ANNALS OF THE REVOLVING DOOR: “The chief of staff to the new top Democrat on the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust lobbied on behalf of Amazon and Apple as recently as 2022, including on the very issues the ranking member will oversee in his new role,” CNBC’s Lauren Feiner reports. — “The background of California Democrat Lou Correa’s top staffer is likely to further upset progressives who supported efforts to reform the rules of the road around digital competition. René Muñoz has served as chief of staff to Correa since November 2022, according to Congress tracking site LegiStorm.” — “Before that, Muñoz worked at the lobbying firm Federal Street Strategies beginning in May 2020, according to LinkedIn, where his clients included Amazon and Apple, along with other corporations. Earlier, he worked for other Democratic representatives in Congress.” — Correa was one of the Democrats who voted against a bipartisan tech antitrust package crafted by the antitrust subcommittee’s then-Chair David Cicilline (D-R.I.), whose recent retirement led to Correa’s succession, and then-ranking member Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who was replaced by libertarian Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) for this current Congress. A Correa spokesperson defended Muñoz’s decades of public service. — But disclosures “show that as recently as 2022, Muñoz lobbied Congress on the very areas which Correa is now overseeing. Correa’s ability to influence the agenda while in the minority is limited, but ranking members can often serve an important role in pushing back on the majority or in messaging to industry and agencies. Some fear that should the Democrats take back the House, it will now be harder to replace Correa with a more reform-minded Democrat.” SPEAKING OF: Senate antitrust Chair Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and more than a half dozen of her colleagues reintroduced the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, one of the main bipartisan bills aimed at reining in tech companies that fell victim to fierce lobbying by Silicon Valley and their advocacy groups last Congress. The bill would block tech giants from promoting their own products over their rivals’ on their platform. — A day before its reintroduction, Amazon was making the rounds on the Hill with more than three dozen of its sellers with a fly-in that highlighted one of its key strategies to fight the legislation: re-centering online sellers as the face of its push to defeat antitrust crackdowns. — As lawmakers advanced the AICOA last Congress, Amazon and advocacy groups it funds spent heavily to plead the case that additional regulations would be devastating for small businesses selling on its platform (those efforts saw mixed results) and that the measure could sink offerings like the e-commerce giant’s free two-day shipping. — In a nod to that night’s Congressional Baseball Game, the sellers handed out baseball cards with information about their shops, and one seller handed out one of her products at an Amazon table inside the game. — Wednesday’s fly-in came on the heels of a company report released last month that found 60 percent of Amazon’s sales last year came from “independent sellers,” many of which the company says are small and medium-sized businesses. DEMS PUSH TO TIGHTEN PENTAGON ETHICS RULES: “Lawmakers in both chambers are looking to rewrite the ethics and lobbying rules that affect Pentagon officials, retired brass, executives with U.S. defense contractors and even foreign governments” as part of this year’s defense authorization bill, per Roll Call’s John M. Donnelly. — The proposals from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), “would extend the cooling off period for former Defense Department officials to work for military contractors and vice versa. And it would strictly limit those officials’ ability to own stock in the defense industry. It would restrict lobbying by former brass for foreign governments. And it would tighten stock ownership rules.” — They plan to push for the measure to be adopted later this month when the House and Senate Armed Services committees hold marathon markups on each chamber’s version of the NDAA. — In addition to heightened restrictions for individuals, “the measure has a number of new transparency requirements as well. It would mandate that large defense contractors submit a report of their lobbying activities. It would require the secretary of Defense to publish online copies of unclassified contracts.It would require the military services to maintain public websites with the names, biographies, financial disclosures and audit and other reports about top officers.” ANNALS OF FUNDRAISING: “Business and lobbying association PACs have two big problems: They’re stuck with contribution limits set in the 1970s, and more lawmakers are refusing their cash,” Bloomberg’s Kate Ackley reports. But the online fundraising platform Democracy Engine “says it offers a workaround, giving business interests a more politically palatable route for directing campaign cash to favored lawmakers.” — “Heading into the 2024 elections, his company is on pace to process more individual donations for business, association, and union political action committees than it has previously, according to statistics the company shared first with Bloomberg Government.” — “These donations flow outside of industry PACs but enable them to pitch allies to donate to candidates directly and to capture real-time data about where the money is coming and going. It’s a potential way for industry lobbies to harness the rise of online, often small-dollar contributions, while circumventing the increasing number of lawmakers and candidates who refuse business PAC money.” SPOTTED at Gatsby’s for a post fly-in, pre-Congressional Baseball Game reception hosted by the Insured Retirement Institute, per a tipster: Reps. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Rick Allen (R-Ga.); Wayne Chopus, Paul Richman and John Jennings of IRI, Michael Myers of Transamerica, Shawn Gallagher of Corebridge Financial, Joe Caruso of Jackson National Life Insurance, Aliya Robinson of T. Rowe Price, Carol Danko and David Burns of Prudential Financial, Blake Major of American Equity Investment Life Insurance, Alice Joe and Andrew Vermilye of Fidelity Investments, Jonathan Paone of New York Life, Kara Adams of Protective and Jill Kozeny of the American Council of Life Insurers. — And at a summer kick off for the Black Women’s Congressional Alliance and Black Men on the Hill hosted by BGR Group, per a tipster: Chay English of Ford Motor Company, Courtney Cochran of House Minority Whip Katherine Clark’s (D-Mass.) office, Nick Johnson of Black Men on the Hill, Alyssa Mensie of Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar’s (D-Calif.) office, Kyle Bligen of Rep. Juan Vargas’ (D-Calif.) office, Nate Robinson of Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester’s (D-Del.) office, Usman Rahim and Frank Williams of Bank of America, Susan Murphy of Blackstone, Dominic Sanchez of Grubhub, Michael Pauls, Jr. of NCTA, Mike Moran of Deutsche Bank, Ian Mair, Jake Hulina and Chloe Bonini of GeoComply and Andy Lewin, Dan Murphy, Steve Pfrang, Keiffer Mitchell and Erskine Wells of BGR Group.
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