With Eleanor Mueller, Daniel Lippman INDEPENDENT PHARMACISTS KICK OFF PBM CAMPAIGN: Another pharmacist trade group is hitting the airwaves to convince Congress to crack down on pharmacy benefit managers before the year is out. The lobbying blitz from the National Community Pharmacists Association will feature digital, TV and print ads in D.C. and nationwide comparing PBMs to “leeches” and urging lawmakers to “finish the fight” against the pharmaceutical middlemen. — The campaign kicked off today with a new microsite and the release of polling that the group says shows “widespread public concern over prescription drug costs and PBMs.” The group’s initial spend for the campaign is $600,000, a spokesperson told PI, “with plans to expand significantly through December.” — NCPA’s push comes on the heels of a seven-figure ad buy announced last week by another pharmacist trade group, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, as PBM critics jockey to tee the issue up for action before a new Congress is sworn in in January. — Meanwhile the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which represents PBMs, is in the midst of its own lobbying effort to head off a year-end legislative push targeting the industry. PCMA is pouring at least six figures into an education campaign aimed at countering attacks by drugmakers and groups like the National Community Pharmacists Association and National Association of Chain Drug Stores. NEW BUSINESS: Kalshi enlisted former Sen. Blanche Lincoln last month to help the derivative trading platform plead its case ahead of a CFTC vote to move forward with a rulemaking to ban so-called event contracts, according to a newly filed disclosure. Hannah Lambiotte Smith and Craig Felner are working on the account for Lincoln Policy Group alongside the Arkansas Democrat. — Lincoln Policy Group was the second new lobbying firm Kalshi brought on ahead of the CFTC’s move to ban what are essentially bets on political elections, as well as awards shows and sporting events. As PI previously reported, in April, Kalshi retained GOP lobbyist and fundraiser Jeff Miller’s Miller Strategies to lobby on the CFTC’s proposal, which has yet to be finalized and will be subject to another vote once it is. The platform also has Capitol Counsel and Rich Feuer Anderson on retainer. Happy Monday and welcome to PI, where this weekend your host encountered an ice cream truck for (maybe?) the first time while living in D.C. Send your ice cream truck order and your best lobbying tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko.
WALGREENS SHUFFLES D.C. OFFICE: Walgreens has promoted Casey Cesnovar to head up the U.S. government affairs team, tapping Joel Baise to succeed Cesnovar as vice president of state and local government affairs. Isaac Fordjour has been named head of the D.C. office. Walgreens has also brought on Priscilla VanderVeer as vice president of public affairs and U.S. policy, reporting to Cesnovar. VanderVeer was most recently a vice president at PhRMA.
HOW THE SAUSAGE GETS MADE: “House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) made sure to line up an equal number of lawmakers from each side of the aisle to serve as co-sponsors when they joined forces on a White House ethics bill last month.”
— But The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch reports “that careful balance soon fell apart … after three Democrats backed out of their previous commitments to support the bill — vanishing, Porter said, after the White House reached out to her colleagues. That backing slipped away, she said, on the eve of the bill’s introduction as she was boarding a flight back to Washington, D.C.” — “The White House declined to comment on the accusation, and two of the would-be sponsors denied being contacted by Biden administration associates. But the episode sheds new light on the unraveling of an effort to secure bipartisan backing for a bill that would mark a major legislative achievement for Comer — the Republican leading the charge to investigate the Biden family.” DEEP IN THE HEART: “The most powerful weapon that hedge funds have against regulators like Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler is no longer white-shoe lawyers or silver-tongued lobbyists. It’s an address in Texas,” Bloomberg’s Lydia Beyoud and Madlin Mekelburg report. — “The National Association of Private Fund Managers, a little-known group whose main focus appears to be challenging SEC rules, has sat tucked in a Fort Worth law office since its founding in 2022. Its home is 1,500 miles from many hedge fund campuses in leafy Connecticut, and even further from London or Singapore, where its impact is being felt.” — “But the group’s address at 301 Commerce Street in Texas’s fifth-biggest city is serving a greater purpose. NAPFM, the clunky acronym the association goes by, is giving hedge fund and private equity titans access to what’s quickly become one of the financial world’s most important venues: The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.” — “With a slate of conservative judges, the appellate tribunal in the Big Easy and its feeder district courts in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas years ago emerged as go-to places for challenging policies on everything from abortion to immigration. In a new twist to that strategy, Wall Street has joined in. During the Biden administration, trade groups like the NAPFM have been sprouting up in the region.” But “many details about NAPFM like membership or advisers — the normal calling cards of trade and lobbying group influence — are closely guarded.” A(NOTHER) BOMBSHELL IN THE GARDEN STATE: “New Jersey’s attorney general on Monday charged one of the state’s most powerful Democrats and his allies in a sweeping indictment alleging a long-running corruption scheme,” our Dustin Racioppi and Daniel Han report. — “The charges against George Norcross represent another seismic event in New Jersey politics in a year that’s already seen a drastic disruption of its notorious boss systems. And George Norcross is often held up as the symbol of a New Jersey political boss. He has long been the subject of scrutiny by law enforcement and a political task force, but has never been charged.” — “The indictment … portrays years of extortion and threats. Norcross has run a criminal enterprise for at least the past 12 years, Platkin said, causing hurt to businesses, individuals and ‘especially — especially — to the city of Camden,’ one of the state’s poorest cities.” BROWNSTEIN DEFENSE LEAD HEADS IN-HOUSE: Ari Zimmerman has left Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck after more than half a decade at the firm. Zimmerman, who most recently led the defense practice at Brownstein, is joining the government relations shop at Coupang, the South Korean e-commerce giant. SPOTTED last Thursday at Holland & Knight’s annual summer rooftop party, which featured Rich Gold dressed as Willy Wonka in an ode to the party’s Wonka theme, per a tipster: Reps. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.), Tim Kennedy (D-N.Y.) and Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.); Sam Hewitt of the American Nurses Association, Jill Shotzberger of Genentech, Jamie Miller of the American Medical Group Association, Pam Roberto of PhRMA, Monet Sanford of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, Suzanne Joy of the American Medical Association, Chris Crawford of Rep. Buddy Carter’s (R-Ga.) office, Alex McGee of Balcony Tech Blockchain, Mikhail Love of Sen. Roger Wicker’s (R-Miss.) office, Al David Saab of Rep. Mike Ezell’s (R-Miss.) office, Mike Robertson of the Republican Study Committee, Andrew Mills of the Audubon Society, Colleen Fisher of the Council of Affordable Rural Housing, Kate Cassling of Sen. John Hickenlooper’s (D-Colo.) office, Xan Fishman of the Bipartisan Policy Center, Ashley Callen of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office, Austin Cromack of the House Judiciary Committee, Mat Sanders, Kristiane Huber and Zach Bartscherer of Pew Charitable Trusts and Heather Zichal of JPMorgan Chase.
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