LegiStorm

In a sign of the times, the Human Milk Banking Association of North America has hired its first lobbyists.

The organization, which accredits nonprofit milk banks in the U.S. and Canada, hired the Raben Group amid the infant-formula crisis. The team is lobbying on the Donor Milk Safety Act and other milk-bank and donor-milk issues, according to a recent disclosure.

This appears to be the first lobbying filing to address the formula shortage, according to a LegiStorm review of disclosures. But it's unlikely to be the only lobbying work on the issue: Lobbyists have until July 20 to disclose what issues they're working on in the second quarter and 45 days from the start of a contract to disclose work with new clients.

House Republicans edged out Democrats in first-quarter staffer pay, thanks to a bigger pay bump among GOP personal offices.

House Republicans averaged 6 percent higher pay per staffer than in the same time period last year, according to LegiStorm data. House Democrats averaged a 3 percent increase.

Full-time Republican staffers took home an average 2022 Q1 salary rate of $70,280 per year. Democrats had an average salary rate of $69,440, which works out to $210 per quarter less than Republicans.

A year before, Republicans paid an average annualized rate of $66,372, compared to $67,432 for Democrats — or $265 per quarter more for Democratic staffers.

In March, Congress authorized a 21 percent increase to the House's office budgets for 2022. That increase was intended to bolster staffer pay in hopes of attracting and retaining talent. Second-quarter salaries, which the House is due to publish by late August, will likely reflect further-increased pay rates for both parties.

A GOP House Oversight Committee staffer has plugged into a new government-affairs job.

Stephen Gordon joined the National Electrical Manufacturers Association this month as a government-affairs director. The trade group disclosed spending $1.7 million on its federal lobbying program in the last year for work ranging from chemical regulation, to health-care technology, to tariffs.

Gordon was most recently a senior professional staff member under Oversight Committee ranking member James Comer (R-Ky.). He's also served as director in the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Public Engagement and worked as a U.S. Chamber of Commerce manager.

Cryptocurrency-exchange platform Coinbase has picked up Sen. Gary Peters' (D-Mich.) top economic staffer, just as the Senate's proposed regulatory overhaul grips the cryptocurrency industry.

Josh Fendrick starts soon as a manager for U.S. policy at Coinbase, the largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange. Like other cryptocurrency power players, Coinbase ramped up its federal lobbying program last year. The industry's lobbying has since reached a "fever pitch," as Politico reported yesterday.

Fendrick's hire comes just as Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) introduce their much-hyped Responsible Financial Innovation Act, which would reportedly give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulatory powers over the cryptocurrency market.

Fendrick was most recently a legislative assistant to Peters, who sits on the Senate Commerce Committee. He's also served as an economic policy adviser to Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee.

If they want to take full advantage of this year's budget increase, House offices need to dramatically up their spending since March.

The average personal office spent just 15.9 percent of their budget in the year's first quarter, according to LegiStorm data. In normal years, that number ranges from 18.5 to 19.8 percent.

But this isn't a normal year in House office spending: In March, Congress authorized a 21 percent increase to the House's office budgets for the 2022 fiscal year. That's the highest increase to the Member Representation Allowance since its first authorization in 1996.

The MRA increase gave the average office an extra $327,475 this year, equivalent to $81,868 per quarter.

Only 11 representatives spent enough in the first quarter to touch any of those additonal funds: Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), John Carter (R-Texas), Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif), Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa), Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.), Donald Payne (D-N.J.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), as well as ex-Rep. Filemón Vela (D-Texas), who resigned from office the last day of the quarter.

All other representatives disclosed Q1 spending at rates that would have been sustainable without any MRA increase.

The increase was intended to bolster staffers salaries in order to attract and retain talent. Although some offices may have begun increasing salaries before the end of the first quarter, the extent of staffer pay increases won't be clear until the House releases its Q2 expense data in late August.

Offices have until Sept. 1 to institute the House's new minimum salary of $45,000 per year.