MILLER JOINS BALLARD: Former Florida Rep. Jeff Miller is joining Ballard Partners as a partner in its Washington office, further shoring up the firm's ties to House Republicans ahead of their takeover of the chamber next month. — The seven-full-term Republican left office in 2017 and shortly after joined the law and lobbying firm McDermott Will & Emery. In 2020, Miller was named co-chair at Mercury, but he left last year for a lobbying gig with managed care company CareSource . In Congress, Miller was a longtime chair of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee in addition to serving on the Intelligence and Armed Services committees. — Miller's hiring is the latest maneuvering by Ballard to prepare for at least some GOP control of Washington after the Trump-tied firm saw its federal lobbying revenues recede when the former president left office last year, despite having several Democratic lobbyists on staff. — Last month Ballard promoted Dan McFaul, a former Miller aide, to managing partner of its D.C. office. The firm also briefly employed Dave Karvelas, the former chief of staff to potential Ways and Means Chair Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), before Karvelas returned to work for his old boss. — Miller (who shouldn't be confused with Jeff Miller of Miller Strategies or Jeff Miller of the National Football League ) won't be the first former member of Congress on staff at Ballard. The firm brought Florida Democrat Robert Wexler shortly after opening its Washington office in 2017, which Wexler now helps lead. BANKING GROUPS PILE ON SWIPE FEES BILL: Trade groups representing America's bankers are ramping up their opposition campaign against legislation regulating the fees paid by merchants to run credit card transactions as lawmakers work to cobble together a year-end spending package. — The American Bankers Association today launched an ad blitz in the D.C. market taking aim at the bill from Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), which is aimed at diluting the market power of card issuers Visa and Mastercard by directing the Federal Reserve to issue rules requiring large card-issuing banks or credit unions to offer at least one alternate network that isn't affiliated with those two networks. — Banks and other financial institutions, which receive a portion of those interchange fees, have fiercely opposed the retailer-supported measure that ABA President Rob Nichols alleged in a statement is "mega-retailers' attempt to pad their profits while they are already charging sky-high prices." The trade association is running a series of radio, TV and digital ads within the beltway echoing card issuers' warnings that changes to lower swipe fees could eliminate perks like cash back and travel points that they help finance. — Another trade group, the Independent Community Bankers of America, today released new polling it commissioned that the group says indicates Americans don't believe consumers would benefit from the changes in the swipe fees bill. — The latest push comes after state banking associations from all 50 states and Puerto Rico wrote to congressional leadership last week blasting merchants like grocers for pushing the legislation in the name of promoting competition while pursuing consolidation through mergers, while criticizing the notion of including Durbin and Marshall's bill in an omnibus without marking it up in either chamber of Congress. — Days earlier, the conservative small business group American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce launched a nationwide, million-dollar-plus ad blitz backing up financial institutions, while one trade association supporting the swipe fees bill financed its own World Cup-centric ad campaign needling Visa over the issue. FTC'S LONG GAME: "Lina Khan's Federal Trade Commission has two headline-making cases underway right now: Its trial against Meta in a California courtroom, and a new suit to block a Microsoft megadeal. But Khan's long game appears to be even bigger ," POLITICO's Josh Sisco reports: "She wants to win unprecedented powers to review and potentially block any future deals by two of tech's most acquisitive companies." — "Buried in court filings for both cases — a lawsuit to block Microsoft's takeover of video game company Activision Blizzard, and a trial against Meta's takeover of Within , maker of the virtual reality fitness app Supernatural — Khan's push for new authorities shows how much more aggressive the agency is under her watch." — "If the FTC can score a victory in either proceeding — though there's likely a long way to go before either reaches that point — Khan and her team would do more than just block these deals, they'd be arming themselves with broad investigative authority over future acquisitions at Meta and Microsoft. — "For two tech giants that have built some of their most successful enterprises around buying companies, it would be a radically new regulatory process compared to how they've done business in the past." CORNERSTONE ADDS FERC, MANCHIN AIDE: Sarah Venuto is returning to K Street to join Cornerstone Government Affairs ' lobbying team come February. Venuto currently serves as head of FERC's Office of External Affairs, where she advises Chair Richard Glick and acts as a liaison to the White House and other federal agencies. — Venuto has done several stints on K Street previously, serving as vice president of Duke Energy before joining FERC last year and in the government affairs shops at America's Natural Gas Alliance, CenterPoint Energy and Entergy before that. — Venuto has also worked as a top aide to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), serving as the Democratic staff director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee while Manchin was ranking member and before that serving as his chief counsel and senior policy adviser. WHERE CRYPTO GOES FROM HERE: "Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, one of the largest cryptocurrency lobbying groups, knows it won't be easy to rebuild the industry's reputation ," The Hill's Karl Evers-Hillstrom writes. — FTX's "high-profile failure — which follows several other crypto collapses this year — has cast a shadow over an industry that had been making inroads with lawmakers and will only spur more scrutiny from crypto's most vocal skeptics." — "'I'm outraged too,' Smith said in a recent interview with The Hill that came before Bankman-Fried's arrest. 'This is just a pattern of really egregious behavior, and if you look at some of the reporting that's been out there, there's a very good case that this could be fraud.' 'It's going to be incumbent upon the crypto industry to explain that this is incredibly abnormal behavior,' she added." — "Her association, which doesn't represent FTX but does list bankrupt crypto lenders Voyager Digital and BlockFi among its members, is gearing up for a flurry of meetings with leery lawmakers early in the new Congress next year" in part to impress on them "the benefits of crypto and explain why Congress must create regulatory clarity to ensure crypto firms set up shop in the U.S. FTX is based in the Bahamas, and thus did not fall under the scope of U.S. regulators." — Accomplishing the latter objective, in essence, "distancing FTX from the broader crypto community," may be "crucial for the industry's political survival."
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