With Daniel Lippman and Hailey Fuchs DOWNTOWN PRESSES FOR A DEBT DEAL: Virtually no one expected President Joe Biden and congressional leadership to strike a deal on raising the debt limit during their meeting at the White House this afternoon. But some of Washington’s biggest business lobbies made clear ahead of the confab that their patience for partisan brinkmanship over the rapidly approaching debt cliff is wearing thin. — “With the U.S. at risk of defaulting on its obligations as soon as June 1, meaningful, bipartisan discussions on raising the debt ceiling can no longer wait,” Josh Bolten, the chief executive of the Business Roundtable, warned in a statement Monday. — “A default would deliver a severe blow to the economy, leading to widespread job losses, decimated retirement savings and higher borrowing costs for families, businesses and the government,” Bolten added, arguing that failure to reach a deal could also undermine Washington’s efforts to compete with China by weakening its position in the global financial system. — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce similarly did not mince words about the urgency of the White House meeting between Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. — Though Biden and Hill Democrats have outwardly remained adamant that they won’t accept anything other than a clean debt ceiling increase, Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s top lobbyist, framed the impasse as ripe for notching several previously elusive legislative wins. — “The full faith and credit of the United States government should never be placed at risk,” said Bradley. “Leaders in both parties have made clear that our broken permitting process must be fixed and based on the proposals introduced in Congress, it is clear that a bipartisan agreement is possible.” — Likewise, “both Republicans and Democrats have acknowledged that they will have to reach an agreement on top-line discretionary spending levels in order to complete the appropriations process and fund the government,” Bradley continued, adding that capping spending “will reduce future deficits while providing greater certainty to the appropriations process.” — Meanwhile, Michael Hanson, the chief lobbyist for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, implored Washington to let retailers catch a break following supply chain and workforce disruptions brought on by the pandemic. “What they crave more than anything is a period of relative calm and certainty after 3-plus years of managed chaos,” said Hanson, warning that “a misstep over the debt ceiling would subject businesses and consumers to an economic shockwave” that would otherwise be avoidable. — Hanson expressed hope that bipartisanship would prevail, appealing to the “principled men and women serving in government in both political parties who understand the country cannot continue to prosper if we continue to govern from the edge of a cliff, budgeting from crisis to crisis without meeting our long-term obligations and setting a course of stability.” Happy Tuesday and welcome to PI. Send lobbying tips and gossip: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. McCARTIN HANGS A SHINGLE: Muftiah McCartin has launched her own lobbying firm, McCartin Public Policy Group. McCartin left Covington & Burling, where she co-chaired the firm’s global public policy practice group, last June to go in-house with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. She praised the group’s “amazing mission” in an interview, but told PI that, at the end of the day, “I'm such a policy wonk.” — “I really love to do policy, I really love to do legislation. And I would like to be entrepreneurial.” McCartin has signed two clients already through the new firm — the lobbying arm of environmental group Earthjustice, and the anti-human trafficking nonprofit Polaris Project. McCartin wouldn’t rule out working on special projects for a company or teaming back up with Covington on a client, but told PI she plans to focus mainly on social justice and environmental clients. WHO’S FUNDING HILL LEADERSHIP’S DARK MONEY GROUPS: Sludge’s Donald Shaw combed through corporate disclosures and lobbying and campaign finance documents to ID companies and major trade groups who have funded the nonprofits linked to each party’s congressional leadership — which have in turn dropped hundreds of millions of dollars on influencing elections. — Neither the Schumer-aligned nonprofit Majority Forward, McConnell-aligned group One Nation, Jeffries-aligned group House Majority Forward nor the McCarthy-aligned nonprofit American Action Network are required to disclose their donors. — But “the dark money groups have been increasingly used to funnel contributions over the past two election cycles,” increasing their transfers to affiliated super PACs “by nearly one-fifth in the 2022 midterms compared with the previous cycle, sending more than $209 million to the outside spending groups aligned with congressional leaders.” — Some of the big spenders identified by Sludge include ConocoPhillips, which has given $3 million altogether to One Nation and AAN; CVS Health, which has spread more than $6 million among One Nation, Majority Forward and House Majority Forward; PhRMA, which gave $7 million to AAN and the American Petroleum Institute, which kicked in more than $1 million to One Nation. NOT CROWING ABOUT CROW: “Billionaire Harlan Crow has refused to comply with a request by Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden for a complete accounting of Crow’s gifts to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas,” POLITICO’s Benjamin Guggenheim reports. — “According to Ryan Carey, a spokesperson for Wyden (D-Ore.), the Senate tax chief received an ‘obstructive letter’ from a lawyer for Crow late Monday night declining to answer a series of questions about the billionaire’s financial arrangements with Thomas that Wyden posed to Crow in an April 24 letter.” — “Wyden has previously said he would ‘explore using other tools at the committee’s disposal’ should Crow not cooperate with the request,” which could include issuing subpoenas or “using a section of the tax code that vests the chairs of Congress’ tax committees with the authority to obtain a private citizen’s tax returns directly from Treasury — a power that House Democrats used last year to publish the taxes of former President Donald Trump.” — Wyden’s Republican counterpart Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), on the other hand, made clear he would oppose such efforts. In a letter on Monday, fellow Republican senators accused Wyden of seeking to intimidate a private citizen. — The back and forth came as Democrats on another Senate panel, the Judiciary Committee, issued their own demand that Crow turn over similar documents, “marking an escalation of the powerful committee’s efforts to convince the court to adopt stricter ethical standards for itself,” The Washington Post’s Liz Goodwin and Marianne LeVine — a PI alum — write. — “The Judiciary Committee also sent letters Monday to three companies associated with the Republican donor’s travels that facilitated the private resort, private jet and superyacht travel where Thomas has joined Crow, asking those companies to provide a list of other guests whose travel overlapped with Thomas’s or that of any other justice.” FLYING IN: The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association is holding its first-ever fly-in today. Members including Aurora, Cruise, Ford, Gatik, Kodiak, Lyft, May Mobility, Motional Nuro, Uber, Volkswagen Group, Volvo Autonomous Solutions, Waabi, Waymo and Zoox were set to meet with lawmakers on the House Energy & Commerce, Transportation & Infrastructure and Senate Commerce committees as well as with DOT leaders to discuss federal policies “to unlock the safe deployment and commercialization” of AVs. — The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, which represents the cell and gene therapy sector, is holding its fly-in today and tomorrow. Members are slated to meet with staff from more than 75 offices tomorrow, including Schumer and Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Reps. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). — ARM members will call on lawmakers to co-sponsor a bill that would tweak Medicaid payment models to increase access to cell and gene therapies and sign onto a letter to HHS and CMS urging them to use existing authorities and a new rulemaking to promote access to cell and gene therapies and to join the Congressional Personalized Medicine Caucus. EMILY'S LIST RATIFIES CONTRACT: As union pushes sweep the policy and political world, pro-abortion rights group EMILY's List has ratified a contract with its employee union, according to a staffer. Staff at the Democratic fundraising powerhouse voted to unionize with the Office and Professional Employees International Union at the end of 2020 and had come to an interim agreement in September 2021. The contract was completed last month, the employee said.
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