FIRST IN PI — BROWNSTEIN ADDS TOP VA STAFFER: Jon Towers has left the Hill after more than two decades working for the congressional veterans affairs committees. He’s joined Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as a policy director, where he’ll lobby on many of the same issues he worked on in Congress and join former VA Secretary Jim Nicholson. — Towers most recently served as the GOP staff director for the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, where he got his start on the Hill and worked for 16 years altogether. In between his two stints on the Senate side, Towers spent a decade with the panel’s House counterpart, including as staff director. — In an interview, Towers said that after 26 years on the Hill he was looking forward to working on veterans issues “from a little bit different perspective” and that he’ll work with clients interested in helping veterans and doing business with the Department of Veterans Affairs. He added that he was drawn to Brownstein because their bipartisan approach mirrors the dynamics of the veterans affairs committees on the Hill. — Towers is subject to a one-year cooling off period from lobbying the Senate, but told PI that especially with last year’s passage of the PACT Act, with which he was heavily involved, “there are just a host of issues that I’m anxious to kind of roll up my sleeves and see … where my skill set might be best put to use here.” The VA “is a huge, sprawling entity and we think that clients can definitely benefit from his knowledge and experience,” said Will Moschella, the co-chair of Brownstein’s lobbying shop. PRECISION STAFF MOVE TO UNIONIZE: “Precision Strategies, a leading Democratic consulting firm with close ties to the White House, has taken the first step toward becoming a union shop for some of its employees,” Axios’ Hans Nichols reports. — “The company, with more than 120 employees, is at the beginning of a collective bargaining conversation that other Democratic public affairs firms — reliant on a progressive workforce — also are likely to face.” — Staff at the firm, which was launched 10 years ago by Obama reelection veterans Stephanie Cutter, Teddy Goff and current White House deputy chief of staff Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, announced their intent to unionize last month with the Communications Workers of America and “last week, the firm’s management indicated it was willing to take the next steps toward unionization.” — The firm is part of a broader trend in Democratic politics that has included union drives in political campaigns, the halls of Congress and liberal advocacy groups like Sunrise Movement. Becoming “the first prominent firm to move toward unionization also has its advantages, as many of Democratic clients will want to reward it,” but it could also set up a clash between private equity investors that have infiltrated the government relations and public affairs space in recent years — Precision is one of the latest beneficiaries of the glut of private equity cash downtown, and sold a minority stake to Boston-based Abry Partners earlier this year. NRCC VETS LAUNCH NEW FIRM: A pair of former operatives for House Republicans’ campaign arm have launched their own media and public affairs firm. The new venture from Michael McAdams, who was the NRCC’s communications director during the 2022 cycle and remains executive director of House Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s political operation, and Jared Solomon, the NRCC’s ad guru, will be called Spotlight Media Group. — The firm will create TV and digital ads for Republican candidates and conservative groups in addition to providing public affairs services to trade groups, companies and individuals. In a statement, Emmer, who ran the NRCC last cycle, called McAdams “one of my most trusted political advisors” who he said “will provide tremendous value for his clients.” He added: “When it comes to making ads that cut through the noise, there’s no one better than Jared Solomon.” FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES: The New York Times’ Eric Lipton and Dionne Searcey report that Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler has enlisted perhaps the most peculiar ally yet in his yearslong fight against U.S. sanctions for allegedly bilking the economy of the Democratic Republic of Congo to the tune of more than $1 billion through corrupt mining and oil deals: Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi. — The effort by Gertler, who has long denied corruption accusations, has previously included entreaties to the Trump administration by former FBI Director Louis Freeh and attorney Alan Dershowitz. Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin granted Gertler some sanctions relief on his way out of office, but the sanctions were reinstated the same year by the Biden administration. — The lobbying efforts by Tshisekedi, who appealed to President Joe Biden directly, and some Congo-based civil society groups, “came after Mr. Gertler agreed to return to Congo an estimated $2 billion worth of mining and oil-drilling rights secured over the past two decades.” — “In exchange, the Congolese government agreed to pay Mr. Gertler’s companies $260 million and to help him lobby in Washington to have the sanctions revoked, the agreement with Mr. Gertler says. The move would allow Congo to resell the mining rights to new investors.” The apparent reconciliation hasn’t appeased human rights groups, though. IF YOU MISSED IT OVER THE WEEKEND: With Biden apparently gearing up for a reelection campaign focused on the urgency of the climate crisis — based on touting the clean energy investments and economic benefits of the landmark climate legislation he signed into law last year, POLITICO’s Eli Stokols has a great deep dive on how climate groups and their deep-pocketed benefactors as well as activists helped force a political “sea change” for the environmental movement in Washington. — One signal of the group’s change in political muscle? “The climate coalition’s hard-won success is even being held up now as a template for other progressive advocacy groups. When Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to the president, has met with care economy activists about their priorities falling out of the final version of the IRA, she’s urged them to study the environmental groups’ political metamorphosis and the kind of long-term commitment that’s often required to win in Washington.”
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