LegiStorm

"Congress' leading crypto skeptic" has hired an American Bankers Association lobbyist.

Sam Mayper is now a senior legislative assistant handling tax, housing, financial services and small business for Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who sits on the House Financial Services Committee and chaired its Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship and Capital Markets Subcommittee last session.

Mayper comes from the American Bankers Association, where he was a senior legislative manager. The trade group dropped more than $8.7 million on its federal lobbying program in the last year.

Sherman, whose campaign accepted $10,000 in donations from ABA's PAC last cycle, has frequently used his Financial Services Committee membership to voice his staunch opposition to cryptocurrencies. He was the 117th Congress's sole representative to receive an "F" grade from cryptocurrency advocacy group Crypto Action Network and once even floated the idea of a cryptocurrency ban.

Ex-Rep. Kurt Schrader's (D-Ore.) chief of staff has moved to K Street.

Chris Huckleberry is now a partner at Bluestone Strategies. The government-affairs firm represents health-care heavyweights including America's Health Insurance Plans, Kaiser Permanente and the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association.

Huckleberry is a former lobbyist for Qwest Communications International (later acquired by CenturyLink, now Lumen Technologies) and worked for then-Reps. Mike Capuano (D-Ore.) and Darlene Hooley (D-Ore.). He worked for Schrader from 2009, just months after the congressman took office, until Schrader's departure from Congress at the end of last term.

The 118th Congress is the House's most racially diverse yet. But its staffer makeup hasn't been this white in years.

Non-white staffers now make up about 25% of the House's workforce, according to LegiStorm data. That's a smaller proportion of racial minorities than among current elected representatives, 29% of whom are non-white.

Racial minorities made up 27% of staff last session. This year represents the lowest proportion of non-white staffers since the 115th Congress, when 28% of staffers were racial minorities.

House Republicans employ a slightly higher proportion of non-white staffers now (8%) compared to last session (7%). While House Democrats employ a higher proportion of racial minorities (31%) than Republicans, their racial-minority hiring rate has fallen since last session's 33%.

This racial makeup is likely to change further as Democrats lose the majority in committees and leadership offices and Republicans staff up instead.

The year's unprecedented Members' Representational Allowance increase was meant to bolster staffer salaries in order to help the House attract and retain talent. But going into the fourth quarter, only a third of representatives have tapped into any of their additional funds, according to a LegiStorm analysis.

The average personal office spent just 57.50% of its budget in the first three quarters of the year. The average office would have needed to spent $81,700 more during that time period to even begin to touch its 21% MRA increase.

Two in three offices disclosed Q1-3 spending at rates that would have been sustainable without the increase.

On average, Democrats spent an extra 2.5% of their office budget than Republicans, or about $53,000 more per office. Rep. Jack Bergman's (R-Mich.) office disclosed the House's highest spending rate. His office used 76.1% of the office's funds in nine months, including 21% of its total annual budget on printing and franked mailings to constituents.

Speculation continues that Democrats may begin to leave Twitter. Among Congress's freshman class, it's Democrats who have more followers to lose if they depart from the app.

The average incoming Republican lawmaker has 40,000 Twitter followers, according to a LegiStorm analysis. The average incoming Democrat has 57% more than that, closing in an average of 64,000 followers.

Incoming Republicans have a combined follower count of 1.8 million. Incoming Democrats have 2.2 million - 22% more, despite making up only 44% of future lawmakers in this analysis.

Sen.-elect John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is the freshman class's most followed: His 932,000 followers make up 23% of incoming members' combined follower count of 4 million. Rep.-elect Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Sen.-elect J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) have just shy of 439,000 and 349,000, respectively.

LegiStorm's calculations tallied members-elects' campaign, personal and official Twitter accounts, including both active and inactive accounts. This count includes the 79 new members who will be sworn in on January 3, plus Rep. Rudy Yakym (R-Ind.), who took office the week after Election Day. It does not include Sens.-elect Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.) or Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who each have well-established Twitter accounts in their official capacities as current representatives.