By Caitlin Oprysko

With Daniel Lippman

K STREET AWAITS WHAT’S NEXT: Washington’s influence community once again finds itself staring into the abyss as the dust continues to settle around the historic ouster last night of Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House, with lobbyists pitched into a holding pattern as the battle to succeed him picks up.

— “What a cluster,” Republican lobbyist Mark Williams of Ferox Strategies said in an email to PI last night. Williams said he’s spent much of today tamping down some of the “wild speculation” clients have been hearing about what comes next.

— “It's definitely jarring for everybody,” said Dave Peluso, a partner at Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid and a former chief of staff to Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). McCarthy’s removal “makes everybody reassess and take stock and reevaluate how they're approaching the end of the year now,” he added.

— “Are conversations and timelines reset on things we've been working on, are they in the mix, are they out of the mix? I think that's going to be everyone's task No. 1 over the coming weeks, as things settle out,” he said.

— “For K Street … we generally like predictability,” Monument Advocacy’s Stewart Verdery said. “You'd like to know who has power and what their priorities are … so having this upheaval just makes the job harder.”

— Clients, too, “just want to know who are going to be the people and the personalities kind of driving the train for the rest of the Congress,” said Williams.

— While Speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) has pledged to move quickly on electing a new speaker, dodging the question of whether the House can conduct legislative business with him at the helm, lobbyists aren’t ruling out the possibility of an extended campaign to lead the fractured House GOP conference.

— “We could be in this mode for a while,” said Dave Schnittger, a principal at Squire Patton Boggs and a spokesperson and former deputy chief of staff to former Speaker John Boehner.

— “There’s just a question of how quickly folks can kind of get together” and corral enough votes to elect a new speaker, Peluso said. “Obviously in the beginning of the Congress we saw that that was a really high bar, and I don't think much has changed in that regard.”

— That puts the squeeze on already-tight timelines for Congress to pass reauthorization bills for the FAA, Pentagon and farm and nutrition policy, to say nothing of the ticking clock on more shutdown brinkmanship.

— “For downtown it means the path ahead legislatively is more clouded than ever,” Schnittger said, arguing that “there's a legitimate question about whether the new speaker will need to make even more concessions” than McCarthy in his bid to finally secure, and then hold onto, the gavel.

— For all the disarray atop the conference, though, lobbyists PI talked to today pointed out that the House was originally scheduled to be in recess this week and next, so if the speakership gets sorted out on McHenry’s timeline, the impact could be minimal. (Is this the K Street equivalent of girl math?) Even if not, it will likely be close to business as usual for committee work.

— Still, “your big-picture negotiations typically come from the four corners of leadership,” along with the President, Peluso said. “So the dynamics around all that … could shift pretty dramatically” depending on how leadership elections shake out.

— “This could mean everything or it could mean nothing,” Narrative Strategies’ Ken Spain told PI last night. “We’re obviously in a volatile political environment. Advocacy and public affairs strategies must be nimble and multi-faceted as things will remain unpredictable for the foreseeable future.”

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Happy Wednesday and welcome to PI. Boy, these unprecedented times sure are becoming more… precedented. Let me know how the speaker vacancy impacts you: [email protected]. And be sure to follow me on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.

AN UPDATE TO TUESDAY’S INFLUENCE: In Tuesday’s edition of PI, we wrote that Bayer’s website has not been updated with political contribution disclosures after 2020. Under a global company policy adopted in 2021, Bayer no longer makes direct corporate contributions to individual campaigns, and no longer posts donations from its corporate PAC online aside from the legally required reports filed with the FEC, according to the company.

— The company still gave more than $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, Republican Attorneys General Association and the Republican State Leadership Committee and the Democratic Governors Association, Democratic Attorneys General Association and Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee between 2018 and 2022, contributions that were not disclosed in the company’s final reports.

AFP HEADS TO THE HILL: Americans for Prosperity is planting a flag closer to the Capitol as the Koch-funded conservative grassroots group preps a campaign and policy blitz ahead of next year’s elections. AFP will retain its current headquarters in Arlington, Va., but will move its government affairs team into a new 15,000-square-foot campus in the same building as the American Trucking Associations. The new space is meant to serve as a hub for staff, lawmakers and other allies to mingle, as the group readies to spend upwards of $70 million to defeat former President Donald Trump in the GOP presidential primary.

FIRST IN PI — MFA LAUNCHES DEFENSE OF PRIVATE CREDIT: The Managed Funds Association is putting five figures behind a new ad campaign aiming to highlight the virtues of private credit funds, which are garnering a closer look from regulators following the bank collapses of this spring.

— “Private credit is kind of like the economic Marines. When there is a shock to a system, the first group of lenders that comes back is private credit,” an executive from a Minnesota private credit fund says in the spot, which features a hotelier who relied on a loan backed by private capital as a lifeline during the pandemic.

— The ad will run on connected TVs, in display ads and on social media, and is part of a broader MFA push to boost the alternative asset management industry. Our friends over at Morning Money wrote last week that the industry’s ears are burning after a recent speech from FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg called out the potential systemic risks posed by nonbanks, with regulators weighing the prospect of singling out individual firms for designation as “systemically important financial institutions,” a prospect the industry has sought to downplay.

— “Private credit funds provide needed capital to the businesses that are the backbone of the U.S. economy,” MFA President and CEO Bryan Corbett said in a statement. “This video showcases how private credit helps create opportunities for workers and strengthen communities across the country.”

ICYMI — NEWS EXECS RALLY FOR AI PROTECTIONS: “Dozens of newspaper, digital and magazine news executives descended on Capitol Hill last week to lobby members of Congress on copyright protections for their work in the era of artificial intelligence,” Axios’ Sara Fischer reports.

— “Newspaper leaders can be hesitant to lobby directly, given that many of their outlets give political endorsements. But the threat of AI, combined with competition concerns around Big Tech, is pushing executives to band together and speak out. The Hill blitz was organized by the News/Media Alliance (NMA), one of the largest news publishing associations in the world, representing over 2,000 publishers.” (POLITICO parent company Axel Springer is a member of the group.)

— “Executives from an array of outlets, ranging from state papers like the Idaho Press to large digital companies like Vox Media, held over 80 meetings with lawmakers across 25 states to discuss copyright protections for their work in the AI era, among other issues.”

— “In her first interview since becoming president and CEO of the NMA in June, Danielle Coffey laid out a road map for how the group is planning to focus its advocacy efforts around AI,” with a focus on “IP protection, disclosures and transparency in training AI models, liability, and accountability and competition. … The main position the group takes is that any unlicensed use of content created by its members and journalists by generative AI companies is intellectual property infringement.”

D.C. AG PROBING ARABELLA ADVISORS: D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb has launched an investigation into the the liberal dark money group Arabella Advisors in addition to his probe of the dark money network aligned with conservative legal activist Leonard Leo, POLITICO’s Heidi Przybyla reports.

— In response to the inquiry into whether Leo had misused nonprofit tax laws for his personal enrichment, Republican attorneys general argued that Schwalb’s office should instead be investigating Arabella Advisors, a consulting firm founded by a former Clinton administration official that helps manage some of the top liberal dark money nonprofits.

— Schwalb’s office has issued subpoenas in both investigations, which followed “dueling complaints from liberal and conservative watchdog groups filed with the IRS that began after POLITICO reported that the lifestyle of Leo and a handful of his allies took a lavish turn beginning in 2016, the year he was tapped as an unpaid adviser on judicial nominations to former President Donald Trump.”

— “Arabella Advisors complies with the law and will cooperate with the District of Columbia Attorney General’s civil inquiry,” Arabella spokesperson Steve Sampson told Heidi. “We’re confident in the systems we have in place to ensure our business conforms with legal and regulatory requirements, and Arabella Advisors is proud of the work we do.”

— The response contrasts with that of Leo, whose attorney David Rivkin told POLITICO that that Schwalb has “no legal authority to conduct any investigatory steps or take any enforcement measures” because the Leo-aligned nonprofits were organized outside of D.C.

— Law firm Oberheiden is adding former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and former Rep. Trey Gowdy.

— Luther Lowe has left Yelp, where he was senior vice president for public policy, after 15 years with the company. Lowe is joining startup accelerator Y Combinator as its first head of public policy.

— Jake Chervinsky will be chief legal officer at the venture fund Variant. He was previously chief policy officer at the Blockchain Association.

— Barbara Polk has been named the new president of Lift Our Voices, the workers’ rights nonprofit founded by Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky. She’s currently chief administrative officer for the Kennedy Center.

— Ryan Jackson is joining the American Chemistry Council as vice president of federal affairs. He previously led the National Mining Association’s government and political affairs shop and is an EPA and Senate EPW alum.

— Jonathan Bydlak is joining Shopify as senior lead for government and public affairs. He most recently was director of the governance program at the R Street Institute.

— Matt Fossen will be director of public relations at Last Energy. He previously was a public relations manager at Freedom Forum.

— Delphon named Jerry Broz as vice president for strategic marketing and business development. He was the president and director of technology at Advanced Probing Systems.

— Kit Conklin will be a senior adviser to the House China Committee. He was a vice president at Kharon.

— Neil McKiernan is vice president for government affairs at American Defense International, per Morning Defense. He was previously Rep. Joe Courtney’s (D-Conn.) chief of staff.

— TechNet has named Megan Perleoni as communications and digital content manager and promoted Emily Hickman to federal policy coordinator.

— Razia Hashmi has been named vice president of clinical affairs at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. She was previously at Elevance Health.

None.

Blue South (Super PAC)
Central Texas Efficiency and Reform Student PAC (PAC)
Forward Progress PAC (Hybrid PAC)
Pole Position PAC (Super PAC)
Republicans for Gun Control (PAC)
Volunteer Firefighters of America (Super PAC)

Gabbert Consulting Co LLC: Chipps, Caffrey And Dubilier, P. S. C.
Holland & Knight LLP: Joint Official Liquidator Of Silicon Valley Bank Cayman Branch
Lobbyit.Com: Steel Tube Institue
Mercury Public Affairs, LLC: Camel Energy Inc.
Thegroup Dc, LLC: Astellas Pharma US, Inc
The Williams Group: Micron

Horizon Government Affairs: Rxrevu Dba Arrive Health
Stonington Global: Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc.

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