TITLE: Unfinished bills, tax law preparation push lobbying spending up
https://rollcall.com/2024/04/23/unfinished-bills-tax-law-preparation-push-lobbying-spending-up/
EXCERPT: Punted deadlines on must-pass legislation drove lobbying activity and revenues, as expenditures by K Street’s biggest spenders ticked up in the first quarter of this year.
The top 10 interest groups by spending last quarter dropped $89.1 million on lobbying, up about 3 percent from the fourth quarter and up nearly 13 percent compared with the first quarter of last year, according to new disclosures filed with the House and Senate.
“There’s a pent-up demand to get issues across the finish line. The unpredictability of the legislative process has companies turning to trusted partners to help them navigate a very confusing policy and political landscape,” said Loren Monroe, a principal at BGR Group. “There are a lot of policy priorities waiting to get done, but many did get done in the last couple of weeks where literally hundreds of billions of dollars were appropriated in a relatively short order.”
Lobbying spending edged up as Congress delayed action on a number of must-pass bills, typically handled before the December recess, well into the new year. Congress finally passed a pair of fiscal 2024 spending laws in March. Attention has now turned to a $95.3 billion foreign aid package, while action on reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration and the multiyear agricultural policy law known as the farm bill is still to come later this year.
Preparing for next year, including election outcomes and the expiring 2017 tax cuts, has also kept private sector interest in Congress high and K Street firms busy, Monroe and others said.
“There will be a lot of change after the election,” Monroe said. “That requires a lot of thought and early engagement, as you can’t just show up the day after the election and look for a meeting. All those plans, all those people, all the opportunities for engagement will be happening throughout the summer and into the fall.”
The makeup of the top 10 spenders — which represented companies across business, technology, real estate, automotive and health care sectors — looked largely unchanged from the final quarter of 2023, with two exceptions. Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, and General Motors Co. regained spots among the top 10 spenders, knocking off CTIA, which represents the wireless communications sector, and AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons.
Half the groups spent more in the first quarter this year than they did in the final quarter of 2023, while the other half spent less. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $23.4 million on lobbying, up 22 percent from the previous quarter. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America boosted spending by 49 percent to $9.6 million in the first quarter.
Meta and General Motors each increased lobbying expenditures by more than 60 percent from the fourth quarter, spending $7.6 million and $4.7 million, respectively, according to disclosures.
TITLE: Meet The Former Lawmakers Who Helped Spearhead TikTok’s Multi-Million Dollar Lobbying Effort On Capitol Hill
https://dailycaller.com/2024/04/24/meet-the-former-lawmakers-who-helped-spearhead-tiktoks-multi-million-dollar-lobbying-effort-on-capitol-hill/
EXCERPT: TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance spent $3.1 million lobbying as Congress considered legislation that would force ByteDance to either sell the social media platform or face a ban in the U.S. between January and March, new disclosures show. As part of its multi-million dollar lobbying strategy, TikTok hired two former senators and three former representatives to lobby on its behalf.
The social media platform has repeatedly denied that it has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), yet current and previous Bytedance employees have alleged that TikTok continues to share U.S. users’ data with ByteDance, The Wall Street Journal reported. TikTok frequently pushes content for users that mirrors the CCP’s wider geopolitical agenda, according to a recent study by Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University.
Former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and former Democratic Louisiana Sen. John Breaux were paid to lobby for TikTok through Crossroads Strategies, disclosures show. Crossroads Strategies was the tenth largest American lobbying outfit by revenue in 2023, according to OpenSecrets.
TikTok’s lobbying frenzy coincided with Congress’ consideration of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would have forced ByteDance to sell the platform or face a ban in the United States. Though that law only passed the House, similar sell-or-ban provisions were included in the foreign aid package signed into law by the president on Wednesday.
Officials from the Chinese embassy reportedly tried to set up meetings with congressional staff after the act passed the House, Politico reported. TikTok was not mentioned when the officials initially made contact, the outlet reported.
Disclosures indicate that Lott and Breaux represented TikTok’s interests specifically on the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, among other legislation.
Former Democratic New York Rep. Joe Crowley and former Republican California Rep. Jeff Denham both lobbied for TikTok through Dentons, a global law firm, according to disclosures. Dentons was the second largest law firm by headcount and the fifth largest by revenue as of the 2022 fiscal year, according to Law.com.
Crowley, who Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated in a 2018 primary upset, served as the chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
Another retired representative, Republican Rodney Davis of Illinois, also lobbied on behalf of TikTok through the firm Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies, a lobbying disclosure shows. Cozen O’Connor is a midsized firm, raking in over $8 million in federal lobbying income during 2023 and maintaining offices in six cities across the east coast and Midwest.
Disclosures reporting Davis, Crowley and Denham’s activities don’t list specific legislation, instead saying they lobbied on “related to internet technology [and] regulation of content of platforms.”
Lott, Breaux, Crowley, Davis and Denham didn’t respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s multiple requests for comment.
Some of the former lawmakers voiced criticisms of China while in office, then went on to lobby on behalf of the Chinese-owned platform.
Davis once described China as one of the globe’s “bad actors,” calling for tariffs against the country in a 2018 interview with Bloomberg. Denham, similarly, accused China of meddling with American elections in 2018.
TITLE: The Pentagon’s 30-Year Lobbying Swindle
https://www.levernews.com/the-pentagons-30-year-lobbying-swindle/
EXCERPT: From 1995 to 2021, more than 315 military officers with elite ranks as high as colonel and rear admiral have been placed at top weapons manufacturers such as Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin, as well as other companies with billion-dollar government contracts. The arrangement has also coincided with a dramatic rise in Defense Department spending on private contractors valued in the trillions of dollars.
The arrangement, called the Secretary of Defense Executive Fellows program, sends officers with promising military careers to work for top corporations in the defense, tech, finance, and other industries for one year. These fellows then report on how the Defense Department could incorporate some of these companies’ business practices and policies. The program has helped place corporate interests at the very heart of U.S. military strategy.
The report from Quincy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, is the first detailed examination of the Secretary of Defense Executive Fellows (SDEF) program. The report casts doubt on the integrity of the fellowship program, calling it a “de facto lobbying tool” for private companies and a “taxpayer-funded revolving door” where more than 40 percent of the fellows have gone on to work for government contractors at some point in their post-military careers.
“Decades of SDEF recommendations have consistently focused on reforms that would both benefit corporations and bolster their influence over the [Defense Department],” the report found.
Nearly a third of the fellows were assigned to the top 50 government contractors, and 15 percent went to work for Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon — the top five military contractors. These five defense companies spent more than $830 million lobbying the Defense Department and other federal entities during the same years they had fellows, regulatory filings show.
At the end of their program, the fellows detail their experience and, at times, promote core company talking points in front of some of the highest-ranking officials in the military, including vice chiefs of staff. The arrangement represents “an unbelievable opportunity” for Pentagon contractors, Benjamin Freeman, one of the authors of the Quincy Institute report, told The Lever.
“Lobbyists would salivate over the opportunity to provide a briefing to [Defense Department] leadership at that level,” he added. “This is better lobbying than any money could buy for these companies. When it’s somebody who’s a military officer coming back to the [Defense Department] and saying those same talking points, people are going to take that up much more than they would if these kinds of words are coming from a lobbyist.”