LegiStorm

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) has hired a government relations associate who lobbied on behalf of sportsmen, conservation and wildfire funding. 

Alex Schenck comes to Sullivan's office as a legislative correspondent after working as government relations associate at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. The organization seeks to guarantee quality places for hunting and fishing, following Roosevelt's conservation mission.

Schenck registered to lobby last year for the partnership, but has also worked on the Hill before as an intern. He worked in the office of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska).

Sullivan's new staffer holds a 2012 bachelor's in history from High Point University. 

A longtime legislative staffer for Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) has exited the Hill for a government affairs position with the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

Sabrina De Santiago has worked in both chambers of Congress for more than a decade, beginning as a legislative correspondent with Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) shortly after graduating from Brown University in 2000. For the last six years, she has worked as a legislative assistant and senior legislative assistant for Udall.

De Santiago joins the progressive policy organization, formerly headed by President Bill Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, as director of government affairs. She covered a variety of issues for Udall, including transportation, taxation, commerce and economics and public finance.

The think tank has not filed a lobbying disclosure but advocates for progressive solutions for the economy and has sponsored several privately funded trips. 

In the political system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: elected officials and their staffs. chung CHUNG!

But one staffer has transitioned out of his role and into a fictional criminal justice system.

Nicholas Sullivan left the Hill behind earlier this summer and started this month as office production assistant for Law and Order: SVU. He has about two years of experience on the Hill as a staff assistant and legislative correspondent in the office of Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.).

Sullivan has also worked for President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign after earning a bachelor's in international and global studies from the University of Washington.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has hired a former intern who has registered to lobby with Whitmer and Worrall LLC on a variety of issues since 2013.

Mariel Calhoun, originally of Spartanburg, S.C., has lobbied for a range of clients while working as a senior associate at the company, including Rotech Healthcare Inc., Bcast Inc. and the Geosynthetic Materials Association. She rejoined Gowdy's office this month as a legislative assistant handling energy, environmental protection, public lands and natural resources and telecommunications issues.

Calhoun also has past experience in 2011 as American Assistant to a European member of parliament, Niki Tzavela, while working on her bachelor's degree in political science from Furman University. She graduated in 2012 and took a position with Whitmer and Worrall.

AAA has stopped to pick up a Hill staffer for its lobbying team from the office of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas).

Megan Swearingen left Cuellar's office as legislative director earlier this summer and has now filed a lobbying registration for the automotive services organization. She brings more than a decade of congressional experience to her new job.

Swearingen served first as a staff assistant for Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas) beginning in 2003 then as legislative director with three successive offices: Reps. R. Parker Griffith (D-Ala.), Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.) and Cuellar. She has so far registered to lobby for AAA to increase the federal gas tax.

AAA's new lobbyist has a 2003 bachelor's in political science and government from the University of Mary Washington and a 2014 master's in strategic security studies from National Defense University's College of International Security Affairs.