Tag: hires

Teachers union chief hires seasoned lawyer ahead of Hill testimony

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She’s turned to Michael Bromwich, senior counsel at the white shoe Steptoe law firm, for help.
“It is undeniable that the pandemic resulted in tragic and continuing consequences for children,” Bromwich wrote on the union’s behalf Wednesday to subcommittee chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and ranking member Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.).
“We make no progress towards addressing those very real problems by engaging in the type of scapegoating built on false allegations that appear to be the basis for this Subcommittee’s ‘investigation,’” Bromwich wrote in his letter to lawmakers, which was obtained by POLITICO.
Bromwich is widely known in Washington for his work representing former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe during the Trump-Russia investigation and Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor who alleged she was sexually assaulted by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
A former Justice Department inspector general, Bromwich has garnered a reputation as a pugnacious defender. His message to congressional Republicans on Wednesday suggests he will deploy a similar strategy.
Earlier this month, Wenstrup asked Weingarten to testify at an April 26 hearing on the consequences of Covid-19’s school closures.
That request followed a March 28 letter from Wenstrup to Weingarten, which informed the teachers’ union chief that the select committee was investigating “potential political interference” with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on reopening schools issued in February 2021.
Wenstrup’s March 28 letter alleged the union was granted “uncommon” access to edit the guidance before its release, citing media reports at the time, which it said ultimately resulted in the CDC advising that schools should remain closed in much of the country.

Bromwich countered that the union shared its views on the planned guidance in late January 2021 during a conference call between Weingarten, senior union staff, CDC officials and President Joe Biden’s office.
AFT officials then followed up in February 2021 to suggest language related to accommodations for high-risk educators and staff, and also proposed that the CDC include language that said its guidance may need to be updated in light of new virus variants.
In addition, the union also proposed a “trigger” threshold that would determine when schools should be closed based on positive test cases. But the CDC rejected that suggestion, according to Bromwich.
“The claim that the AFT’s agenda was ‘keeping schools closed,’ and that it shifted CDC’s guidance to match that agenda, is utterly false,” Bromwich wrote to lawmakers on Wednesday.
“In fact, the AFT’s role was extremely limited,” he wrote. “It proposed changes that amounted to a few sentences in a 38-page document. The need to clarify these points was obvious and should have been uncontroversial.”
Wenstrup has asked Weingarten to supply documents, communications and a list of meetings between the AFT and the CDC, department of Health and Human Services and the Executive Office of the President regarding the guidance, among other items.
Wenstrup also issued similar requests to more than a dozen other organizations — including the National Education Association, AASA, The School Superintendents Association; the National Association of Secondary School Principals the National Association of Elementary School Principals and National School Boards Association.
Weingarten “welcomes the opportunity to testify and cooperate with the committee’s work,” an AFT spokesperson said on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Wenstrup did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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#Teachers #union #chief #hires #seasoned #lawyer #ahead #Hill #testimony
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 20, 2023
TikTok hires Biden-connected firm as it finds itself under D.C.’s microscope

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The fire TikTok has faced in D.C. has been building for a number of years after the Trump administration tried to ban the app. It has continued with the Biden administration’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. conducting a national security review of TikTok.
SKDK is seen as the most well-connected Democratic firm in Washington with former top employees in senior and mid-level roles in the Biden administration. Anita Dunn, a founding partner, returned to the White House last May where she is senior adviser after a stint in the early part of the Biden administration and work on the 2020 campaign. Other former SKDK employees in the Biden administration include deputy White House communications directors Kate Berner and Herbie Ziskend, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh and Interior Department press secretary Tyler Cherry.
While it has thrived in the Biden era, SKDK has also faced additional scrutiny for its clients. It parted ways with Starbucks last year as the coffee company tried to fend off a union organizing effort. As of 2021, the firm worked for Amazon as well but it’s unclear whether the two companies still have a relationship.
Last year, Dunn said in financial disclosure documents that she had advised a number of blue-chip American companies in the previous two years who have business before the government, including AT&T, Lyft, Pfizer and Salesforce. The firm, which is owned by the Stagwell Group, has long emphasized that it doesn’t lobby the federal government or represent companies on issues before the government.
The bill introduced by a bipartisan group of senators that could affect TikTok is supported by the White House. It would give the federal government new powers to restrict, and potentially ban, technologies from China and other nations designated as U.S. adversaries, although such an action would face howls from advocates of free speech. TikTok is seen as one of the technologies that is helping prompt that action from Congress given the worries that the Chinese government could one day use data from its millions of American users.
To try to mitigate federal government action against TikTok, the app’s Chinese owner ByteDance has spent more than $13 million on lobbying since 2019 and has hired several dozen lobbyists, including former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and John Breaux Sr. (R-La.), who work for Crossroads Strategies, as well as former Reps. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) and Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), who currently work for K&L Gates.
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#TikTok #hires #Bidenconnected #firm #finds #D.C.s #microscope
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 10, 2023
Schumer hires Warren antitrust staffer as new chief counsel

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A spokesperson for Schumer declined to comment.
Prior to his work for Warren, Turnage was an associate practicing antitrust law at Kirkland & Ellis. He was also in the 2017 Yale Law School graduating class alongside Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan.
At the center of the controversy last year over the tech legislation was the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S. 2992). Sponsored by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the bill was the most serious attempt at tightening oversight of the tech industry in years. It would bar the largest tech companies from prioritizing their products over their competitors who rely on those companies to reach customers.
Amazon, for example, would be barred from promoting its own private-label products over rival items on its e-commerce platform.
It passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee on a bipartisan 16-6 vote, and its supporters maintained that it would have passed on the floor if given the opportunity.
Other failed antitrust bills targeting the tech sector include the Open App Markets Act, (S. 2710), which would force Apple and Google to allow third-party payment providers for in-app purchases and third-party app stores on their mobile devices (Google already allows this), and the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (S. 673) which would allow news organizations to collectively bargain with Google and Facebook over online advertising rates are also possibilities.
Warren has voiced support for all three bills, and in a speech last month mentioned all of them by name. “Those bipartisan antitrust bills should be law today. And they would be law today IF they had gotten votes on the floor of the Senate and the House. But there was never a vote on those bills. It was a mistake we cannot afford to repeat,” Warren said, without mentioning Schumer specifically.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 8, 2023
Southwest hires its first new lobbyist in years amid multi-prong controversies

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While a winter storm just before last month’s holidays forced other major airlines to cancel or delay flights, Southwest canceled more than 16,000 trips as it struggled to recover from the storm. | Charles Rex Arbogast/AP Photo
Southwest Airlines has brought on new lobbying firepower for the first time in almost half a decade, as the airline weathers new scrutiny in Washington over the scheduling meltdown last month.
The carrier hired former Rep. Jerry Costello (D-Ill.) earlier this month to lobby on the upcoming Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization, according to disclosures filed over the weekend. The Illinois Democrat, who left Congress in 2013 after 25 years in the House, previously served as chair of the aviation subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure panel.
The airline spent $1.1 million on federal lobbying last year — the same as in the previous year. But Costello’s firm is the first new addition to Southwest’s roster of outside lobbyists — which already includes fellow former lawmakers Kit Bond and Kenny Hulshof — since 2018, when lawmakers were crafting the last FAA reauthorization.
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#Southwest #hires #lobbyist #years #multiprong #controversies
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 30, 2023