With Lee Hudson, Daniel Lippman FIRST IN PI — GRINDR HIRES DASCHLE GROUP: The gay dating app Grindr has brought on federal lobbyists for the first time, retaining former Sen. Tom Daschle’s lobbying firm to work on Grindr’s health and humanitarian efforts. Joe Hack, a former chief of staff to Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), will serve as the lead on the account, which will also include Charlie Panfil. — The firm will work on policy issues supported by the Grindr for Equality initiative, which has worked to increase access to free at-home HIV testing kits around the globe and reduce financial barriers to services like in vitro fertilization and surrogacy for the LGBTQ community. The initiative’s humanitarian work has also included pushing for marriage equality and decriminalization of the LGBTQ community around the world. — At the moment, Daschle Group doesn’t plan on doing work for Grindr related to data privacy issues — which have plagued the app in Europe in recent years — or other tech policy matters, Hack told PI. Nor is the firm working right now on labor issues amid a contentious unionization drive at the company. MORE NEW BUSINESS: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld is lobbying for German firearm and defense manufacturer Sig Sauer once again, according to a disclosure filing. Akin lobbied for Sig Sauer previously from October 2020 until April 2022, and began working for the company again last month on international military and defense issues, filings show. — Former House Foreign Affairs Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) is working on the account again, along with former Obama White House aide Ed Pagano, former Jim Inhofe staffer Ryan Thompson and Hans Rickhoff. Akin is the only outside firm on retainer for the defense contractor, which spent $240,000 on federal lobbying last year, according to a PI analysis of filings. — And Constellation Brands, the company behind alcohol giants Corona, Modelo and Svedka, has hired McLarty Inbound. Gabrielle Trebat and Kate Kalutkiewicz began lobbying in February on U.S.-Mexico relations and “southern border issues that could impact … cross-border shipping and trade,” per a newly filed disclosure. — Corona and Modelo are brewed in the Mexican border town of Nava — just across from the Eagle Pass border crossing that was hit by a spate of closures last year by U.S. border officials amid a surge of migrant arrivals, according to an op-ed blasting the shutdowns by the heads of two local chambers of commerce. Happy Thursday and welcome to PI, where you can consider us thrown off by the mid-week break. Send tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko. FIRST IN PI — EAR(MARK)S ARE BURNING: Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas) steered a couple million dollars of taxpayer money to an organization founded by an acquaintance who was recently arrested for allegedly stealing half a million dollars from victims of a Ponzi scheme, Daniel reports. — De La Cruz last year obtained nearly $2.4 million dollars in an earmark for Angels of Love Advocacy Project, an organization founded by Della Fay Perez that helps victims of domestic violence in the Rio Grande Valley. Perez was supposed to appear at a press conference with De La Cruz in late May to announce $7 million in funding for Angels of Love and other projects in several Texas cities, but Perez was arrested a few days before on charges of stealing 21 restitution checks paid to victims of Allen Stanford’s multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. — Perez took the checks and deposited them into a bank account belonging to herself, per the indictment. She pleaded not guilty to the charges, which were unrelated to De La Cruz or Perez’s work for Angels of Love. — Perez, a lawyer whose LinkedIn profile also says she’s the state director of Miss Texas World America, has campaigned for De La Cruz, appearing in a picture on the congresswoman’s Facebook account last June. Perez also attended the opening of De La Cruz’s Congressional office in the Rio Grande last year. — In January, De La Cruz congratulated Perez for being selected to the Leadership Texas Class of 2024. Perez donated a total of $2,770 to De La Cruz’s campaigns between 2021 and 2023, according to FEC records. — Perez did not respond to a request for comment. De La Cruz said in a statement to PI that the application for Angels of Love was “thoroughly vetted by the House of Representatives” and that it was one of several federal grants that were approved for her community. — “Domestic violence is a very serious topic that has impacted nearly two out of every five women in my community. This issue hits close to home, and that’s why I’m such a strong advocate for the women and children of South Texas who suffer abuse,” she added. “Della has served in various leadership roles in South Texas over the years, and those of us who know her are surprised by these accusations. I look forward to continuing to see Angels of Love help victims of abuse overcome adversity.” — Angels of Love executive director Veronica Perez said that Perez had “made the difficult choice” to step down as president of the organization last month and called De La Cruz a “compassionate and strong advocate for the women and children of our community.” INVARIANT ADDS BOEING ALUM: Jenness Simler is joining Invariant to lead its national security and government relations practice. Simler spent the past six years at Boeing, most recently as vice president of contested logistics solutions. — Before that, she spent more than a decade with the House Armed Services Committee, with stints as staff director and deputy staff director, and is a Pentagon alum. Simler told Lee she plans to use her experience to advise Invariant’s defense and startup clients on working with large companies — and vice versa. WHAT BAYER WON IN THE FARM BILL: “The biotech giant Bayer has lobbied Congress over the past year to advance legislation that could shield the company from billions of dollars in lawsuits, part of a national campaign to defeat claims that its weedkiller Roundup causes cancer in people who use it frequently,” The Washington Post’s Tony Romm reports. — “The measure threatens to make it harder for farmers and groundskeepers to argue that they were not fully informed about some health and safety risks posed by the popular herbicide. By erecting new legal barriers to bringing those cases, Bayer seeks to prevent sizable payouts to plaintiffs while sparing itself from a financial crisis.” — In Washington, the recently introduced House version of the farm bill “contains a single section — drafted with the aid of Bayer — that could halt some lawsuits against Roundup, according to documents viewed by The Washington Post and seven people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.” — “Jess Christiansen, the head of crop science and sustainability communications at Bayer, acknowledged that the company ‘worked with a lot of different lawmakers on different parts of the language.’ Christiansen stressed there has been ‘no link to glyphosate, or the uses of Roundup, causing cancer.’ The bill, she added, is not meant as ‘a shield at all’ to litigation.”
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