With help from Daniel Lippman A BRIEF GUIDE TO HARRIS' ALUMNI ON K STREET: House conservatives on Tuesday tabbed Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) to be the next head of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus — at least until November’s elections and quite possibly beyond. — The new role atop a group that’s “at the center of every Republican spending fight,” as my Hill colleagues note, only compounds Harris’ clout in the chamber given his other perch as a subcommittee chair on House Appropriations — and is sure to be music to the ears of the sizable network of Harris alumni downtown. — That includes several of his former top aides. Bryan Shuy, who served as Harris’ chief of staff until last year, is now at the Conafay Group, where he lobbies for clients like Atea Pharmaceuticals and Coherus BioSciences. Another former chief, Chris Meekins, is now a health policy research analyst at Raymond James, while Harris’ former deputy chief of staff Tim Daniels is now a lobbyist at Tyson Foods. — Other former staffers-turned-lobbyists include David Bennett, who’s now at Kaiser Permanente; Emily Michael, now at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization; and Kyle Sanders, who’s now at Thorn Run Partners. There’s also alumni of the conservative Republican Study Committee — of which Harris is a member — including Will Dunham of the American Investment Council and Bruce Miller of BSA | The Software Alliance. — Dan Byers, who worked on the House Science Energy and Environment Subcommittee under Harris, now lobbies for the Global Energy Institute, while another subcommittee staffer Taylor Jordan is at the lobbying firm Innovative Federal Strategies. — There are also a number of folks who worked for Harris on the Hill and aren’t registered to lobby, but work for organizations aiming to shape federal policy — like Tom Clements, Blackstone’s vice president of global public affairs; Bobby Donachie and Walt Smoloski, who work at the PR firm Athos; Shelby Hartley, a spokesperson for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association; Charlotte Heyworth, an executive assistant at the Business Roundtable; and Julie Bush, a senior vice president at Palantir. Happy Wednesday and welcome to PI. What’s going on out there?: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko. PI REALITY TV ROUNDUP: Netflix this afternoon unveiled its cast list for the upcoming D.C.-based season of reality dating show “Love is Blind,” and it shouldn’t be a surprise that PI spotted a few influence-adjacent types among the 29 cast members. (For the uninitiated, the show quarantines men and women in “pods,” forcing them to connect — and get engaged — sight unseen before getting married at the end of the season.) — The show premieres next month and will feature Taylor Krause, a federal policy manager at clean energy think tank RMI and an alumna of the lobbying firm Boundary Stone Partners; Tara Zafar, a senior strategic marketing manager at comms and government affairs firm Avoq; and Ray Pottebaum, a senior strategy consultant at Accenture and a NATO and Sen. Mark Kelly campaign alum, per his LinkedIn. RMI, Avoq and Accenture did not immediately respond to requests for comment. WHITHER THE CARRIED INTEREST CHATTER: “Something has changed this election season,” Fortune’s Luisa Beltran writes. “The perennial hot button issue of carried interest, which offers sweetheart tax rates to wealthy private equity and hedge fund executives—and costs the U.S. Treasury billions of dollars—is getting a pass.” — “In prior years, lawmakers have used campaign season to seize on the carried interest loophole, pointing out how some PE execs have grown obscenely rich, and demanding a change to the tax rules. Even Donald Trump has made hay of the carried interest issue, claiming in 2016 that the ‘hedge fund guys are getting away with murder’ and pledging to end the tax break.” — “This year, though, politicians have barely made a peep about carried interest. Does this mean that private equity and the hedge fund industry — which have long run stealth lobbying campaigns to protect their special goodie — have won for good?” HIGH HOPES: The Washington Post’s Isaac Stanley-Becker, Dan Diamond and Josh Dawsey report that “the tobacco industry is banking on Trump’s chaotic approach to public health — and pliable views on policy” to fend off regulatory threats to its bottom line — including a ban on immensely popular menthol cigarettes. — “The top corporate donor to the main pro-Trump super PAC is a subsidiary of Reynolds American, the second-largest tobacco company in the United States and the maker of Newports, the No. 1 menthol brand in the country.” RAI Services Company has given $8.5 million to Make America Great Again Inc., a donation that came at the suggestion of Trump ally and Reynolds lobbyist Brian Ballard. — “Former company employees and lobbyists, as well as former Trump aides, said Reynolds sees Trump as its best hope of achieving a range of objectives,” which includes staving off the menthol ban proposed by the Biden administration. — It’s currently stalled amid concerns it would provoke a backlash from Black voters, making it possible the proposal will end up in the hands of the next president. Already, the proposed ban is the subject of an eight-figure ad campaign targeting Vice President Kamala Harris, “a further illustration of the political significance of Big Tobacco and its causes this November.” TECH’S STATE PRIVACY SAVIOR: Our Alfred Ng profiles Andrew Kingman, a Massachusetts-based tech lobbyist who has “exerted profound national influence on tech policy, one state at a time.” — Kingman, who launched his own firm Mariner Strategies in 2022, serves as counsel for the State Privacy and Security Coalition, which “represents companies that want to keep lax rules on how data can be collected and used. Its members include Amazon, Google and Meta, as well as consumer giants like Target and General Motors.” — “The organization has lobbied in at least 32 states looking to pass data privacy regulations. Kingman worked to block tougher regulations or support business-friendly laws in at least 22 of those,” according to a POLITICO review. “His playbook illustrates an irony of modern American policymaking: As energy shifts to state legislatures — which have often been called ‘laboratories of democracy’ — a sophisticated lobbying operation can create a default national standard by pushing a consistent message, one state at a time.” FIRST IN PI: Former House Speaker John Boehner and former Ron DeSantis super PAC CEO Scott Wagner are among the hosts for an Oct. 14 fundraiser for a joint fundraising committee benefiting former Gov. Larry Hogan's Maryland Senate campaign, according to an invitation Daniel obtained. — The fundraiser will be in Naples, Florida, and feature hosts Harry Criswell, Peggy Ellis, Brian Rogers and Tracy Wagner. Tickets range from $1,000 to be an "attendee," $3,300 to be a "friend," $6,600 to be a "sponsor" and $10,000 to be a host. A Hogan campaign spokesperson declined to comment on how much the event is expected to raise. SPOTTED last night at the American Clean Power Association’s new D.C. headquarters on Pennsylvania Ave. to celebrate the clean energy industry, per a tipster: Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.), former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), the White House’s Kristina Costa, Whitney Muse, Alex Jacquez and Arjun Krishnaswami, the Energy Department’s Jigar Shah and Puesh Kumar, EPA’s Marc Levitt, Zero Emission Transportation Association’s Albert Gore, HASI’s Susan Nickey, Vestas North America’s Laura Beane, ACP’s Jason Grumet and more. — And at Eastern Market for a Dining Away Duchenne charity event hosted by Joel Wood of the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers and Dana Wood of Kelley Drye & Warren and chaired by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), per a tipster: Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), Steve Womack (R-Ark.), Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) and Young Kim (R-Calif.), Joel Kopperud and Blaire Bartlett of CIAB, Saat Alety of Federal Hall Policy Advisors, Warren Tryon of Capitol Counsel, Emily Tryon of the American Land Title Association, Sydney Fincher of Aflac, Chris Russell of Liberty Mutual, Peter Freeman of FS Vector, and Nathan Riedel of the Big "I." — And at a reception to celebrate Cisco’s new D.C. office at the Wharf, per a tipster: Chuck Robbins, Jeff Campbell, Waldo McMillan and Nicole Isaac of Cisco; Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Reps. David Joyce (R-Ohio), Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), Drew Brandewie of Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) office, Darin Thacker of Sen. Steve Daines' (R-Mont.) office, David Montes of Sen. Alex Padilla’s (D-Calif.) office, Andrew DeLuca of Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s (D-Calif.) office, Deena Shetler of the FCC, Nick Hawatmeh of Rep. Lisa McClain’s (R-Mich.) office, Ashley Gutwein of Nunn’s office, Dante Cutrona of Joyce’s office and Austin Higginbotham of Rep. Pat Fallon's (R-Texas) office. — And at the 2024 Cocktail Party Convention co-hosted by the Distilled Spirits Council and National Association of Manufacturers, per a tipster: Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.), Ruth Ward of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office, Ty Bofferding of the Senate HELP Committee, Nadgey Louis-Charles of the House Judiciary Committee, Chris Swonger, Lisa Hawkins and Denzel McGuire of DISCUS; Jay Timmons and Stef Webb of NAM, Matt Seaholm and Steph Polis of the Plastics Industry Association, Bryan Goodman of the National Corn Growers Association and Cocktail Party candidate “Cher A. Spirit.”
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