MORE TAKEAWAYS FROM THE LOBBYING DEADLINE: Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation reported its highest-ever quarterly lobbying spending last quarter amid scrutiny over the company’s dominance in the live events industry and competition in ticketing markets. Live Nation dropped $510,000 on lobbying over the first three months of this year, a $200,000 increase from what the company spent at the end of 2022, when the company’s bungled pre-sale for Taylor Swift tickets first sparked Washington’s interest. — Live Nation has since boosted its lobbying footprint with three new outside firms, including top antitrust lobbyist Seth Bloom and former Sen. Mark Pryor of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Live Nation’s quarterly lobbying spending previously peaked at $350,000 in the third quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2020. — Meanwhile Lee Hudson reports that though the “top five largest defense contractors have competing agendas … all are in agreement on one priority — restoring the immediate tax write-off of research and development costs,” which Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Dynamics all reported lobbying on last quarter. — And Bloomberg’s Laura Davison and Bill Allison report that “three dozen of the largest U.S. banks and the groups who represent them increased spending on lobbying Congress by 19.3% last quarter as fears of a banking contagion spread,” a trend powered by regional banks. HEALTH INDUSTRY LOBBYING SURGES: Almost all of the largest players in the health care world boosted their advocacy in the first quarter of this year, Megan reports. Nearly four dozen health care companies, nonprofits and trade groups spent $1 million or more on lobbying in the first quarter of this year — totaling $115.5 million, according to her giant spreadsheet. — The vast majority of those organizations spent more than they did during the same period in 2022. The biggest increases came from the insurance industry, Megan and POLITICO’s David Lim report, which was fighting a Biden administration proposal to alter Medicare Advantage payment policy that would have reduced their revenues. — However, the industry had some decreases — the Biotechnology Innovation Organization spent $2.4 million, a dip from previous quarters; AbbVie, which quit PhRMA at the end of 2022, decreased its lobbying by 62 percent to $1.5 million; and the beleaguered Association for Accessible Medicines spent $480,000 — a more than 40 percent cut in spending. RICH FEUER ANDERSON LAUNCHES TAX PRACTICE: Rich Feuer Anderson has snapped up Justin Sok, one of the few former aides to new Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) on K Street. Sok, who was previously a senior adviser and legislative director for Smith and currently lobbies on tax policy for SIFMA, will launch a tax practice at the financial services-focused firm, whose clients include BlackRock, Amazon, SWIFT, American Express, JPMorgan Chase and the Institute of International Bankers. — The hire comes as the business world ramps up for a lobbying blitz to preserve a number of cherished tax breaks from the 2017 tax overhaul that have begun to expire or will sunset over the next few years — an issue RFA partner John Anderson pointed to specifically in explaining the firm’s decision to launch a tax practice. — “Tax policy is one of the most consequential areas in D.C.,” he told PI in a statement. “RFA’s existing financial services clients have naturally brought us into these battles, and with TCJA extender conversations maturing over the next two year[s], now is the time to be a permanent presence in the debate.” MEANWHILE, IN THE STATES: “When Iowa lawmakers voted last week to roll back certain child labor protections, they blended into a growing movement driven largely by a conservative advocacy group” that’s bankrolled by a network of prominent Republican donors, The Washington Post’s Jacob Bogage and María Luisa Paúl report. — The Iowa bill “is among several the Foundation for Government Accountability is maneuvering through state legislatures. The Florida-based think tank and its lobbying arm, the Opportunity Solutions Project, have found remarkable success among Republicans to relax regulations that prevent children from working long hours in dangerous conditions. And they are gaining traction at a time the Biden administration is scrambling to enforce existing labor protections for children.” — FGA is “one of several conservative groups that have long taken aim at all manner of government regulations or social safety net programs. The FGA is funded by a broad swath of ultraconservative and Republican donors — such as the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation and 85 Fund, a nonprofit connected to political operative Leonard Leo — who have similarly supported other conservative policy groups.” AHIP GOES AFTER ‘BIG PHARMA’: The leading insurance lobby, America’s Health Insurance Plans, is launching a seven-figure ad campaign touting the industry and accusing drugmakers as being the culprit of high drug prices, Megan reports. — The ads, which feature caricatures of high-powered drug lobbyists, will be appearing on television and social media targeting outlets in Washington — and effectively bringing a war between insurers and the pharmaceutical industry into the open. — “Big Pharma’s mantra has been ‘don’t look here’ while pointing fingers at others and complicating a simple problem. The problem is the price — drug prices that are set and controlled by manufacturers, and manufacturers alone,” AHIP CEO Matt Eyles told Megan. “We can’t continue to be distracted by perpetual tactics designed to keep prices high.” — PhRMA has been hammering insurers and pharmacy benefit managers — the largest of which are owned by insurance companies — in ads of their own for years, claiming the industries don’t pass the savings from the discounts negotiated with drugmakers onto consumers. Congress is now mulling a slew of proposals that take aim at PBMs. — Although insurers are part of a coalition called the Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing that successfully pushed for drug pricing policies in the Inflation Reduction Act, this is AHIP’s most pricey rebuttal — saying in the ads that pharmaceutical manufacturers are pushing policies “to weaken your bargaining power.” DAILY BREAD: Panera Bread once again retains lobbyists in Washington. Former Chuck Schumer aide Carmencita Whonder, Elizabeth Maier, Geoff Burr, Doug Maguire and Brownstein tax practice chair Russ Sullivan have been lobbying on supply chain issues for the bakery chain since January, according to a disclosure filed last week, though the firm has so far received less than $5,000 for its work. — The St. Louis-based company last retained federal lobbyists at the start of the pandemic, when it hired Epstein Becker & Green to lobby on the massive Covid relief package being negotiated by Congress. JAB Holding Company, which owns Panera, Pret a Manger, Peet’s, Krispy Kreme, Keurig, Einstein Bros. Bagels and more, brought on Invariant last year as its first lobbying firm. The conglomerate lobbied on competition and antitrust issues last quarter, disclosures show.
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