| | | | | |  | | By Caitlin Oprysko | Presented by New Venture Fund | With Daniel Lippman and Alex Ward FIRST IN PI — NAM DROPS 6 FIGURES TO KNOCK PBMS: The National Association of Manufacturers has launched a six-figure ad buy to join the pile on pharmaceutical middlemen in D.C. The campaign from the trade group, whose members include drugmakers seeking to deflect policymakers’ ire over rising drug costs, comes amid a flurry of action on Capitol Hill seeking to rein in pharmacy benefit managers. — A 30-second spot set to air around D.C. calls it a “critical priority” that lawmakers enact reforms “to ensure prescription drug discounts are passed on directly to workers and employers and not kept by big insurer PBMs,” which the trade association accuses of jacking up drug prices and “pocketing big discounts from drug makers instead of passing them on to America's workforce.” The ad blitz will also include digital ads targeting PBMs. — Though multiple efforts to crack down on the PBM industry, which manages prescription drugs for health insurers, are moving through Congress, NAM isn’t throwing its support behind any one package just yet. — Last week the Senate HELP Committee advanced a bipartisan measure that would clamp down on certain practices used by PBMs, place new requirements on rebates and require reports about the industry. And on Wednesday, a House Energy & Commerce subcommittee moved its own set of bills aimed at improving transparency and competition in the health space. — The yearslong feud between drugmakers on one side and insurers and pharmaceutical middlemen on the other, has spawned a deluge of high-dollar advertising. PhRMA, the top lobbying group for pharmaceutical companies, launched a seven-figure nationwide ad buy hitting PBMs earlier this month that was to span TV, radio, social media and print. — America’s Health Insurance Plans, the top trade group representing insurers, also recently launched its own seven-figure ad spend turning the blame for high drug costs back on pharma companies, and the industry group representing PBMs also poured more than $1 million into nationwide ad blitz earlier this year touting the industry’s work and criticizing another bill moving through the Senate Commerce Committee. Happy Thursday and welcome to PI. Send lobbying tips and gossip: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.
| | | | GET READY FOR GLOBAL TECH DAY: Join POLITICO Live as we launch our first Global Tech Day alongside London Tech Week on Thursday, June 15. Register now for continuing updates and to be a part of this momentous and program-packed day! From the blockchain, to AI, and autonomous vehicles, technology is changing how power is exercised around the world, so who will write the rules? REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | | A message from New Venture Fund: Millions of Americans are being forced to pay extra just to file their taxes online. Why? Because companies like Intuit have spent millions lobbying to block a free tax filing option. Intuit rakes in billions while struggling families get stuck with the bill. American taxpayers could save time, stress, and expense with a free, public tax filing option. It’s time to get it done. | | | IF IT SPARKS JOY: The Washington Post’s Kara Voght has a delightful dive into the source of the pep in the typically gruff Bernie Sanders’ step nowadays: The new Senate HELP chair — whose role initially struck fear into the heart of K Streeters — is loving using his bully pulpit to rake over corporate executives. — “Sanders, 81, never got to be president. But he accrued enough political capital, over the course of two formidable presidential runs, to spend the twilight of his Senate career living out a very Bernie sort of fantasy: As chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP), he gets to drag his corporate nemeses to Washington to be pilloried for their alleged sins against the working class.” — “If they come willingly, he will pay them a compliment for doing so, as he did when his panel of pharmaceutical CEOs appeared before the committee last week. If they do not, he will make it known to the hearing room and the congressional record, as he did when he announced during a March hearing that former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz ‘is with us this morning only under the threat of subpoena.’” — “At the March hearing, a capacity crowd of mostly pro-union Sanders fans had supplied the Schultz hearing (episode?) with a laugh track. They chuckled when the former Starbucks boss said, ‘I take offense with you categorizing me or Starbucks as a union-buster when that is not true.’ Some snickered when Sanders cut off Schultz mid-sentence.’“ — But “not everyone’s enjoying Sanders’s programming. The CEOs, for one: Paul Hudson, chief executive of drug manufacturer Sanofi, was heard grumbling about the ‘kicking’ Sanders had dealt him and his fellow chief executives before he climbed into a black SUV after his appearance last week.” QCELLS BUILDS OUT ITS WASHINGTON SHOP: South Korean solar manufacturer Qcells North America has added two more key positions to its Washington policy team, following the company’s hiring of former Joe Biden aide Danny O’Brien as its head of corporate affairs back in March. — The company has hired Debra DeShong, who was most recently executive vice president of public affairs at PhRMA, as vice president and head of communications. Hal Connolly, a former climate and sustainability adviser at the Federal Railroad Administration and an alum of former Vice President Al Gore’s climate advocacy group, is joining Qcells as its vice president and head of public policy and government relations. ONE 230 STEP: “The Supreme Court has passed up a closely-watched opportunity to clarify the scope of the federal liability shield known as Section 230 that protects internet companies from most legal claims over content posted by users,” our Josh Gerstein and Rebecca Kern report. — “In a pair of rulings Thursday morning, the justices shut down lawsuits seeking to hold giants like Google and Twitter liable for terrorism-promoting content on their platforms, but the court nixed the suits without issuing any sweeping pronouncements on the immunity provision that has come under increasing fire from both Republicans and Democrats.” — “The cases mark the first time the high court dealt with Section 230,” and the court’s decisions “mark a major win for the tech industry, which has argued that narrowing Section 230 could be disastrous for the internet if platforms could be sued over content-moderation decisions. But the resolution leaves the door open to future showdowns — potentially in Congress — over the breadth of the legal protection the internet firms enjoy.” ANTI-ABORTION GROUPS RACE TO SHAPE 2024 PRIMARY: Anti-abortion activists and GOP officials are locked in a behind-the-scenes battle “to corral the party’s presidential candidates on an issue that has been widely viewed as kryptonite for the GOP since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year,” The Washington Post’s Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey report. — “They are using the early days of the presidential contest to coach Republicans across the country on the need to find their voice on the issue, while arguing that any retreat from long-held GOP orthodoxy on abortion will only feed the Democratic narrative.” — The entreaties paid off earlier this month when, during his contentious town hall on CNN, former President Donald Trump — whose rhetoric on abortion issues has vacillated wildly over the years — “repeated almost word for word what” leaders from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the Family Research Council discussed with the former president during a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort last week, “reframing the debate away from Republican plans and onto misleading claims of Democratic extremism.” WHERE SUSAN RICE WON’T BE LANDING: Susan Rice has made it clear she’s not interested in becoming the Brookings Institution's next president, three people familiar with the situation told POLITICO’s Alex Ward and Daniel. Buzz spread throughout the think tank after the White House announced Rice was stepping down as the domestic policy adviser, leading to rumors that she might be a natural pick for the role. — But she made clear to people in Brookings’ orbit that the board, which aims to make a decision in the summer, should consider other candidates. A Brookings spokesperson declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Rice said, "This is urban legend. No one involved with the search at Brookings has contacted Ambassador Rice about this opening.”
| | | | A message from New Venture Fund:   | | | | | SPOTTED at a reception hosted by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld at their Capitol Hill office to celebrate former Rep. Filemon Vela, who’s now with the firm, per a tipster: Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Reps. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), Marc Veasey (D-Texas), Juan Vargas (D-Calif.), Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) and Norma Torres (D-Calif.); Arshi Siddiqui, Hunter Bates, Brian Pomper, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Geoff Verhoff, Ed Pagano, Jamie Tucker, Tony Pierce, Sam Olswanger and Jose Borjon of Akin Gump; Emma Rindels-Hill and Heather Foster of Lyft, Erick Lutt of Bayer, Moyer McCoy and Diego Zambrano of Philip Morris International, Kim Zimmerman of AdvaMed, Jose Mercado of DoorDash, Constance Towers and Jeremy Wiley of CoreCivic, Juan Hinojosa of American Airlines, Juan Sanchez of the Southwest Border Regional Commission, David Montes of Sen. Alex Padilla’s (D-Calif.) office, Louise Bentsen of Gonzalez’s office, Tim Barnes of Boyle’s office, Sean Gard of Rep. Gwen Moore’s (D-Wis.) office, Braden Dreiling of Rep. Jake LaTurner’s (R-Kan.) office, Brooke Scannell and Xenia Ruiz of Rep. Katherine Clark’s (D-Mass.) office, Rebekah Solem of Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove’s (D-Calif.) office and Carlos Sanchez of Luján’s office. — And at an EDGE PAC fundraiser last night for House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar at the Sazerac townhouse, per a tipster: Katie Phillips of Federal Hall Policy Advisors, Jason Ortega of National Wooden Pallet & Container Association, Channing Lee Foster, Reilly McBride and Lane Coberly of Invariant, Bobby Cunningham of the Vogel Group, Colin Craib of UBS, Sterling Wiggins of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Matt Miller of SK Group and Mike Giblin of the American Medical Association. — And at a Congressional Western Caucus and Porter Group reception and concert featuring country singer Michael Austin and former congressional band The Second Amendments, per a tipster: Reps. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) and Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.); former Reps. Collin Peterson, Thaddeus McCotter and David Weldon; KBS Group’s Kenny Hulshof, Porter Group’s Jon Porter, the Congressional Western Caucus' Noah Yantis, American Farm Bureau Federation's R.J. Layher, SourceAmerica's Johnathan Rose, and Terra Davis Consulting's Terra Davis. — Nancy Harper Marlow has joined Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid as executive assistant and chief of staff to the president and COO. She was most recently executive assistant to the president and CEO at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. — Dan Smith will be the next president and CEO of the Consumer Data Industry Association. He was most recently executive vice president at the Consumer Bankers Association. — Andrew Malcolm has been promoted to vice president and chief of staff to the CEO at Constellation Energy.
| | | | DON’T MISS POLITICO’S HEALTH CARE SUMMIT: The Covid-19 pandemic helped spur innovation in health care, from the wide adoption of telemedicine, health apps and online pharmacies to mRNA vaccines. But what will the next health care innovations look like? Join POLITICO on Wednesday June 7 for our Health Care Summit to explore how tech and innovation are transforming care and the challenges ahead for access and delivery in the United States. REGISTER NOW. | | | | | | | | | GOP Winning Women 2024 (Reps. Young Kim, Michelle Steel, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Jen Kiggans, Monica De La Cruz, Ashley Hinson, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Wendy Davis, Nancy Mace, María Salazar, WFW Action Fund, Inc.)
| | | BudWINski PAC (Leadership PAC: Nikki Budzinski)
GCC of America PAC (PAC)
Pakistani American Republican PAC (Hybrid PAC)
TRUST IN THE MISSION PAC (Hybrid PAC)
| | New Lobbying REGISTRATIONS | | Electrify America, LLC: Electrify America, LLC
Mcguirewoods Consulting (A Subsidiary Of Mcguirewoods LLP): County Of Lake, Illinois
Mcguirewoods Consulting (A Subsidiary Of Mcguirewoods LLP): Superior Air-Ground Ambulance Service, Inc.
Mcguirewoods Consulting (A Subsidiary Of Mcguirewoods LLP): Village Of Evergreen Park
Mercury Public Affairs, LLC: Illinois Corn Growers Association
Varda Space Industries, Inc.: Varda Space Industries, Inc.
| | New Lobbying Terminations | | American Association Of University Professors: American Association Of University Professors
| | | | A message from New Venture Fund: Each year, Americans spend an estimated $31 billion just to file their taxes online. Why? Because tax preparation companies like Intuit have spent millions lobbying to block a free tax filing option that would be available to anyone who wants it. Intuit’s profits have skyrocketed, while families waste time and pay extra just to file their taxes online. Tax preparation companies are taking advantage of American taxpayers. In dozens of other countries, filing your taxes takes less than ten minutes and costs nothing. It’s time to save people time and money with a free, public online tax filing option. | | | | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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