LegiStorm

A former Social Security Administration commissioner and onetime congressional staffer has registered as a foreign agent to promote Hungary's government.

Jo Anne B. Barnhart has worked in politics since the 1970s when she started as Sen. Bill Roth's (R-Del.) legislative assistant shortly after graduating from college. The job with Roth, followed by four years with the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in the late 1980s, kicked off decades of work in the executive and legislative branches for Barnhart.

Barnhart, who listed her occupation as a government relations consultant with the SLI Group LLC, registered under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. The organization will provide "public relations assistance and networking" for Hungary by disseminating information and making contacts with lawmakers and business leaders.

The part-time work earns Barnhart $10,000 per month, according to the FARA filing.

Barnhart also served as political director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the 1990s, and was commissioner of Social Security between 2001 and 2007. 

Dead men tell no tales but in D.C. they can still register to lobby.

The unarmed black teen shot and killed in August by a Ferguson, Mo. police officer, sparking mass protests, has filed as a registered lobbyist. Or at least someone did it for him.

As Ferguson awaits the decision of a grand jury on whether to indict Ferguson officer Darren Wilson, a D.C. lobbying organization has taken the unusual step of listing the deceased Brown as one of its lobbyists in a filing. Fighting Apartheid Confrontation Transformation Systems Inc. has registered to lobby since 1999.

The organization, also known as FACTS Inc., listed Wilson's possible indictment for "improper procedure on the police force duties/activities" as the central lobbying issue. It also cites an autopsy analysis that shows Brown "was shot in the hand at close range."

Along with Brown, the president of FACTS, Harold Hunter, is listed on the lobbying form with several others. In Brown's death, they plan to lobby the House, Senate, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Education, Department of Justice, Legal Services Corp., Small Business Administration, Smithsonian Institution, U.S. Copyright Office and White House.

The Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the police department in Ferguson.

FACTS has also lobbied on racism and the death of Trayvon Martin, the "Stand Your Ground" law in the Martin case and racial profiling, according to filings.

The listing of Brown is not the only unusual claim the organization has made in lobbing filings. FACTS has listed the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and president of the NAACP as lobbyists on the team. Hunter called it an "honest mistake" at the time.

The head of incoming Sen. Mike Rounds' (R-S.D.) transition team may be new to Congress, but his experience in the ways of Washington goes back years.

Rob Skjonsberg was Rounds' chief of staff in the South Dakota governor's office between 2003 and 2007 and returned to manage his campaign for Senate. But between 2007 and 2012, Skjonsberg served as a lobbyist for South Dakota-based biofuel company POET LLC.

POET spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying on energy issues during the years Skjonsberg lobbied. His title with the company was senior vice president for public policy and corporate affairs.

Skjonsberg earned a bachelor's degree in economics from South Dakota State University in 1995 and has also served as partner at GSG Strategies LLC and with Rounds at Fischer Rounds and Associates Inc.

In October, he was the subject of a controversy over an indirect investment he held in a company that benefited from votes he made on the state Board of Economic Development. But the board commissioner decided there was no conflict after attorney review.

If the popular expression is correct that making legislation is like making sausage, an Ohio Republican might have the perfect hire with his newest agriculture policy adviser.

Bill Davis has joined Rep. Bob Gibbs' (R-Ohio) staff as a legislative aide after spending the past four years advocating for the National Pork Producers Council as the deputy director of government relations. In addition, Davis helped manage the NPPC's political action committee, PorkPAC. Gibbs is a member of the House Agriculture Committee.

After graduating with a bachelor's degree from Sacred Heart University, Davis was the manager of political field operations for the Business-Industry Political Action Committee, or BIPAC, before going to the NPPC.

A staffer who got her congressional start under then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and later worked for the Department of State has left the Hill to join another former secretary of state's global firm.

Nicole Wilett-Jensen last month became vice president at Madeleine Albright's Albright Stonebridge Group. She came from the Senate, where she worked as senior professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Wilett-Jensen served as a legislative fellow for Clinton in 2007. She came to the Hill after a stint with U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants following her graduation with a master's degree in public affairs and international relations from Indiana University Bloomington in 2005. 

Wilett-Jensen was also a foreign affairs officer with the State Department, from 2005 to 2010, overlapping with Clinton at the agency in her final year. She returned to State in January 2012 and served until April 2013 as senior adviser and chief of staff at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa.

The former congressional staffer also spent several years at the National Security Council as director for African affairs.

The Albright Stonebridge Group has never filed lobbying papers, but Stonebridge International LLC merged with The Albright Group LLC in 2009 to form the organization. Stonebridge International LLC filed as a lobbyist from 2002-08.