Caught Our Eye items are posted daily. LegiStorm Pro subscribers have access to all posts a few hours before other users, and are also able to search the full Caught Our Eye archive. Log in as a LegiStorm Pro user or learn more about subscribing.
Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Feb. 3, 2022
Rep. Ronny Jackson's (R-Texas) newest hire is a dethroned pageant queen.
Kathy Zhu was crowned Miss Michigan in 2019 but was stripped of her title over allegedly racist tweets she posted in the years preceding the pageant. She again made headlines days later at a Trump campaign event for her claim that "coming out as conservative is honestly harder than coming out as gay."
Zhu, now Jackson's scheduler, graduated from the University of Michigan in 2020 and most recently worked for campaign consultancy Targeted Victory.
Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Feb. 2, 2022
One of Rep. Mike Thompson's (D-Calif.) staffers has moved to K Street.
Nick Ornstein left Thompson's office for TwinLogic Strategies, where he's now legislative director. The boutique lobbying firm focuses on technology and counts Twitter and T-Mobile among its clients.
Ornstein was most recently a legislative assistant to Thompson, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee's Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee. Ornstein previously worked for Akin Gump's public-policy team but did not register as a lobbyist there.
Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Feb. 1, 2022
Penn Hill Group has continued its slow but steady growth with the addition of a longtime aide to Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.).
Elyse Wasch is now a vice president at the lobbying firm, which has seen consistent growth in its lobbying revenue for three years running. The firm brought in just over $3 million from federal lobbying last year, according to OpenSecrets.
Wasch had worked for Reed's office since 1996, when Reed was a representative. She was most recently the senator's deputy chief of staff and legislative director.
Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Jan. 31, 2022
A K Street health-care lobbyist has moved back to the House.
Mariah Philips is now Rep. Tony Cárdenas's (D-Calif.) senior health adviser. She comes from Venn Strategies, where her lobbying clients were Rover Diagnostics, the American Diabetes Association and the University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation.
Philips previously worked as scheduler to then-Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) before leaving the Hill for a Duke University graduate program.
Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Jan. 28, 2022
Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell (D) is lobbying Washington for the first time in nearly a decade.
Ballard Spahr recently added Rendell to its lobbying contracts with Lockheed Martin and biotech company Grail LLC, according to a pair of new disclosures. Rendell was last registered as a federal lobbyist in 2012, working through Ballard Spahr on behalf of medical-technology manufacturer KCI and satellite-communications company Ligado Networks.
Rendell was a partner at Ballard Spahr until taking office as governor in 2003. He rejoined the law firm in 2011, just after the end of his second term.
We spend a large part of our days looking at data. Documents often come in by the dozens and hundreds. And while most are boring - how interesting can staring at a phone directory or salary records be, for example? - we find daily reasons for interest, amusement or even concern packed in the documents. So we are launching a new running feature that we call "Caught our Eye."
Longer than tweets but shorter than most blog posts, Caught our Eye items will bring back the interest in reviewing documents and researching people. Some items might bring hard, breaking news. Others will raise eyebrows and lead some into further inquiry. Others might be good for a joke or two around the water cooler. All will enlighten about the people or workings of Capitol Hill.
Caught our Eye items will be published each morning for LegiStorm Pro subscribers. Non-Pro site users will be able to receive the news items a few hours later. In addition to having immediate access to the news, LegiStorm Pro users will have a handy way to search and browse all past items.
