With Daniel Lippman HALEY, TRUMP GET MORE K STREET CASH: The end of 2023 and beginning of 2024 saw the GOP presidential primary field shrink considerably, and with changes in momentum in the race came shifts in where K Street’s money went, according to PI’s analysis of campaign finance reports filed this week. — While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis began the primary as one of the top recipients of checks from K Street types, those donations dropped considerably in the last quarter of the year, as DeSantis fell further behind former President Donald Trump in the polls. One of the only registered federal lobbyists PI spotted in DeSantis’ fourth-quarter report was the Gibson Group’s Joseph Gibson, who contributed the maximum amount of $3,300 for the primary. — The new biggest recipient of the influence industry's donations last quarter was Trump's last serious challenger, Nikki Haley, which makes sense given that Haley held a fundraiser on K Street in the fall. — Haley cashed checks last quarter from Kristen Silverberg, the president and COO of the Business Roundtable (who donated to DeSantis earlier last year), as well as from Denise Bode of the lobbying firm Constitution Partners, Daimler Trucks lobbyist David Trebing and Center for Strategic and International Studies senior adviser Raymond DuBois, all of whom maxed out to the former U.N. ambassador. — She also received four-figure contributions from Joel Kaplan, Meta’s vice president of global public policy, The Petrizzo Group’s T.J. Petrizzo, MediaTek’s W. Patrick Wilson, Google’s Lee C. Dunn, ClearPath’s Rich Powell, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Amy Hariani and American Council of Life Insurers president and CEO Susan Neely, who’s donated $13,300 so far to Haley’s joint fundraising committee. — While the GOP nomination has always been Trump’s to lose, last quarter’s filings signal that K Street’s aversion to writing him checks during this campaign has begun to wane — a shift that is sure to accelerate as the primary calendar progresses, and after a fundraiser next month hosted by Republican lobbyist and fundraiser Jeff Miller. — Trump’s K Street donors in the second half of 2023 included Marc-Anthony Signorino of The Policy Shop and 121 Strategies & Government Relations, Doug Hoelscher of America First Policy Institute, Tommy Andrews of Squire Patton Boggs, Christopher Barron of the consulting firm Right Turn Strategies and Chase Martin and Jared Meyer of August Strategy Group — several of whom are alumni of Trump’s first term. — Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who saw a brief surge in polls before flaming out at the beginning of the year, saw a slight uptick in donations from the influence community: Kristin Smith, the head of the crypto lobbying group the Blockchain Association, maxed out to Ramaswamy for the primary, and Rock Creek Advisors’ William Gaynor and ClearPath’s Lucas Bolar also gave four figures. TGIF and welcome to PI. Send lobbying tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on the platform formerly known as Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.
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FIRST IN PI — DAVIS HANGS A SHINGLE: Former Hill staffer and conservative activist Mike Davis has launched his boutique law firm, MRDLaw. Davis previously served as the chief GOP counsel for nominations to then-Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and has since launched the right-leaning tech antitrust group the Internet Accountability Project and the judicial advocacy group the Article III Project. The new firm will help business and political clients with “offensive and defensive lawfare, including strategic litigation, government investigations and media affairs,” he told PI. WHO’S LOBBYING ON AI: “Artificial intelligence-related lobbying reached new heights in 2023, with more than 450 organizations participating. It marks a 185% increase from the year before, when just 158 organizations did so,” CNBC’s Hayden Field reports. — “The spike in AI lobbying comes amid growing calls for AI regulation and the Biden administration’s push to begin codifying those rules. Companies that began lobbying in 2023 to have a say in how regulation might affect their businesses include TikTok owner ByteDance, Tesla, Spotify, Shopify, Pinterest, Samsung, Palantir, Nvidia, Dropbox, Instacart, DoorDash, Anthropic and OpenAI.” — “The hundreds of organizations that lobbied on AI in 2023 ran the gamut from Big Tech and AI startups to pharmaceuticals, insurance, finance, academia, telecommunications and more. Until 2017, the number of organizations that reported AI lobbying stayed in the single digits, per the analysis, but the practice has grown slowly but surely in the years since, exploding in 2023.” — “More than 330 organizations that lobbied on AI last year had not done the same in 2022. The data showed a range of industries as new entrants to AI lobbying: Chip companies such as AMD and TSMC, venture firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, biopharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca, conglomerates such as Disney, and AI training data companies such as Appen.” ANNALS OF CELEB LOBBYING: Almost 300 actors, artists, songwriters and other creators are throwing their support behind a bipartisan bill that would ban AI-generated impersonation of a person’s voice or likeness without their consent. — Artists including 21 Savage, Cardi B, Gloria Estefan, Jason Isbell, the estate of Johnny Cash, Kelsea Ballerini, Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliott, Nicki Minaj, Questlove, Bette Midler, Bradley Cooper, Kristen Bell, Laura Dern and Fran Drescher signed on to a full-page ad that ran in today’s USA Today endorsing the No AI FRAUD Act, which was introduced in January by Reps. María Salazar (R-Fla.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas), Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) and Rob Wittman (R-Va.). — The bill “would defend your fundamental human right to your voice & likeness, protecting everyone from nonconsensual deepfakes,” the ad says. But civil society groups have expressed concerns with the bill, which they argue is overbroad. — In a letter Thursday to the heads of the House Judiciary subcommittee on intellectual property and the internet, the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Democracy & Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, R Street Institute and TechFreedom said that while they support the goals of proposals like the No AI FRAUD Act, “these bills likely would cause more problems than they would solve, creating widespread free expression concerns in the process.” ABORTION LOBBYING SURGES SINCE DOBBS: “Since the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, abortion rights have been under threat in various states. As certain states attempt to pass legislation either protecting or banning abortion, lobbying from groups on both sides of the issue has also been on the rise,” per OpenSecrets’ Joanne Haner. — “While Ohio was the only state with abortion on the table in 2023, six states voted on abortion ballot measures in 2022, including Michigan, Kansas and Kentucky,” while the issue is set to be in front of Florida voters this year. “Spending on the singular Ohio ballot measure outpaced the combined spending on all six abortion-related ballot measures in 2022, $106 million to $95 million.” — “At the federal level, pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion rights groups still racked up nearly $3.7 million on lobbying in 2023. This was on par with 2022, when the number slightly exceeded $3.6 million.” — “On the pro-abortion rights front, Planned Parenthood consistently leads lobbying spending at the federal level, followed by the Center for Reproductive Rights. On the anti-abortion rights side, Susan B. Anthony List traditionally leads federal lobbying spending, followed by Right to Life.” — “However, pro-abortion rights lobbying groups generally are not singular advocacy groups, meaning they advocate for other intersectional rights outside of abortion. As a result, their spending power is often diluted, experts previously told OpenSecrets. While anti-abortion rights groups generally hyperfocus on the divisive issue, abortion rights groups spread their efforts toward other issues, including reproductive rights, gender-affirming care and childcare.”
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