LegiStorm

A Democratic counsel has swiped right on a new job.

Yvette Badu-Nimako is now director of government relations at Match Group, which owns Tinder, OkCupid, Match.com and other dating sites and apps. The company just began federal lobbying last fall, launching its own in-house team and contracting with Squire Patton Boggs.

Badu-Nimako most recently worked as senior counsel to the House Oversight and Reform Committee under chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). She has also worked for former Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and served as a congressional liaison to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Former Senate staffer Jed Dearborn is investing his energy back into the private sector after three years on the Hill. 

Dearborn worked as Sen. John Barrasso's (R-Wyo.) energy counsel starting in 2017 before moving to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in 2018, first as counsel and then senior counsel. This month, he started a new job as a senior vice president at lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates. 

Prior to working on the Hill, Dearborn was an associate focused on energy issues at Schiff Hardin.

After 11 years on the Hill, Republican staffer Meghan Thacker is skipping K Street and heading to Bourbon Street. The New Orleans-native has returned to her hometown to launch her own lobbying firm.

Thacker started her career as a staff assistant to Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and then moved through the offices of former Reps. John Fleming (R-La.) and Jeff Landry (R-La.).

She then traded the Bayou for the mountains. Thacker spent the last seven years with Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), first in his House office and then in his current office, where she was a senior policy adviser.

Thacker has not yet registered to lobby through her new firm, Big Sky Bluewater Strategies, but is advertising government relations and issue advocacy services.

A Democratic staffer has taken her decade of congressional experience to a Christian anti-hunger group.

Chonya Johnson is now a senior domestic policy adviser at Bread for the World. The advocacy group discloses lobbying work on agriculture, immigration and other issues.

Johnson comes from the office of Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), where she was a senior legislative assistant. She's also worked for Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) and Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), as well as former Reps. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and Julia Carson (D-Ind.).

After six years on the Hill, an aide has answered AT&T's call.

Kemah Dennis-Morial joined the telecom giant this month as a director of public affairs. AT&T and its subsidiaries spent more than $12.8 million on federal lobbying last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

She comes from the office of Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), where she was a senior adviser. Dennis-Morial, whose father is former New Orleans mayor Marc Morial, previously worked for the Congressional Black Caucus, also under Richmond's leadership.