With Daniel Lippman HERE TO STAY: TikTok has enlisted Ballard Partners for help in Washington, the first new addition to the social media platform’s outside lobbying lineup in almost a year. Donald Trump ally Brian Ballard; former Matt Gaetz chief of staff Dan McFaul, former first lady Jill Biden spokesperson and President Joe Biden aide Michael LaRosa; and former deputy assistant Senate sergeant at arms Stephen Klopp began working for the video app in August on issues related to internet technology and regulation of content platforms, according to a newly filed disclosure. — The hire signals that even after the passage this spring of legislation that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to sell off the app or face a U.S. ban, TikTok isn’t shrinking away from Washington. — TikTok’s legal challenge to the divest-or-ban law is working its way through the courts, and in the meantime, several other tech and social media policy battles in which the platform has huge stakes are playing out across D.C. on issues from data privacy and kids' safety to rules for artificial intelligence. — Ballard is TikTok’s first outside lobbying hire since November, when the company brought on Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies. The firm also retains Dentons U.S., AND Partners, Crossroads Strategies, LGL Advisors and K&L Gates in addition to an in-house lobbying team of more than a dozen. Happy Wednesday and welcome to PI. Send K Street tips and gossip: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko. FORBES TATE LOBBYIST HANGS A SHINGLE: Stacey Rolland, the former head of the emerging technology policy practice at Forbes Tate Partners, has launched her own firm, Zero One Strategies, specializing in the sector. — Rolland spent much of her early career working on tax policy — for then-Rep. Xavier Becerra, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and in Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy — before moving into working on compliance and risk management for Capital One, where she got more hands-on experience working with both data and emerging tech. — In an interview, Rolland said that there initially wasn’t much interest for lobbying help focused on the sector despite the growing importance of data across industries. That’s of course changed, with everything from data privacy to cryptocurrency to AI very much en vogue among legislators. Rolland has already signed two clients: Square and Cash App parent company Block, and the NFT marketplace Sorare. — “Next year is this kind of explosion of major policy issues that are all overlapping my background,” she told PI. “We will have big tax conversations, right? And emerging tech will have to have a piece of that. … Whether you're talking about digital assets, you're talking about AI, you're talking about technologies that we can't even imagine yet, they have to be thought about in the tax code.” — She pointed to the uproar in 2021 when the crypto industry — still new to Washington — was caught flat footed after crypto brokers were targeted as a pay-for in the bipartisan infrastructure bill. “I'm perfectly situated to have those conversations in the tax space, like help those emerging tech companies bridge the gap to the tax code,” Rolland said, while also possessing an understanding of their technologies and compliance or other regulatory concerns that others may not. WALL STREET’S BIG WIN: “After a yearslong war of words, regulators on Tuesday watered down an effort to layer new oversight on banks, all but conceding that they had reached too far,” The New York Times’ Rob Copeland reports. — “Debate over new rules intended to make the banking industry safer has rumbled for more than a decade. Known as ‘Basel III endgame’ because they were first agreed to at a global confab in that Swiss city, the rules would have raised the amount of capital banks were required to maintain — funds intended to ensure stability and provide a thicker financial cushion.” — “The problem, as bank chiefs and industry lobbyists have not hesitated to point out, was that stricter rules might force them to crimp lending. The industry assembled an unlikely coalition of community groups and racial advocate groups to argue that the standards would make it more difficult for low-income borrowers to be approved for mortgages and other financial services.” — “The newly proposed rules will largely erase extra rules on banks that have between $100 billion and $250 billion in assets, a category that includes many of the midsize lenders at the center of last year’s banking crisis. They also slash in half the new capital reserve requirements on the largest, so-called systematically important financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.” Still, “it remains to be seen if the changes will satisfy big banks’ complaints.” FIRST IN PI: The husband of the host of a major campaign fundraiser for Donald Trump is a billionaire real estate tycoon who has been linked to wealthy Russian businessmen and, like Trump himself, faced a lawsuit accusing him of financial improprieties, Daniel reports. — In June, Holly Valance, a former pop singer and actress and the wife of Nick Candy, hosted what the BBC called “arguably the biggest election fundraising event for Trump outside the US” which featured Donald Trump Jr. and Nigel Farage, who noted that since it was hosted by Valance, “you can guarantee it’s going to be enormous fun.” Ticket prices reportedly started at $10,000, and the event was said to have raised more than $3 million. Valance and Candy, along with Farage, also had dinner in 2022 with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the value of which Candy has also defended. — In an ironic twist given the investigations into Trump’s Russian connections, Candy managed the development of London’s top luxury real estate project that reportedly has counted as customers Russian billionaire Viktor Kharitonin, a business partner of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, and sanctioned Russian businessperson Alexander Ponomarenko, who has been accused of buying a palace on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Candy’s brother Christian and a former Qatari prime minister own the One Hyde Park development via an offshore-based company. — Given Christian Candy’s status as a “tax exile” in Monaco and One Hyde Park’s unorthodox ownership structure, Nick Candy attracted attention in 2015 after The Guardian got ahold of a memo written by an adviser to the Candys urging that a promotional video for the development to make numerous edits to it to “hugely improve [the] tax profile.” — And in a lawsuit, the Candy brothers were accused of behavior somewhat reminiscent of what Trump has faced. A former friend accused them of “unpaid bills, on-the-spot sackings, bullying, blackmail, intimidation and extortion,” allegations that they denied and that were ultimately dismissed by the British high court. — “The pretzel twists you’re using to link a successful woman who chooses to support President Trump and his campaign through her husband diminishes her personal success and political opinion in a way I think many women would find offensive,” Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement. “We appreciate Ms. Valance and all the patriotic Americans who offer their time, energy and resources to support President Trump’s movement to restore our nation's greatness.” — A representative of Candy declined to comment, while an email sent to a foundation that Candy and Valance head up was not returned. FLYING DRIVING IN: The Association of Equipment Manufacturers rolled into town today for the latest stop in its four-month cross-country bus tour, lamenting the lack of discussion about pro-manufacturing policies in the presidential campaign. “We're flat out of patience with both sides when it comes to trade policy,” Kip Eideberg, the trade group’s top lobbyist, told PI of the message AEM is sharing with lawmakers today.
— While there was a discussion about tariff policy in last night’s debate, “neither side made a strong case for why tariffs are taxes on American taxpayers, why they are taxes on American businesses,” Eideberg argued. “Tariffs aside, no one, neither candidate, articulated a plan for how — or a concept for a plan on how to grow U.S. manufacturing.” — AEM had more than a dozen lawmakers slated to stop by their bus in front of the Capitol throughout the day, where member companies also planned to press legislators on passing a farm bill before the end of the year and on immigration reform and workforce development policies. FOR YOUR CALENDAR: The Critical Labor Coalition, a network of trade associations and companies aimed at pushing through policies to address the country’s labor shortages, will be handing out free Häagen-Dazs ice cream cones on the Hill tomorrow to welcome staffers back from August recess (and maybe help ease the pain of today’s withdrawn CR?). — The truck will be parked at the corner of D Street SE and New Jersey Avenue, and available flavors will include “Choco-Late for Work,” “RetireMINT Chocolate Chip,” “Visas Wanted Vanilla,” “Understaffed Rocky Road,” “Mango Workforce Dream,” “Worker's Espresso,” “Dulce de Labor” and “Coalition Cookies & Cream.” (Hill staff ID badge required, unfortunately.) SPOTTED last night at La Collina for a reception hosted by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld to welcome lawmakers back from recess and welcome former Ways and Means Chair Kevin Brady to the firm, per a tipster: Reps. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), Ron Estes (R-Kan.), Kevin Hern(R-Okla.), David Kustoff (R-Tenn.), Carol Miller (R-W.Va.), Blake Moore (R-Utah), Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) and Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) of the Ways and Means Committee; Matt Meyer of Smith’s office, Josh Bell and Nick O’Boyle of Estes’ office, Cameron Foster and Jeff Willis of Hern’s office, Will Courtney and Wright Ricketts of Kustoff’s office, Emily Henn of Miller’s office, Rebekah Rodriguez and Nick Wooldridge of Moore’s office, Kate Bonner and Noelle Britton of Smucker’s office, Jake Olson and Ryan Dilworth of Van Duyne’s office, Scott Greenberg, Kathryn Reed, Eric Ettorre and Kyle Perel of Ways and Means; Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Tim Tebow, and more than a dozen members of Akin. — And at an anniversary and Hispanic Heritage Month celebration hosted by the Hispanic Lobbyists Association, per a tipster: Reps. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), Rob Menendez (D-N.J.), Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) and Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.); Mary Ann Gomez Orta of the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute, Steve Haro of Haro Solutions, Lucia Alonzo of Michael Best Strategies, Ivelisse Porroa-García of Crossroads Strategies, Art Motta of AstraZeneca, Erica Romero of the National Center for Teacher Residencies, Maria Luisa Boyce of UPS, Norberto Salinas of Capitol Counsel, Osiris Morel of Mark Anthony Brands, Javier Gamboa of the Business Roundtable, Carlos Becerra of Florida International University, Omar Franco of Becker, Estuardo Rodriguez of the Raben Group, Rich Lopez of Forbes Tate Partners, Marco Davis of CHCI, Diego Zambrano of Philip Morris International, Claudia Flores of DailyPay, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Akin. — And at an event hosted by Van Scoyoc Associates for foster care philanthropy Comfort Cases to pack backpacks that will be distributed to foster youth in the D.C. area, per a tipster: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth co-Chairs Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Rob Scheer of Comfort Cases, Kate Riley of America’s Public Television Stations, Charles Chamness of Rep. Mike Quigley’ s (D-Ill.) office, Scott Cunningham of the House General Counsel’s office and Stu Van Scoyoc and Jennifer LaTourette of VSA.
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment