LegiStorm

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is retiring, but that isn't stopping him from hiring one of the only lobbyists his office has ever employed.

Stephen Newton has joined Romney's office from government-affairs firm Porterfield, Fettig & Sears. His big-name lobbying clients there included Nasdaq, M&T Bank, AirBnB and the American Bankers Association. He is now Romney's deputy chief of staff for policy.

This is not Newton's first position on the Hill, or even with Romney: He was one the senator's first hires when Romney took office in 2019. Newton is also an alumnus of Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) and the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.

While this isn't Romney's first time employing Newton, it does reflect a departure from the senator's normal hiring patterns. In five years as a senator, Romney has added only two other registered federal lobbyists to his staff. Only one former Romney staffer has gone on to become a lobbyist after leaving the office.

A former congressional attorney with deep knowledge of sub-Saharan Africa has come back to the Hill as Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick's (D-Fla.) deputy chief of staff.

Angelle Kwemo joined Cherfilus-McCormick's office from her small stragegic consulting firm, Astrategik Group. There, she registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent on behalf of South Sudanese oil company Trinity Energy.

Kwemo's ties to Africa are extensive. She spent years working in her native Cameroon and later served as managing director for African issues at the Washington Media Group. She hosted a show on Nigerian television covering the 2020 U.S. presidential election and is founder of the Congressional African Staff Association.

Kwemo is also an alumna of then-Reps. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and Bill Jefferson (D-La.).

Interest-group spending on private congressional travel reached its highest point since before the pandemic.

Members and staff accepted 1,721 trips worth more than $8.1 million in 2023, according to a LegiStorm review of official trip disclosures. Nearly 60% of those travel expenses went toward courting members, who accepted 326 trips worth $3.6 million.

That marks the highest annual travel spending since 2019, when interest groups allocated $9.3 million (adjusted for inflation) for member and staff travel.

Congressional travel halted as the pandemic hit in March 2020 and began to rebound in 2021.

Since then, sponsors have opted to send members and staff on a smaller number of more expensive trips compared to years past. Congress's 1,721 cost an average of $4,700 this past year. In 2019, sponsored paid an inflation-adjusted average of $4,000 each across 2,317 trips.

That trend is even more pronounced among Democrats, whose trips made up 40% of last year's travel. Democrats' travel averaged $6,400 a piece; Republicans' travel averaged $3,600.

The American Israel Education Foundation ($1.9 million) and the Aspen Institute ($1.1 million) were the year's top spenders.

A Democratic staffer-turned-lobbyist has landed back at the Capitol.

Rachel Devine is now senior counsel for the majority on the Aviation, Safety, Operations and Innovation Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. She recently worked as senior vice president for global policy and regulatory affairs at Boom Technology Inc., a Colorado-based firm that develops supersonic aircraft. She lobbied on several issues involving the FAA, NASA and the U.S. Air Force, including a focus on aviation sustainability, emissions and noise.

Devine was previously a stalwart of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. She served in various roles since 1999, interspersed with outside gigs relating to air travel. She finished as Democratic staff director and senior counsel for the Aviation Subcommittee in 2019.

One of K Street's biggest firms has snagged a staffer from Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-W.V.) Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Peter Stahley is now a senior vice president at Cassidy & Associates. Stahley, a former National Park Service civil engineer, was most recently a professional staff member to Energy and Natural Resources Committee Democrats under retiring Chair Manchin.

Cassidy & Associates has so far disclosed more than $21.6 million in federal lobbying revenue for 2023, with energy among the lobbying firm's most in-demand issue areas. As the American Prospect pointed out last week, Manchin's committee staffers regularly decamp to the oil and gas lobby.