LegiStorm

Rep. John Curtis's (R-Utah) newest hire is a K Street lobbyist.

Grace Bellone is now a legislative assistant handling the congressman's natural resources, labor and housing portfolios, among other legislative issues. She's also executive director of the Conservative Climate Caucus, which Curtis founded and chairs.

Bellone was most recently a legislative director at Alpine Group, where her clients included Ford Motor Co., the Recording Industry Association of America and UScellular.

Democratic leadership has lost a staffer to the steel industry.

Ashleigh Wilson is now manager and counsel for federal government affairs at Nucor Corp., the country's biggest steel producer. The company's public-affairs team disclosed spending $2.2 million on federal lobbying in the last year.

Wilson was most recently House Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn's (S.C.) legislative director and counsel. She handled infrastructure, manufacturing and natural resources, among other legislative issues.

They may end up in the same place, but Republican and Democratic congressional staffers often take different educational paths on their way to Washington.

The top undergraduate schools for Republican staffers are the University of Mississippi, the University of Alabama and Texas A&M University, according to a LegiStorm analysis. Democratic staffers are more likely to have attended college in the area, with the most popular bachelor degrees coming from George Washington University, American University and the University of Maryland at College Park.

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the most popular law schools for staffers of both parties. The Catholic University of America and George Washington round out Repubican staffers' top law-school picks; Democrats matriculate to American University and Harvard.

Staffers who pursue master's degrees tend to stay nearby, regardless of party. Georgetown and George Washington are the top picks for both Republican and Democratic staffers. Democrats also tend toward American University, while Republicans bring experience from the U.S. Naval War College, located in Rhode Island.

Biofuels trade group Growth Energy has a great relationship with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). Now, it has one of her staffers, too.

The trade group added Mary Kate Munro as a government-affairs director this month. Munro spent the last five years on Ernst's staff, most recently as a legislative assistant and the senator's top staffer on environment, energy and transportation issues. Ernst is ranking member of the Agriculture Committee's Rural Development and Energy Subcommittee.

Growth Energy has a solid relationship with the senator, who is an outspoken champion of the biofuel industry. The trade group regularly praises Ernst for introducing biofuel friendly legislation and perennially honors the senator with its annual Fueling Growth Award. The company's PAC also gave $10,000 to Ernst's campaign leading up to her 2020 reelection bid, according to Federal Election Commission data.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has landed in Taiwan, leading a congressional delegation on a controversial trip to the East Asian country. But for interest groups who send members and staff on privately funded trips, the destination hasn't been favored for close to a decade.

Privately sponsored trips to Taiwan used to be commonplace. Taiwan was the top foreign desination for such travel in 2004, according to LegiStorm data. Interest groups spent more than $736,000 to send 159 members and staff there that year.

The Taiwanese Association of America was the last to sponsor congressional travel to Taiwan, sending a group to Taipei in 2014.

U.S. relations with China have since tensed, and official visits like Pelosi's stoke fears about worsening relations and the possibility of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait.

Members and staff have not accepted private travel to China since 2019.