LegiStorm

A new legislative assistant covering education for Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) has returned to the Hill after lobbying for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

Pamela Davidson worked in the House for 15 years from 1992 through 2007, serving the final 10 years as professional staff member on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. Since then she has held several government affairs jobs, including at the National Council for Adoption and National Association of Child Care Resources and Referral Agencies.

Davidson registered to lobby between 2012 and 2014 for charter schools, including on the issues of expanding the success of quality charter schools, charter schools on Indian lands and charter enrollment practices. Davidson was the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools' senior director of government relations.

Davidson earned a bachelor's in political science from Oklahoma State University a year before coming to the Hill in 1992 as a staff assistant for Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-Okla.). She also served as legislative assistant for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and senior legislative assistant for Rep. Jon Lynn Christensen (R-Neb.).

A staffer who became a chemical industry lobbyist is back on the Hill as counsel on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee after just a two-month absence.

Mandy Gunasekara registered to lobby in just one quarter before passing again through the revolving door. She previously worked in the House and Senate for nearly four years after graduating from the University of Mississippi School of Law. She also held earlier law clerk and intern positions on the Hill.

In the fourth quarter of 2014, Gunasekara registered to lobby with the National Association of Chemical Distributors while working as the organization's senior director of legislative affairs. She lobbied on the issues of chemical facility security from terrorism and reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Gunasekara's new job places her alongside Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a vocal climate change skeptic. She has weighed in on energy and infrastructure issues on Twitter, including the Keystone XL pipeline and gas prices.

"Who said we couldn't drill our way to $2 gas?" she tweeted Jan. 4, linking to an article.

Gunasekara last worked in the Senate as a staff and research assistant on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee from 2011 to 2012. She spent the next two years in Rep. Bob Latta's (R-Ohio) office as legislative counsel and senior legislative counsel before leaving in October 2014.

A nuclear power plant dogged by periodic complaints from regulators, including Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) after a 2013 radioactive water leak into Lake Michigan, has a new but familiar advocate.

Upton's senior legislative assistant and media adviser has switched to government affairs work for Entergy Corp.'s Palisades Nuclear Power Plant.

Nicholas Culp left the Hill in December after working in Upton's office for more than a decade, beginning in 2003 as a district staff assistant. Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, holds a key oversight position of the nuclear industry and represents the district that is home to the plant.

Upton was "outraged" after the 2013 leak, according to a press release from his office that listed Culp as a staff contact. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said there was no health risk from the leak.

A round-up by MLive.com at the time outlined the series of issues over the years, and Entergy acknowledged this month a radiation monitoring error. Extra inspections have helped keep the plant operating, MLive.com found last year, even after it was temporarily downgraded to a status among the worst-performing U.S. nuclear plants.

Culp served as a legislative assistant in Upton's office for five years and started his first job in the office while earning his bachelor's in political science and government from Kalamazoo College. 

A health care lobbyist has taken a job with the House Budget Committee, her first return to the Hill since an internship in 2009.

Alexandra Pryor serves as health policy adviser and counsel on the committee after two years working as health care associate for Cozen O'Connor PC, where she registered to lobby in 2013 and 2014. She last worked in Congress as a legislative intern for the Senate Republican Policy Committee.

During her years at Cozen O'Connor, Pryor worked for clients including Universal American Corp., Continuum Health Alliance LLC and Independence Blue Cross, lobbying on the Affordable Care Act, Medicare policy and Medicaid expansion.

Pryor also has past experience as an intern for Mitt Romney's first presidential campaign and in his gubernatorial office in 2006. She has a bachelor's degree from Tufts University, a master's in public policy from the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute and a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.

Cozen O'Connor has lobbied for a variety of clients on the Hill, advocating on health care issues but also on electric vehicles, Common Core and rail service.

Fewer registered lobbyists made the jump to Capitol Hill in 2014 than in any other year since 2002, when LegiStorm began tracking the revolving door with K Street.

Throughout the year, 65 lobbyists arrived in Congress compared to 112 in 2013, 74 in 2012 and 220 in 2011.

The movement to Congress was only lower in 2002, according to LegiStorm's tracking, when 56 staffers joined congressional offices. In fact, the number in 2002 likely understates the revolving door numbers because of the lack of significant lobbying records from previous years. Reliable lobbying data is only available from 2001 forward.

Of the 2014 group, 28 were Republicans and 32 were Democrats.

But the low this year did not apply to staffers moving in the other direction from the Hill to K Street. In 2014, LegiStorm tracked 394 former congressional staffers who registered to lobby. That compares to 444 in 2013 and 329 in 2012.

Of the former staffers who filed lobbying or foreign agent papers in 2014, 205 were Republicans and 171 were Democrats.

View LegiStorm's full breakdown of revolving door data here. LegiStorm's numbers are conservative and do not include staffers who have never registered to lobby but have held positions in the influence business.

The 2014 lobbying numbers became available after last week's registration deadline.