If you are a congressional staffer, your employer always has a decent chance of going out of business. So, what do top Hill aides do when their congressman retires or loses?
Many of them become lobbyists. For instance, Joe Lieberman’s chief of staff Michael Lewan has relaunched his lobbying firm, picking up health-care giants and others as clients.
The Center for Responsive Politics and Remapping Debate have teamed up to create a database of where the chiefs of staff and legislative directors of recently retired/defeated/deceased lawmakers have gone.
Some interesting ones I noticed, skimming the list:
- Rep. Russ Carnahan supported Obamacare, and now his chief of staff Carolina Battles has become a senior director for Obamacare-supporting Catholic hospital chain Ascension Health.
- Rep. Heath Shuler consistently supported climate-change legislation and green-energy subsidies before cashing out to Duke Energy, which stood to profit from these laws. Now Shuler’s legislative director Jed Bhuta has become director of legislative affairs for America’s Natural Gas Alliance.
- Sen. Scott Brown’s LD Nathaniel Hoopes has become a lobbyist for the corporate coalition Fix the Debt.
- Rep. Sue Myrick’s LD Jordan Moon has become a Chrysler lobbyist.
- Rep. Jay Inslee is now governor of Washington State, and his former LD Beth Osborne is now the top lobbyist for the Port of Seattle.
- Rep. John Sullivan lost his GOP primary in large part because he championed natural-gas subsidies — namely the NATGAS Act. His LD John Rainbolt is now a lobbyist for natural-gas giant Alliant Energy.
- Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was a champion of the Keystone Pipeline. Her LD John Stoody now runs the lobbying operation at the Association of Oil Pipelines
