LegiStorm

Rep. Ken Calvert's (R-Calif.) former chief of staff has joined Kadesh & Associates as the small lobbying firm's only Republican — and indeed, the only non-alumnus of the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

Dave Ramey, Calvert's chief of staff from 1997 until earlier this fall, started as a principal at the lobbying firm in November. He had worked on the Hill since 1985, when he joined the House Republican Policy Committee as a foreign policy analyst.

Mark Kadesh, Feinstein's chief of staff from 1998 to 2006, and Chris Kierig, her former legislative assistant, make up the rest of the firm's federal lobbying team. Warren Weinstein, also a Feinstein alumnus, left the California-focused firm earlier this year.

Dave Kennett, formerly a lobbying at and president of Capitol Alliance Consulting, replaces Ramey as Calvert's chief of staff.

A legislative assistant to Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) has boarded a train to the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, where he is a new government relations specialist in the union's transportation division.

Erick Siahaan had worked for Capps, who retires from Congress next month, since 2012.

SMART's Transportation Division has lobbied on a number of transportation-related bills, as well as on issues like the Railroad Retirement Disability Program and an expected strike among New Jersey Transit workers.

Dmytro Firtash, the Ukrainian oil oligarch and international fugitive with ties to Donald Trump, has hired the new crisis management firm started by Lanny Davis, perhaps Washington's leading crisis manager and a former aide to President Bill Clinton.

According to a disclosure form, Davis and his new firm Davis Goldberg Galper will provide Firtash with "legal representation in ongoing matters," to potentially include "correcting the record in the media and elsewhere in the face of distortions and inaccuracies and advising on such media strategies for such purposes." Firtash hired Davis and his previous firm to perform similar tasks in 2014.

Firtash is a former business partner to Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. In 2008, Firtash planned to invest $100 million to help Manafort redevelop a New York hotel, though the deal did not go through. The ties to the controversial Ukrainian billionaire have not stopped Manafort from recently returning to Trump as an adviser. 

Firtash is wanted for corruption in the U.S. Last week, Spain requested his extradition from Austria, where he's lived since Ukraine's 2014 revolution, for alleged money laundering. The country dismissed a similar request by the U.S. last year.

The oil tycool is paying law firm Davis Goldberg Galper an estimated $80,000 per month until mid-January, with the option to renew the contract then. 

A legislative assistant to Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) can indeed see the forest for the trees. Tom Beyer is moving from the Hill to the Georgia Forestry Association, where he's taken a job as director of government affairs.

Beyer joined the House Small Business Committee in 2012 and had been with Woodall's office since 2013. The American Forest and Paper Association, which counts the Georgia Forestry Association among its members, has given Woodall a ranking of "100 percent" in recent years.

CrossFit, a high-intensity gym chain with a cult following, is turning to the federal in its battle to keep Big Soda out of academic research.

The gym chain has hired the Podesta Group to lobby on "conflict of interest rules and regulations related to academic research funded by government agencies," the lobbying firm recently disclosed.

Earlier this fall, CrossFit company founder and CEO Greg Glassman spoke at a Capitol Hill event, sponsored by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), calling for lawmakers to keep soda manufacturers from influencing academic research on health issues. According to a CrossFit press release, Glassman "has focused his efforts on chronic disease prevention," including type 2 diabetes, since the chain's founding.

Critics, however, allege that the company is motivated not by health concerns, but by its ongoing skirmishes with soda-sponsored fitness groups, according to U.S. News and World Report.