DAVIS JOINS ACTUM: Attorney and crisis comms specialist Lanny Davis is joining the consulting firm Actum as co-chair. Davis, a former Bill Clinton and George W. Bush adviser who represents former Donald Trump fixer Michael Cohen, previously co-founded and served as partner at Lanny J. Davis & Associates, Davis Goldberg & Galper and Trident DMG. — Actum was launched in 2022 by a handful of former partners at Mercury Public Affairs, including Mercury co-Founder Kirill Goncharenko, former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez and former California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who serves as a co-chair along with former Trump acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and several others. CARTER NONPROFITS LOBBY UP: “Nonprofit groups founded by former president and first lady Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are expanding their federal advocacy, registering a lobbyist to work on issues related to mental health parity and support for caregivers,” our Megan Wilson reports. — “Diana Felner is advocating for the Carter Center, which has a broad focus on human rights and public health, and the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers. She recently joined the groups after more than seven years at the Tourette Association of America. … The Rosalynn Carter Institute also has firms Healthsperien and Keller Partners & Company on retainer.” — “In addition to her work for the Rosalynn Carter Institute, Felner is advocating on behalf of the Carter Center on mental health issues — including parity policies, which aim to ensure it’s covered the same as other health services, and bolstering school-based mental health offerings.” TESTER OPPONENTS LOOK TO MAKE K STREET TIES CENTRAL FOCUS: Republicans eying Sen. Jon Tester’s (D-Mont.) seat as one of the party’s prime pick-up opportunities in November’s election are planning to hammer his connections to K Street, a strategy that could be made easier by Tester’s own ethics pledges, Bloomberg’s Kate Ackley writes. — Tester “pledged to go beyond Senate requirements by voluntarily disclosing his official calendar … and he restricts the ability of former aides to lobby him,” but any slip-ups mean that a vow meant to reinforce Tester’s ethics standing “can become an unforced error as Republicans concentrate resources in a state that former President Donald Trump carried by 16 points in 2020.” — “Campaigns and outside groups from both parties have reserved more than $100 million in ad buys for the race, according to the tracking firm AdImpact. Tester’s lobbyist and industry connections ‘will be at the forefront of the campaign against him,’ National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Maggie Abboud said in a statement.” — “Tester’s campaign and leadership political action committee took in a combined $400,000 from registered lobbyists last year, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data by the nonpartisan OpenSecrets.org. His re-election campaign alone received just shy of $390,000 from registered federal lobbyists, making him the No. 3 recipient of such money, the OpenSecrets.org analysis found. Tester’s campaign also disclosed $1.7 million in donations from PACs in 2023, with most of that tied to corporations and business or industry groups.” — His likely Republican rival Tim Sheehy isn’t immune to criticism on the issue either, having “hit the Washington, D.C., fundraising circuit as recently as two weeks ago to raise money from lobbyists with one event led by the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors,” and brought in $73,000 in donations from lobbyists last year. RIGHT ON CUE: The American Bankers Association rolled out two new ads today praising Tester for bucking the Biden administration on a pair of banking regulations the industry opposes. The first highlights Tester’s concerns with a Fed proposal to raise capital requirements for big banks, which the ad says would “make it harder for Montana’s banks to support local businesses.” — A second ad thanks Tester for voting to overturn a CFPB rule requiring lenders to report demographic data on small-business loan recipients, for which he cited privacy concerns. The ads urge viewers to call Tester’s office and “tell him to keep protecting Montana’s small businesses from government overreach.” The ABA declined to share specifics about the cost of the ad buy and where the ads will run. — The trade group and its state affiliates are giving air cover to a pair of Republican House members as well, with a new spot thanking Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.) for opposing the small business lending rule and a radio ad praising Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) for “leading the charge on the main street tax certainty act to cut taxes and slash bureaucratic red tape for our local job creators.” IF YOU MISSED IT OVER THE WEEKEND: “In 2017, a hospital operator set out to build a rural health care empire with the help of a Philadelphia-area consultant. The consultant, Jim Biden, had no experience running hospitals. But he did understand the federal government and had ties to labor unions. Perhaps more important, he was the younger brother of Joe Biden,” our Ben Schreckinger reports. — “For then 67-year-old Jim Biden, the third of four Biden siblings, his ties to his older brother made up much of his pitch as he pursued deals that could help Americore make money from drug rehab, lab testing and even cancer treatment” before the company ended up going bankrupt, “wreaking havoc in rural communities in the process.” — “As the layers of activity that occurred in and around Americore are peeled back in a federal prosecution in Pennsylvania, a bankruptcy court in Kentucky, and tense witness interviews on Capitol Hill, a POLITICO investigation renders the most detailed picture to date of the ways in which Joe Biden’s relatives leveraged his public stature to advance a private business venture.” ANNALS OF CAMPAIGN FINANCE: “Tech giants are often a target for derision in Washington. Presidential campaigns are nonetheless sending a lot of money their way,” Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reports. — “Federal Election Commission records now offer a complete accounting of how the campaigns spent money in 2023,” which show “millions of dollars being funneled to Silicon Valley to pay for digital advertising — one of the most effective ways to reach voters.” They also illustrate “how the other services of the tech giants are also as inescapable for campaign operators as they are for Americans going about their day-to-day lives.” — “Take the two likely nominees: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Trump has sporadically brought up antitrust concerns over the years and has gone so far as to launch his own social media platform, Truth Social, to get around what he calls ‘biased Big Tech.’ But that doesn’t mean he’s not advertising on Facebook this campaign season or using Amazon to stock his campaign’s offices.” — “President Biden similarly sits atop an administration engaged in legal battles against Amazon, Google, and Meta — with a suit against Apple likely not far behind. But his presidential campaign still regularly patronizes those same companies. Biden has launched antitrust efforts by saying consolidation in tech and elsewhere creates ‘fewer options for workers and consumers alike.’ It’s a conundrum apparently facing his campaign as well.”
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