FUDGE LANDS ON K STREET: Marcia Fudge has quickly spun through the revolving door, joining Midwest-based Taft Stettinius & Hollister as a partner and chair of the firm’s public policy group a little over a month after stepping down as head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
— The Ohio Democrat served more than a dozen years in the House, including serving as chair of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus, before being tapped as HUD chief by President Joe Biden in 2021. She’s the highest-ranking Biden official to join the ranks of the influence community, as just the second Cabinet secretary to leave the administration so far, making Fudge a potentially invaluable source of intel for clients despite the administration’s ethics restrictions.
— In an interview, Fudge said she took some time after heading back home to Ohio to determine her next steps as a private citizen, though she knew she “wanted to continue to work with communities and with people in communities to try to make their lives better.” Despite overtures from others downtown who Fudge declined to name but said “are very well known on K Street,” the former secretary said she was drawn to Taft’s strong roots in her home state.
— She’s bringing along two former staffers, Imani Edwards, who will be a director of public affairs based in Cleveland, and Garrett McDaniel, who will be a director of public affairs based in D.C. According to the firm, Fudge will spend a portion of her time there working on Taft’s efforts to combat the group of chemicals known as PFAS.
— Fudge told PI she’ll also work to convene the right groups of stakeholders to address a number of urban development issues around her community, in addition to advising and campaigning with Biden as the election draws nearer.
— Under the White House’s ethics pledge, Fudge is subject to a two-year “cooling off” period during which she’s barred from communicating with her former agency as well as senior White House staff, in addition to a one-year ban on so-called shadow lobbying.
— Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project told PI it was “unusual” to see such a high-ranking administration official transition so quickly to the influence world. “A lot of corporate clients could benefit from spitballing with Secretary Fudge,” he said.
— She’s also free to contact her former colleagues on the Hill, and by going into the administration, Fudge “has stayed more in touch with Congress” than if she’d taken a post at a university, for instance, Hauser noted. “One of the classic [ethics pledge] loopholes is that she can” advise clients about Congress “based off information she gleaned in the executive branch,” he said.
— Perhaps more crucially, Hauser said, Fudge would have had a front-row seat to the administration’s populist shift from previous Democratic administrations. “If I'm in corporate America, I want to understand what that means” for the future, he said, and “somebody who has been a senior member of the administration is going to offer a better insight into then somebody who might have served at a senior level in the Obama administration.”
Happy Monday and welcome to PI. Send lobbying tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on the platform formerly known as Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.
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FIRST IN PI — WARREN, JAYAPAL SHRED TREASURY IG REPORT: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) laid into a Treasury Department watchdog over the weekend, demanding it retract its recent report probing the revolving door between the department and major accounting firms and conduct its investigation over again.
— The inspector general report released in March was first requested by the lawmakers in 2022 following a New York Times report alleging that the frequent flow of personnel between accounting firms and Treasury allowed those firms to effectively shape tax policy in favor of their clients in order to help them avoid bigger tax bills.
— But in a letter to acting inspector general Richard Delmar sent Friday night, the lawmakers eviscerated the results of Treasury’s investigation as “a drive-by investigation that appeared to be designed to reach pre-conceived results absolving Treasury officials of wrongdoing despite the obvious evidence of serious revolving door conflicts of interest.”
— “It took you over two years to conduct your review — and the result was an irresponsible whitewash that failed to seriously investigate the problem or hold any individual or company accountable,” Warren and Jayapal wrote.
— The report determined in part that the number of review stages its tax policies and guidance undergoes before publication insulates the process from undue influence, in effect diluting the threat of a significant conflict of interest — an argument Warren and Jayapal called “absurd” and a failure of “a basic test of logic and common sense.”
— The IG’s office “is evaluating the issues and concerns expressed in the letter and will respond to Senator Warren and Representative Jayapal in due course,” A.J. Altemus, the acting general counsel to the inspector general, told PI.
— “The group, Accuracy in Media, publicly disclosed on its federal tax returna list of donors who combined to contribute nearly $1.9 million to the tax-exempt nonprofit between May 2022 and April of last year.”
— “The contributors listed on the tax return include billionaire Republican megadonor Jeff Yass, who Accuracy in Media said gave it $1 million,” as well as foundations tied to GOP donors Richard Uihlein, Adam Milstein and Molson Coors’ Peter Coors.
— The nonprofit “blamed its accountant when CNBC informed the group that its 2022 federal tax return had been filed with a list of major donors and contribution amounts included,” though it didn’t dispute the tax return’s accuracy.
— “But AIM President Adam Guillette told CNBC that Yass had been misidentified, and that he did not give to the organization. Yass’ name and his business address appear on two separate pages of AIM’s 2022 tax return. … ‘Jeff Yass is not an AIM donor and never has been. I think our accounting firm made a major, major error,’ Guillette told CNBC.”
SHIFTING WINDS: “In a shift for Washington tech lobbying, companies and investors from across the industry have been pouring tens of millions of dollars into an all-hands effort to block strict safety rules on advanced artificial intelligence and get lawmakers to worry about China instead — and so far, they seem to be winning over once-skeptical members of Congress,” our Brendan Bordelon reports.
— “The success of the pro-tech, anti-China AI push, fueled by several new arrivals on the lobbying scene, marks a change from months in which the AI debate was dominated by well-funded philanthropies warning about the long-term dangers of the technology.”
— “The new influence web is pushing the argument that AI is less an existential danger than a crucial business opportunity, and arguing that strict safety rules would hand America’s AI edge to China. It has already caused key lawmakers to back off some of their more worried rhetoric about the technology.”
K STREET’S MOONSHOT: “An unusual visitor recently pulled into the Department of Transportation’s driveway across the street from the National Mall: a gleaming, 11-foot-tall four-wheeler named FLEX that, if all goes to plan, will soon be carting goods around the moon,” NOTUS’ Maggie Severns writes.
— “FLEX had to keep it moving: The rover also stopped at the Department of Commerce, where officials took turns posing for photos and riding the rover, a prototype developed by the space travel company Astrolab.”
— “FLEX’s visit was a harbinger of what’s to come: As commercial business on the moon gets close to becoming reality, lobbyists and policymakers are jockeying over who in government will oversee the new space economy and how they’ll do it.”
FLYING IN: The Carbon Capture Coalition is gearing up for its second annual fly-in this week, with members representing industry, labor, and environmental and conservation NGOs fanning out across the Hill for meetings with more than 30 different offices. Participants will discuss tax issues like creating parity between tax credit values for reuse and storage projects, and indexing the federal carbon sequestration tax credit for inflation prior to 2027.
— Representatives of nearly 400 Catholic hospitals are coming to Washington for a fly-in hosted by the Catholic Health Association of the U.S. They'll be meeting with Capitol Hill offices about issues including strengthening the health care workforce and urging support for maternal health measures, including the bipartisan Preventing Maternal Deaths Reauthorization Act, which recently passed the House, and advocating for the Black Maternal Health Momnibus.
Jobs Report
— Chelsi Bennett is joining StubHub as senior manager of state government relations. She most recently was state public policy lead for the eastern U.S. for Block.
— Rachel Pollock is joining Arnold Ventures as vice president of external affairs. She previously was vice president of ACT for NIH, and is an NIH, HHS and OMB alum.
— The Hudson Institute is adding Allie Carroll as director of media relations and Ryan Tully and Aaron MacLean as senior fellows. Carroll is an RNC alum. Tully previously was a professional staff member for the House Armed Services Committee. MacLean hosts the “School of War” podcast and is a Tom Cotton alum.
— Katie Peterson is now director of operations and events at Interfaith Alliance. She previously was deputy administrative director for Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).
— Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund are adding Nora Walsh-DeVries as senior political director, Katie Rodihan as state advocacy comms director and Sophie Vaughan as manager of federal advocacy communications. Walsh-DeVries previously was chief of staff for Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.). Rodihan previously was communications director at Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky. Vaughan was previously at Precision Strategies.
— Kevin Dowling is now head and director of U.S. federal government affairs at 3M. He most recently was a senior vice president at Venn Strategies, and is a Lee Zeldin alum.
— Ben Bain is joining the Niskanen Center as director of the State Capacity Initiative. He previously was director for future tech platforms at the Special Competitive Studies Project.
— Jane Terry is now director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Impaired Driving and Occupant Protection. She previously was vice president of government affairs at the National Safety Council.
— Toney Anaya is joining Shipt as vice president of government affairs. He previously led DoorDash’s U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand government relations teams, and is a Coca-Cola alum.
New Joint Fundraisers
Blue Train (Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Securing A Kinder Democracy PAC)
DEFEND FREEDOM FUND (Defend Freedom, Inc., For Love of Country, Inc.)
Fab Four For Senate (Sens. Tammy Baldwin, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, Rep. Elissa Slotkin)
New PACs
Conservatives With Character (Super PAC)
MWSA Inc. (Super PAC)
New Lobbying REGISTRATIONS
Corcoran Street Group: Craxel, Inc.
Grant Consulting Group: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
Mcguirewoods Consulting (A Subsidiary Of Mcguirewoods LLP): Flatiron Constructors, Inc.
Steptoe LLP: Neurocytonix Inc.
Telegraph Avenue Advisors: City Of Upland
The Ferguson Group: City Of South Fulton, Ga
The Ferguson Group: Colorado River District
The Smith-Free Group, LLC: City Of Castle Pines
The Smith-Free Group, LLC: City Of Eastvale
The Smith-Free Group, LLC: Somers Village & Town
The Smith-Free Group, LLC: Village Of Mount Pleasant Tourism Commission
New Lobbying Terminations
The Roosevelt Group: Corascloud, Inc.
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