Congress
Sinema lands at Hogan Lovells
Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the centrist dealmaker who wielded virtually unilateral veto power over the Biden administration’s legislative agenda, has landed on K Street.
The Arizona Democrat-turned-independent is joining the law and lobbying firm Hogan Lovells, where she will serve as a senior counsel in the global regulatory and intellectual property practice, the firm announced Monday.
Sinema said in an interview that she will not register to lobby, but instead will advise businesses across industries “understand, anticipate and influence the shifting regulatory landscape” and help them “navigate the intersection of business and government.”
The hire marks a jackpot for the firm, given Sinema’s intimate involvement in shaping some of the most significant pieces of legislation of the last four years, including the Inflation Reduction Act, bipartisan infrastructure law and the CHIPS and Science Act, in addition to landmark gun control and marriage equality legislation and a scrapped border security bill.
Sinema, a former member of the Senate Banking, Commerce, Appropriations, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security committees, told PI she’ll be working mostly with clients in industries where she’s long “had interest and expertise,” including AI and technology, fintech, crypto and private equity. She said she was drawn to Hogan Lovells because of the firm’s growing global regulatory practice and its focus on leading-edge industries in the tech space.
Though her new role is Sinema’s most significant step into the influence industry since leaving office earlier this year, it isn’t her first. In January, Sinema joined the global advisory council at crypto exchange Coinbase alongside Chris LaCivita, President Donald Trump’s 2024 co-campaign manager. Sinema also formed the Arizona Business Roundtable, which retained Mehlman Consulting in January to lobby on tax issues.
Sinema was known as a reliable ally of the business community during her time in the Senate. She voted against several of former President Joe Biden’s labor nominees and opposed increasing the federal minimum wage, provoking the ire of the Democratic base.
Sinema also single-handedly rescued the carried interest loophole during IRA negotiations — a tax provision that proponents in private equity, real estate and venture capital are once again gearing up to protect.
“I’ve really focused on helping people solve complex challenges and problems, bringing unlikely people together in a room to find unlikely outcomes,” Sinema said of her record as a legislator, which spanned 12 years in Congress and nearly a decade in the Arizona legislature.
Even though Sinema’s retirement coincided with the exits of several other centrist dealmakers in Congress, “there’s always opportunities for bipartisan action,” she contended. “It’s really about providing a perspective that allows people to see the benefit for them in engaging in those trust-based relationships, and providing a pathway that makes it reasonable and beneficial for people to do that work.”
Congress
House GOP eyes reconciliation process to pass Middle East war aid
DORAL, Florida — House GOP leaders discussed trying to attach military aid to a party-line policy package during a closed-door meeting Tuesday afternoon, according to three people granted anonymity to share details of private conversations.
Speaker Mike Johnson and his team are weighing a variety of options, including the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process, to pass some or all of the tens of billions of dollars in funding they expect the Pentagon to request in the coming days to assist in the U.S. conflict with Iran.
The leadership meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the House GOP policy retreat in Florida this week, comes as Republicans are still weighing whether they can even muster the votes for another megabill given their razor-thin margins and the tight window in which to legislate during an election year.
Congress
House Oversight chair moving quickly to schedule Epstein testimony with Bondi, Lutnick
Rep. James Comer says he’s working to schedule testimonies from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick within the next few weeks as part of the congressional investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I’m in communication with them,” Comer (R-Ky.), the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told reporters Wednesday morning as he prepared to attend a deposition with Richard Kahn, Epstein’s accountant. “We’re trying to get them in very, very soon.”
Comer’s panel voted to subpoena Bondi last week to compel her testimony about the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein case, amid mounting criticism that DOJ officials slow-walked the release of the files and bungled the redactions in published materials.
Lutnick last week agreed to speak voluntarily with investigators under threat of being subpoenaed by the Oversight Committee. Lawmakers want him to discuss the full extent of his relationship with the disgraced financier, after Lutnick recently admitted he had lunch with Epstein after previously claiming they had severed ties. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Congress
Cornyn backs ending filibuster as he courts Trump’s endorsement
Sen. John Cornyn threw his support behind scrapping the filibuster to pass a voting restrictions bill President Donald Trump has called his “No. 1 priority” in Congress, as the Texas Republican continues to seek the president’s endorsement and stave off a bruising primary runoff election.
Trump has held off on endorsing Cornyn, the pick of top Senate Republicans, over Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a bid to pressure leadership to lower the threshold of votes needed to pass the SAVE America Act, which would enact citizenship and photo ID restrictions in elections while also targeting transgender rights. Paxton has said he would suspend his bid if the bill passes.
Cornyn, long a supporter of the Senate filibuster, came out forcefully for repealing the rule in a Wednesday morning New York Post op-ed.
“After careful consideration, I support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary for us to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding past the Democrats’ obstruction, through the Senate, and on the president’s desk for his signature,” he wrote.
Trump called on Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act in a speech at his golf club in Doral, Florida, on Monday, arguing, “I don’t think we should approve anything until this is approved.”
“It will guarantee the midterms,” he said. “If you don’t get it, big trouble, my opinion.”
Asked Tuesday about the talking filibuster, Cornyn indicated to reporters he would support it to pass the SAVE America Act and teased he would be making a longer announcement Wednesday.
“On these critical issues, at this critical hour, the old procedures no longer align with the core American principles we must defend,” he wrote. “ It is time for our Senate Republican Conference, led by our strong and strategic Majority Leader John Thune, to retake the initiative, rebuild momentum and get results.”
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
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