority as a senior adviser. She previously worked on energy and natural resources in the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Brad Crowell, who was the Energy Department's top congressional liaison, was appointed director of Nevada's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources last year by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval. Crowell's hire came prior to the November presidential election.
Oversight on Capitol Hill
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill are packing their offices with former Obama energy aides as they prepare for four years of Trump administration oversight.
For example, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the new ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has hired alumni of the Obama EPA for key committee posts.
They include Joe Goffman, who was the lead attorney in EPA's air office and one of the chief architects of the Obama administration's air rules. Goffman is now chief counsel on Carper's EPW Committee staff, according to the congressional database LegiStorm.
Another recent Carper hire is Christophe Tulou, who was senior adviser to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on the Chesapeake Bay. Tulou is now the EPW Committee's minority chief counsel, according to LegiStorm.
Other former veterans from the Obama EPA, White House and other federal agencies are also landing energy policy jobs on Capitol Hill.
Kristina Costa, who worked on the Clinton campaign and as an aide to Podesta in the White House, is now a legislative assistant for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Jon Monger, who was a policy adviser in EPA's transportation and air quality office, has started as Democratic counsel on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, according to LegiStorm.
Trent Bauserman
Trent Bauserman. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.
Former leader of EPA's congressional and intergovernmental relations shop Nichole Distefano has been hired as legislative director for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).
Will Niebling, former senior adviser for congressional and international affairs at EPA, is now legislative counsel for Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). Prior to joining EPA, Niebling worked for then-Delaware Democratic Sens. Ted Kaufman and Joe Biden.
Trent Bauserman, who worked at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and as Obama's legislative affairs liaison to the House, is now a senior policy adviser to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). He's taken on the energy and environmental portfolio previously held by Mary Frances Repko, who recently moved over to Carper's EPW office. Bauserman was formerly an energy policy adviser to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.).
For Bauserman and other Capitol Hill veterans, "it was a natural fit to go right back" after the Obama administration left office, he said.
Candace Vahlsing
Candace Vahlsing. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.
With the Trump administration in the executive branch, "providing a level of oversight and accountability of the administration is certainly an important role that I think Democrats on the Hill will undertake."
Candace Vahlsing, former White House senior policy adviser for energy and climate change, has landed as a senior adviser to Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.
Former CEQ Associate Director of Legislative Affairs Stephenne Harding is now a legislative assistant for Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), according to LegiStorm.
Blake Androff, who headed communications at the Interior Department, is executive director at the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, which is charged with developing House Democrats' caucuswide messaging strategy (E&E Daily, Feb. 2).
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4/17
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-white-house-still-hasnt-released-most-staffers-financial-disclosures
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"school of delay" K street?
McConnell mafia
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not quite mcconnell mafia level density but:
staffers:
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http://desmogblog.com/2016/06/21/exxon-koch-lamar-smith-exxon-knew
U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith recently caused a ruckus by targeting environmental groups that are pushing for ExxonMobil to be held accountable for funding climate change denial despite their deep internal corporate knowledge of the role of fossil fuel pollution in global warming. Rep. Smith penned letters to several environmental groups and foundations requesting all of their communications about the ongoing “Exxon Knew” campaign.
Some of the groups and foundations have issued public responses refusing to provide the materials to Smith, who heads up the U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee.
Not yet reported, though, are the extensive ties — monetary and personnel — binding Smith to the crucial corporate funders of climate denial: ExxonMobil and Koch Industries.
According to Oil Change International's Dirty Energy Money database, Smith has taken $22,270 in campaign contributions from Exxon since 1998. And OpenSecrets.org data reveals that $19,500 of the Exxon money has flowed to Smith's campaign since 2008 alone.
OpenSecrets.org data reviewed by DeSmog also shows that Smith has taken $52,000 in campaign contributions from Koch Industries — another key node of the climate denial machine — since 2006.
All told, Lamar Smith — a climate change denier — has received $675,597 from the oil and gas industry since 1998.
Koch-Exxon-Smith Revolving Door
Beyond campaign finance money, the bigger story here is the people working for Smith, both past and present.
Let's start with Jennifer Pett — Smith's communications director — who formerly served as a Charles Koch Institute media relations associate.
*Image Credit: LinkedIn
Pett transitioned from that job to work as a communications assistant for U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), whose congressional district sits in the same state as Koch Industries' headquarters. Since joining Congress in 2012, Huelskamp has received $40,900 from Koch Industries, his top campaign contributor.
Further, Lamar Smith's senior legislative aide, Scott Ferguson, went on two trips funded by the American Exploration and Production Council, one in 2014 and one in 2015. One of the Council's members is XTO Energy, the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)-focused subsidiary of ExxonMobil.
What former Smith staffers have gone on to do with their careers is also telling, emblematic of the government-industry revolving door.
Smith's former communications director, Sally-Shannon Birkel, now serves as senior manager of media relations for the U.S.Chamber of Commerce,which is funded by both the Kochs and ExxonMobil. Karen Harbert, the president of the Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, has called the ongoing state-level Attorneys General investigation into ExxonMobil and climate denial “un-American.”
“The idea that a group of attorneys general can get together and decide to collaborate and corroborate, to persecute not just a single company now but an industry, because they are ideologically opposed to the product it produces, is un-American,” said Harbert. “It is a threat to the free enterprise system; it is a threat to the rule of law on which the free enterprise system depends; and we’re not going or stand for it.”
Another former Smith communications director, Brad Bennett, left Smith's office and eventually transitioned into gigs at both Hill and Knowlton (a PR firm with roots in tobacco industry denial tactics which did PR on behalf of America's Natural Gas Alliance, ANGA) and DCI Group, the latter of which has key Exxon ties and was subpoenaed in April by the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Attorneys General probe.
Jennifer Young Brown, Smith's senior advisor for the Science, Space, and Technology Committee and his former long-time chief-of-staff, also has a key Koch link. As a young staffer back in 2000, she attended a retreat hosted and funded by the George Mason University-based Mercatus Center. The Center for Public Integrity has described Mercatus' annual congressional staffer retreats as a key influence-peddling avenue for the Kochs' political agenda.
The Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, like DCI Group, received a subpoena from the U.S. Virgin Islands in April.
Lastly, Zachary Kurz — Smith's former communications director for the Science, Space, and Technology Committee — now works as a public affairs specialist for Cause of Action, a legal activism group funded by the Koch-linked “dark money ATM of the right,” Donors Trust.
“Campaign…Is Working”
In a blog post published on May 20, Union of Concerned Scientists president Ken Kimmell pointed to the Smith-led Science, Space, and Technology Committee letters to NGOs and their funders as a victory of sorts, a data point displaying that the campaign to hold Exxon and other companies accountable for climate denial has struck a nerve.
“The campaign to hold companies accountable is working,” wrote Kimmell. “Some fossil fuel companies and their allies are no doubt feeling pressure, and they are pushing back. I would hate to think that the House Science Committee is using its governmental powers in aid of this effort. But whatever the motive for the letter, UCS will not be intimidated.”
Given the ties linking Smith's political career to the very companies who have perpetuated and bolstered the climate denial machine like Koch and Exxon, it's safe to say that indeed as Kimmell hinted at, “the House Science Committee is using its governmental powers in aid of this effort.”
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FTI consult
all have same sr title, nearly all ex staffers, one boehner
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poster boy staffer?
steven law
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/head-of-crossroads-gps-once-a-mcconnell-aide-now-his-political-ally/2012/10/30/9f17ea2a-1329-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html
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enforcers
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-business/wp/2014/11/23/republican-staffers-turned-lobbyists-are-poised-to-gain-better-access-to-leadership/
This month’s midterm elections cemented a party turnover in the Senate, giving Republicans control over key committees expected to shape tax reform, banking regulations, patent laws and other issues that businesses will be closely tracking in the new Congress.
On K Street, the change is shifting momentum away from lobbyists with ties to outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) — who have been in demand the past eight years — and toward those with connections to incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“I’ve worked on the Hill and off the Hill, in the majority and the minority. No one would disagree that being in the majority is a lot better,” said Hunter Bates, a Republican lobbyist at Republic Consulting and McConnell’s chief of staff from 1997 to 2002. “It’s always better to be in the party that is setting the legislative agenda, not simply to be responding to the agenda. It’s always better to be on offense than defense.”
Contract lobbyists who were once part of McConnell’s senior staff have insights that are invaluable to the businesses that hire them. They know how he thinks and how his staff operates, and can relay that to clients seeking to influence policy decisions.
Below is a snapshot of the network of former Hill staffers — chiefs of staff, policy advisers and other aides for McConnell and other lawmakers now slated to become the next power brokers in the House and Senate. These former staffers who have since left for lobbying jobs are now poised to gain greater access to Republican leadership and influential committees on behalf of their clients and firms. (Based on data from Center for Responsive Politics and Legistorm.)
SENATE LEADERSHIP
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R- Ky.) (
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), next Senate majority leader
Hunter Bates, chief of staff, 1997-2002, now at Republic Consulting
Jon Deuser, legislative aide, 1987-89, now senior vice president at Smith-Free Group
Megan Hauck, senior health policy adviser, 2009-11, now at Nathanson & Hauck
Rohit Kumar, domestic policy director and deputy chief of staff, 2007-13, now at PWC
Malloy McDaniel, policy adviser, 2003-10, now at Blank Rome Government Relations
Janet Mullins Grissom, chief of staff, 1985-89, now at Peck Madigan Jones
Billy Piper, chief of staff, 2002-11, now senior vice president at Fierce Isakowitz & Blalock
Kyle Simmons, chief of staff, 2002-10, now at the Simmons & Russell Group
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), next majority whip
Matthew Johnson, counsel and chief counsel, 2005-2013, now at McBee Strategic
Emily Dillard, health care legislative aide, 2007-11, now at Squire Patton Boggs
James McGee, regional director, 2003-05, now at Huawei Technologies
Elizabeth O’Neal, staff assistant, 2007-08, now at Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) ( Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, which will hold confirmation hearings for Loretta Lynch, Obama’s nominee to replace Attorney General Eric Holder
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), expected to become the next chairman
Ken Cunningham, chief of staff and general counsel, 1981-2006, now at Ken Cunningham Group
Chris Javens, tax counsel, 2005-08, now at Capitol Tax Partners
Nancy Ellen McCarthy, tax counsel, 2007-08, now at Amgen
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE, which is expected to influence a comprehensive tax reform measure
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), expected to become the next chairman
Jared Brown, policy adviser, 1996-2013, president of ThinkPolicyConsulting
Weston Coulam, legislative assistant, 1993-98, now at Ernst & Young Washington Council
Patricia Deloatche, health policy director, 1999-2010, now at Sidley Austin
Jace Johnson, legislative director and chief of staff, 2002-10, now vice president of government relations at Adobe Systems
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) with Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowsk/Getty Images.)
SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE, which has authority over banking regulations and could roll back some rules put in place by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the likely next chairman.
G. Stewart Hall, legislative director, 1992-96, now chairman of Crossroads Strategies
Phil Rivers, legislative director and chief of staff, 2002-04, now director of government relations at the University of North Alabama
Ryan Welch, legislative director, 2002-07, now a senior VP at Forbes-Tate
Ray Cole, state director and district representative, 1993-99, now at Arotech
Rep. Paul Ryan, (R-Wisc.) (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE,where any tax reform bill would originate
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the next chairman
Brendon Weiss, aide, 2001, now at Intercontinental Exchange
Paul Eiting, legislative correspondent, 2002-06, at America’s Health Insurance Plans
Rep. Darrell Issa, (R-Calif.)(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND THE INTERNET, which will be in charge of patent reform, and thus a key body for tech lobbyists in particular to hone in on
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), expected to become next chairman
Mark Joseph Anderson, legislative di rector, 2001-03, now at Kelley Drye & Warren
Laurent Crenshaw, legislative director, 2005-13, now at Yelp
Jason Scism, legislative director, 2009-10 now at Blackberry
Catherine Ho covers lobbying at The Washington Post. She previously worked at the LA Daily Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Detroit Free Press, the Wichita Eagle and the San Mateo County Times.
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Mitch McConnell at War
By Jonathan Strong Mitch McConnell at War
by Jonathan Strong November 8, 20134:00 AM
The tough and wily leader is entering the toughest primary challenge of his career. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell likes to say, “If someone flicks a pebble at you, you hurl a boulder back at him.” His political team is just as emphatic. Some Republicans in Kentucky who flirted with working for his primary opponent, Matt Bevin, were told by the McConnell allies that they would get the “death penalty.” Another frequent warning: “Mitch McConnell doesn’t take prisoners.” McConnell’s team “shoots the wounded on the battlefield as a matter of course,” says University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato. A former GOP leadership aide who has seen the McConnell operation up close sounds terrified. “They’re all killers,” he says, without a trace of humor in his voice. “These are not guys to be trifled with. They are burn it down, p*** on it, then blow it up kind of guys.” And it’s not a secret.
The New York Times reported that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) was blacklisting a GOP ad firm, Jamestown Associates, for working with the Senate Conservative Fund (SCF), which is helping Bevin. Privately, McConnell aides acknowledge that it was McConnell who had Jamestown blacklisted for cutting ads that the SCF ran in Kentucky. McConnell’s former chief of staff, Josh Holmes, spoke to the Times, offering a dark analogy: “The SCF has been wandering around the country destroying the Republican Party like a drunk who tears up every bar they walk into. The difference this cycle is that they strolled into Mitch McConnell’s bar, and he doesn’t throw you out, he locks the door.” Holmes, who is now heading McConnell’s campaign committee, later confirmed on Twitter that his quote alluded to a scene in A Bronx Tale in which a group of mafiosos savagely beat members of a biker gang who vandalized their bar — a scene as violent as any in the movies. In blacklisting Jamestown, McConnell has opened up a new front in what has become an open war between McConnell and Holmes, on the one side, and Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint and SCF executive director Matt Hoskins on the other.
Freshly re-provisioned from millions of dollars in donations that flooded in during the government-shutdown episode, Hoskins, a former DeMint aide, invaded enemy territory October 18 when he decided to back Bevin. For McConnell, this is the direst threat of his career, as he’s now in a two-front war, with Bevin on one flank and Democratic challenger Allison Lundergan Grimes on the other. The wily incumbent is upping the ante, casting the fight as a battle for the future of the Republican party. “This is an election where you are choosing sides,” says former McConnell chief of staff Billy Piper, now a lobbyist at Fierce, Isakowitz, and Blalock. “We’re finding out where people are. This is not just about the May 2014 primary. This is about the future of the party. Do we want to get to 51 — and, we hope, 55 over time? Or do we want to have 25–30 guys in the Senate who we think are going to be reliably conservative no matter what but who are never able to achieve anything other than drafting a strongly worded white paper?” Hard-charging Hoskins is undaunted. “Mitch McConnell is doing this because he can’t defend his record and running dirty campaigns is all he knows how to do,” he says. McConnell has often exercised power in D.C. by pressuring major donors to withhold donations from a given lawmaker or organization.
His allies on K Street are often the people who deliver this message and “enforce” it.SCF is receiving most of its donations from a large number of individuals who send in small-dollar amounts. McConnell can’t easily pressure these grassroots donors — they aren’t professional politicians and they’re far from D.C. But the blacklisting of Jamestown has deeply unsettled people involved in the behind-the-scenes machinery of GOP politics. Senator John Cornyn of Texas also canceled a small contract with the firm, which produces political television ads for a wide array of GOP candidates, including many moderates. Cornyn has sought to distance himself from this action, though. “I’m not involved,” he told me. The scope of the blacklisting is probably limited to Jamestown, which pitched the NRSC on new business even while its anti-McConnell ads were on the air in Kentucky. But the blacklisting has sent a message that seems to be getting out loud and clear. Several other Republican ad firms privately told NRSC officials that they now “understand the rules,” sources say. For now, Jamestown is sticking with the SCF. McConnell’s scorched-earth tactics are making life difficult for Bevin.
A number of Kentucky Republicans both inside and outside his campaign describe McConnell’s team as the campaign equivalent of the NSA — it instantly finds out about anything that happens. Bevin-campaign spokeswoman Rachel Semmel, for instance, had accompanied Bevin to the Fox News studios before she announced she would be going to work for him. A McConnell spy in the green room promptly leaked news of her decision to the Daily Caller. Bevin’s top consultant, Mark Harris of Cold Spark Media, came under incredible pressure back when McConnell operatives discovered he was considering joining the campaign this spring. A far-reaching group of professional acquaintances initially tried to intervene with Harris, walking through the history of corpses, Republican and Democratic, that McConnell had left in his wake. In a second phase, several McConnell emissaries suggested that Harris would find lucrative work elsewhere if he dropped the campaign. A third phase comprised even more strident threats from McConnell allies, who warned Harris that his career would be over if he worked for Bevin’s campaign. For Harris, the final indignity was when lobbyist Alex Urrea of CSA Strategies found Harris’s father at a Pittsburgh golf course and sternly recommended that he talk his son out of committing career suicide. (Reached by phone, Urrea declined to comment.) McConnell built the modern Kentucky Republican party, and it now serves as an arm of his campaign, Republicans there say. His network reaches into “the hollers”: It’s not unusual for local Republicans who show up at a Bevin event to receive a phone call and a talking-to about being a “team player.” McConnell’s network in D.C. is just as extensive.
He first worked on the Hill in 1967, and dozens of his former aides occupy top slots in a variety of D.C. businesses. Insiders list Billy Piper, American Crossroads’ Steven Law, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Scott Reed, lobbyist Hunter Bates, and public-relations guru Scott Jennings as top outside McConnell supporters, with Holmes and former Rand Paul hand Jesse Benton coordinating the efforts with the campaign. In politics as elsewhere, the mind-set of the office tends to trickle down from the top, and that’s the case here. McConnell relishes the fight. He came of political age when Democrats completely dominated Kentucky politics, and they weren’t nice about it. Brawling was a useful skill. In 2009, McConnell slowly strangled the Senate career of his home-state colleague Senator Jim Bunning. Fearing Bunning was too weak to win, McConnnell’s team leaned on people not to donate money to the incumbent senator, which dried up his financial base. The move was supposed to pave the way for McConnell protégé Trey Grayson. As we now know, Senator Rand Paul intervened, rocking the Kentucky establishment and beating Grayson — and proving that the McConnell machine could be beaten. McConnell adapted, cannily working to bring Paul into his fold, and now Jesse Benton, Paul’s former campaign manager, is a top McConnell soldier. For all these reasons,McConnell is by far the most formidable adversary to take on DeMint, Hoskins, and the outside conservative groups that have quickly risen to prominence since the emergence of the Tea Party in 2010. In the House, SCF and Heritage Action have run roughshod over Speaker John Boehner, a leader who lacks McConnell’s mean streak. And they’ve been picking off weak moderates for years, striking fear in Republicans. The question of the upcoming primary season is, Will Hoskins and DeMint be able to handle Mitch’s “killers”? — Jonathan Strong is a political reporter for National Review
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/363459/mitch-mcconnell-war-jonathan-strong
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hse sci comm 11/14 huffpo B johnson
...
Examples of the revolving door abound: former chief counsel Margaret Caravelli had joined the committee from the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association; she is now on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee staff. Dan Byers, the Energy and Environment Subcommittee staff director, went to the U.S. Chamberof Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy Institute, its fossil-industry lobbying wing. Before Smith became committee chair, Environment Subcommittee staffer Clinton Woods came from the energy task force of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, where he helped the American Gas Association draft a report on “EPA’s hostility to fossil fuels.”
The committee's majority is now also home to a new generation of lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry. After the Energy and Environment subcommittee was split into two, it gained two new staff directors, Stephen Sayle for Energy and Allyne Todd Johnston for Environment. Given their backgrounds, the subcommittees could more appropriately be named Fracking and Coal.
Sayle is a prominent fossil-industry lobbyist who got his start with Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas). In the 1990s, he was the chief counsel for Barton’s investigations into EPA fine particle air quality rules. While a top lobbyist at the Dutko and Dow Lohnes lobbying shops, Sayle’s clients included a cavalcade of oil, gas, and coal companies and front groups: Duke Energy, Cinergy, Chevron, Iroquois Gas, National Grid, Calpine, ITC, Tenaska, PSEG, Tesoro, the American Chemical Council, the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, and the Electric Power Supply Association. (Sayle also represented the Environmental Working Group, an environmental health research and advocacy group, on toxic-chemical regulation in 2010.) Sayle was one of The Hill’s top lobbyists of 2012 for his “background on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.”
Sayle’s return to the committee is somewhat surprising –- the energy subcommittee primarily has jurisdiction over the Department of Energy science labs, which focus on nuclear research, advanced biofuels, battery technology, and climate research -– not well aligned with Sayle’s focus on natural-gas and petrochemical lobbying.
However, the explosive growth of fracking in the nation in the past decade has raised serious new scientific questions about the risks and benefits of this formerly obscure method of extracting natural gas. How the federal government responds to scientific evidence of fracking’s threat to water supplies and our climate is a multi-billion-dollar question. That Republicans would add a fracking lobbyist to the House Science Committee is hardly surprising: Obama’s new Secretary of Energy is Ernest Moniz, a natural-gas-industry-funded scientist expected to steer the agency towards supporting oil and gas development.
Johnston came to the House Science Committee in 2013 from the staff of Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), where he was the chief climate policy advisor for the senator, a climate-science conspiracy theorist. Prior to that, Johnston was the Director of Air Quality for the coal industry’s primary trade group, the National Mining Association, from 2005 to 2007. During his tenure, he worked as a representative of the “Coarse Particle Coalition,” a group of gravel, cement and minerals groups that aimed to block scientifically backed soot standards during the George W. Bush administration.
Johnston then joined Sen. George Voinovich’s (R-Ohio) staff, drafting climate legislation in 2007 that supported a continued increase in greenhouse pollution and massive subsidies for the coal industry. In 2011 he moved to Inhofe’sstaff, replacing Tom Hassenboehler when that operative moved over to America’s Natural Gas Alliance.
Johnston and Sayle declined comment for this story. According to committee Republican press aide Zachary Kurz, thecommittee has a policy of not making staffers available for public comment.
Environmentalists say industry groups are taking advantage of the key staff placements to help drive their plans.
“Industrial polluters are using the back rooms of Congress in this traditionally sleepy committee to assert an extreme corporate agenda,” clean-air advocate John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council argued in a telephone interview. “If you connect the dots, the agenda is to systematically bias the system, whether by weakening conflict of interest standards when corporations serve on scientific advisory bodies or thwarting regulations that address industrial pollution.”
The ties between the committee's Republicans and oil, gas and coal groups run deeper than staffing, of course. Press accounts in recent years have noted that fossil fuel interests have donated large amounts to Republicans on the House Science Committee.
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jim h
My dictionary defines a "staff" as a walking stick, used either for balance – or as a weapon.
So how are today's congressional staffs used? At one time, they were behind-the-scenes people hired to walk lawmakers through the complexities of legislation, or to help find some balance between competing viewpoints. These days, though, top staffers tend to be a specific type of high-profile operative: Corporate lobbyists.
At the urging of House Speaker John Boehner, members are bringing the K-Street lobbying crowd directly inside their offices and committees to run America's lawmaking process. There's nothing subtle about the intent – these staffs are weapons for knocking aside the public interest and advancing the narrow legislative interests of their former corporate clients. Yes, the same corporations that generously fund the campaigns of Boehner's Republican majority. Neat, huh?
As the excellent investigative digger Lee Fang recently detailed in The Nation, the conflict of interest in this hat-switching scheme is a brazen, insolent affront to our democratic ideals and to any sense of ethics. Examples abound, ranging from the new staff director of the Intelligence Committee (who comes straight from lobbying for such intelligence contractors and profiteers as General Dynamics, Boeing, and the infamous Blackwater outfit) to a leading anti-minimum wage lobbyist for retail giants like Walmart, who has now been embedded as a top staffer inside the troika of House leaders.
It's bad enough that our laws have been corrupted by unlimited corporate spending on their army of influence peddlers. But now we taxpayers have the added insult of having to foot the bill for the horde of lobbyists who've quietly been slipped inside to serve as staffers. They're not there merely to influence lawmakers, but to become the de facto, unelected Corporate Congress.
"With These Hires, Congress Becomes Even More Like a Corporation,"www.thenation.com, February 11, 2015.
http://www.thenation.com/article/197561/these-hires-congress-becomes-even-more-corporation
Until a few weeks ago, Joel Leftwich was a senior lobbyist for the largest food and beverage company in the United States. During his tenure at PepsiCo—maker of Cheetos, Lay’s potato chips and, of course, Pepsi-Cola—the company had played a leading role in efforts to beat back local soda taxes and ensure that junk food remained available in schools. But PepsiCo also faced new challenges at the federal level. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, championed by Michelle Obama, had placed new nutrition standards on school lunches. PepsiCo sent teams of lobbyists to Capitol Hill, deluged political candidates with donations, and fired off letters to regulators asking them to weaken the new rules. One such PepsiCo letter requested the redefinition of a “school day” so the company could continue to sell its sugary sports drinks at “early morning sports practices.” Leftwich, a former congressional liaison for the Department of Agriculture, was well positioned to help PepsiCo shore up its allies in the House and Senate.
Last April, Leftwich paid a visit to one such friend, Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, then chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, to thank her for opposing nutrition guidelines for food stamp purchases.
Now Leftwich will have far more access to such friends. As the newly appointed staff director of the Senate Agriculture Committee, now under GOP control, Leftwich will have wide sway over the law that funds school lunches, which is up for reauthorization this year. PepsiCo can rest easier, confident that the guidelines already in place are unlikely to be strengthened—and may be weakened instead. Leftwich’s new boss, Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, who took over the Agriculture Committee gavel in January, has set his sights on dialing back school lunch nutrition requirements, which he has called “Big Brother government that’s out of control.”
While all eyes were on the changing of the guard in Congress as Republicans seized control of the US Senate in January, there was an equally profound change taking place among Capitol Hill staff, as many GOP lawmakers handed over the keys to corporate lobbyists like Leftwich.
“We’ve seen a dramatic uptick in K Street moving into congressional staff positions since theCitizens Uniteddecision,” says Craig Holman, Public Citizen’s expert on lobbying and ethics. House Speaker John Boehner, he notes, has “encouraged new members to employ lobbyists on their personal and committee staff.”
On almost any big issue coming up for debate during the final two years of the Obama administration—surveillance, trade, healthcare, entitlements, tax reform, climate change—corporate lobbyists will now be attempting to influence their own former colleagues, whose salaries are now covered by US taxpayers.
The new staff director of the House Intelligence Committee, Jeff Shockey, comes to the Hill after working as a lobbyist for many of the country’s leading intelligence-agency contractors, including General Dynamics, Boeing and, just last year, Academi, the firm formerly known as Blackwater. The House Oversight Committee, a key investigative body, will now have a staff director named Sean McLaughlin, a former corporate lobbyist who spent the past three years as a principal at the Podesta Group. Tom Chapman, who earned compensation worth $1,531,453 in 2014 as vice president of government affairs for US Airways, will now earn considerably less as part of the counsel staff for the Senate Aviation Subcommittee, which oversees his former employer. And as Congress takes up tax reform, one of the latest hires to the Joint Committee on Taxation is Ben Gross, who spent more than a decade as international tax director for PricewaterhouseCoopers, a firm that specializes in helping corporations avoid American taxes.
* * *
Lobbyists have been hired to help the offices of the most controversial addition to the GOP leadership team, Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise, now House majority whip. Scalise came under fire in December following the revelation that as a state lawmaker, over a decade ago, he had addressed a white supremacist organization founded by former Klansman David Duke. But Scalise’s return to Capitol Hill in January was hardly dampened by the scandal. In a party at the posh Capitol Hill Club, a private meeting ground for Republicans that has been sued by its employees for alleged racial discrimination, nearly 300 lobbyists cheered the embattled lawmaker as he laid out his agenda for the coming session, according to Politico. Scalise was flanked by one of his newest staffers, Bill Hughes, formerly a lobbyist for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, a powerful trade group that has pressured lawmakers to drop efforts to raise the minimum wage.
And why not celebrate? Scalise is beloved by Washington’s army of influence-peddlers for his loyalty to the Beltway’s lobbyist elite. In his previous position as chair of the Republican Study Committee, Scalise welcomed the “K Street community” at special business-outreach events attended by representatives of such major firms as Halliburton, MasterCard, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman. The news that Scalise would move up the leadership ladder was celebrated by Koch Industries lobbyists, who threw a tony wine-tasting party featuring “pinots from Oregon and the central coast of California.” Soon after ascending to his new post, Scalise shocked many by having a registered lobbyist, John Feehery, sit in as applicants interviewed for jobs.
It is not just veteran politicians who are leaning on lobbyists. Newly elected Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, who delivered the GOP’s response to Obama’s State of the Union address, tapped Lisa Goeas, a senior official with the National Federation of Independent Business, as her chief of staff. Democrats, too—to a lesser degree—have been recruiting on K Street. Take West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is expected to join a largely Republican effort to curtail new Environmental Protection Agency regulations on carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. He just hired a new senior policy adviser for energy, John O’Donnell, who arrived at the job from working as a top lobbyist for Xcel Energy, a large utility company with thirteen coal power plants. On Xcel’s behalf, O’Donnell had lobbied to weaken EPA regulations in the last Congress.
Some K Street firms have sent multiple lobbyists through the revolving door. The new deputy staff director of the Senate Energy Committee, Colin Hayes, is a former vice president of McBee Strategic Consulting—as is Angela Becker-Dippman, just hired as staff director for committee Democrats. Becker-Dippman once represented such firms as Tesla Motors, while Hayes had lobbied for the National Mining Association and Duke Energy.
It’s hard to overestimate the influence these former lobbyists could have over lawmaking during Obama’s final years in office. Congressional staffers enjoy an outsize amount of power on Capitol Hill, doing the actual work of meeting with interest groups, helping to schedule hearings, writing lawmaker remarks—and writing legislation. Yet they often escape public scrutiny.
I visited Washington, DC, on the first day of the new business-friendly Congress to watch the wave of GOP freshmen arrive. That night, I stopped by one of the biggest welcome receptions in town, a party hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition at a Capital Grille steak house. I wasn’t allowed in, of course, not being a donor to the RJC or to any GOP candidates. But the event played host to dozens of new and returning lawmakers, along with a swarm of lobbyists and campaign contributors.
Outside the event, I approached Mark Isakowitz, one of the highest-grossing lobbyists on K Street, whom the Hill, an online news site, named a top lobbyist of 2014. As a principal at a prominent Republican government relations firm, Isakowitz has lobbied for sixteen years on a range of tax and financial issues for some of the largest companies in America. One specialty has been weakening the financial reforms passed after the 2008 economic collapse. He, too, was just tapped to serve on Capitol Hill—in his case, as chief of staff to Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio.
Though it received little attention, the very first bill passed by the new Congress and signed into law was a measure to reauthorize something called Terrorism Risk Insurance. Tucked away in that bill was a special amendment to weaken the oversight of derivative trades. Thanks to the amendment, commodity regulators are prohibited from forcing large corporations—typically oil, manufacturing and agribusinesses broadly defined as “end users”—to post collateral and margin requirements for their trades. Marcus Stanley, the policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, a group that favors strong regulations on Wall Street, says the amendment is dangerous because “losses can occur in transactions with commercial end users just as they can in any other transaction.”
The special exemption was promoted by a coalition of end users, including Honeywell, Boeing, General Electric and Koch Industries, four companies whose political action committees rank among the largest in the country. Koch, known for its oil refineries, also boasts one of the biggest derivative trading businesses in the world.
Isakowitz, according to disclosure reports, lobbied on a bill in the last Congress, S. 2102, that featured language nearly identical to that in the amendment that passed, with little debate, as part of the Terrorism Risk Insurance bill. His new boss, Senator Portman, voted to keep the derivatives amendment intact.
I tried to ask Isakowitz if any conflicts of interests would be posed by his two decades as a corporate lobbyist now that he had become a public servant. Isakowitz declined to answer, wished me a curt “Good night” and walked away.
Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, says the derivatives amendment is just one sign of how lawmaking has been captured by industry. There was no discussion of derivatives deregulation during the hotly contested midterms, nor did any candidate publicly address the issue. It was a demand made not by constituents, but by lobbyists. “The staff,” Gilbert says, “is reflective of what Congress has already begun to prioritize.”
Read Next: Lee Fang on who is paying the pro-war pundits
http://www.salon.com/2007/07/25/malkin/
this town: staff = grad school to be monetized ; not jfk as role model but jiosh lyman; bardella EHS; sent tak pts t newt; issa lost 1998 sen run lost 9m$ his own . congr pest: waxman, burton, issa.goes for max tv.jacked cars, blamed bro; bard 90K$ base salary
s collins wanted credit w/ isa for busting fema for giving 450K to acorn
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http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/02/revolving-door-works-for-staffers-too.html
he revolving door goes two ways, and it works for staffers as well as for members of Congress. The more well-traveled direction is from government to corporation, trade group or other organization, often for more money than an individual can make working for Uncle Sam.
It's less common for people to go the other way, from the private sector to government, unless they've been elected to serve on Capitol Hill. But it does happen. In fact, according to an analysis by Remapping Debate and the Center for Responsive Politics, 41 high-ranking staffers for new members of Congress came from organizations that have a lobbying presence in Washington.
Hiring a staffer with experience in lobbying can be extremely helpful for a new lawmaker who needs to quickly build connections and might be concerned about securing funds for re-election. In many cases, legislators seemed to pick like-minded staffers, or at least ones with an extensive Rolodex who might be able to advance their pet causes.
Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), for example, chose Justin Roth as his chief of staff. Roth lobbied for the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies from 2005 to 2008 and the Independent Insurance Agents of America from 2001-04. That could ensure that the insurance industry -- which was DeSantis' eighth-highest contributor in 2012 (after the "Retired" category), giving him $30,550 -- has a receptive ear in the lawmaker's office.
Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) chose Brian O'Shea as legislative director in her new office. O'Shea has worked for heavy hitter Morgan Stanley. The securities and investment industry was sixth on her list of top-contributing industries in the 2012 cycle, writing checks for $92,950.
Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), whose top donor was pro-choice EMILY's List, hired Leticia Mederos as her chief of staff. Mederos worked for the National Partnership for Women and Families in 2012.
Of the 38 freshmen who hired staffers that were connected to a corporation or group that lobbies, 18 were Republicans and 20 were Democrats. All but one -- Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) -- were in the House. Kaine's chief-of-staff, Mike Henry, worked for the ONE Campaign from 2009 to 2011, though Remapping Debate points out that the organization only lobbied for a part of Henry's tenure -- spending an average of $825,000 in 2009 and 2010 on human rights issues, according to OpenSecrets.org data.
Labor Connections
Labor unions in particular might be able to count on some new allies in Congress -- a handful of Democratic freshmen relied on unions for their election and then also hired staffers who have worked for unions, or organizations that work closely with them, in the past.
Michigan Rep. Dan Kildee's new legislative director is Andrew Leavitt, who worked for a lobbying heavy hitter, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), from 2008 to 2009. Labor unions were, by far, Kildee's top sector in the last election, contributing almost $150,000 to his campaign.
The same goes for Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), who received almost $160,000 from the labor sector to secure his election to the House. His new chief-of-staff is Julie Tagen, who was stationed at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, which works to improve the retirement benefits of federal workers,from 2011 to 2012.
The labor sector was second overall for freshman Reps. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who received $221,800 and $88,000 from unions in the last election, respectively. Takano's new legislative director is Yuri Beckelman, who was a communications director for AFL-CIO from 2012 to 2013. Beatty has hired Donnica Hawes Saunders, who worked for the National Farmers Union in 2011.
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) hired two former union employees as her chief of staff and legislative director, Jonathon Bray and James Cho, respectively. Bray worked for AFSCME from 2009-10 and Cho was a lobbyist for the International Association of Firefighters from 2011-12. In the last election, Frankel received almost $165,000 from labor for her 2012 campaign, her sixth-highest sector overall.
Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) received almost $198,000 from the labor sector, her third-highest overall, for her election to the House. Her new legislative director, Ken Montoya, lobbied for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association from 1998 to 2006 and for the Teamsters Union in 2008.
Outgoing Staffers
There's plenty of traffic in the other, more expected direction, of course -- from top jobs in Congress to lobbying positions. An analysis of the landings of chiefs-of-staff and legislative directors for members of the 112th Congress who left by the end of 2012 found that 26 (of 106 identified) had taken jobs lobbying.
Of the 26, four found work with companies in energy or extractive industries. Three of them are Republicans, including Elizabeth Bartheld, who went from being chief-of-staff for Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) to vice president of government affairs at the American Forest and Paper Association.
Health care entities snatched up four former top staffers, all of them Democrats, such as Heather Parsons, the new director of legislative advocacy for the American Occupational Therapy Association. Parsons had been a legislative director for Rep. Brad Miller of North Carolina.
Seven of the former top staffers -- five Republicans and two Dems -- went to work at lobbying firms, including the Glover Park Group and Van Heuvelen Strategies.
But the list is far from complete, since many staffers didn't take new jobs until after the end of 2012, and in any case it's often more difficult to track former staff than it is to follow one-time lawmakers.