LegiStorm

Retired Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), former chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, has signed on as a foreign agent to Mexico.

Greenberg Traurig recently disclosed Frelinghuysen's addition to the law firm's existing contract with the Secretariat of Economy, Mexico's econonic department. Frelinghuysen's work involves tracking implementation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and outreach to U.S. government officials, media and "other opinion leaders" on U.S.-Mexico relations.

Frelinghuysen, who served in Congress from 1995–2019, joined Greenberg Traurig last year and counts Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba among his lobbying clients.

As Big Tech finds itself under increased congressional scrutiny, Senate Republicans have scored a big hire from Facebook's public-policy team.

Halie Craig has joined the Senate Banking Committee as she is a policy adviser under ranking member Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). She spent the last couple years at Facebook, most recently as a public-policy associate manager for actor and behavioral policy. Craig worked for Toomey's personal office and for the Senate Rules Committee before her time at the tech giant.

Congress's ongoing pressure to rein in Big Tech was only heightened by last week's Senate whistleblower testimony against Facebook. Some predict a yearslong struggle to regulate Big Tech, due in part to the number of talented congressional staffers that the industry has lured through the revolving door.

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), who currently holds as much as $500,000 worth of stock in Facebook, questioned Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen on Tuesday about how the company's profit could be affected by policy changes.

In a Tuesday morning hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security, Hickenlooper asked Haugen, "What impact to Facebook's bottom line would it have if the algorithm was changed to promote safety?"

According to Hickenlooper's most recent annual financial disclosure, he currently holds between $250,000-$500,000 worth of stock in Facebook, with the total value of his assets ranging from $8.8-$23.8 million. The exact value of assets is unknown, as members of Congress are only required to disclose values within broad ranges.

Among other members of the subcommittee, and the Senate Commerce Committee as a whole, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) is the only other member to hold direct stock in Facebook, having disclosed in his most recent annual financial disclosure that he owns between $1,001-$15,000 worth of stock in the company.

For the first time in at least 20 years, JDs have broken past PhDs as the most-valued staffer degrees in both chambers.

For most of the last decade, doctorates reigned as the best-paying degree in Congress. But about a year ago, JDs slipped past PhDs as the highest paying - and their edge is only growing, according to LegiStorm data.

In 2020, an attorney could expect to make five percent more than a PhD holder in the House and the same as a PhD holder in the Senate. This year, that difference has grown to 15 percent more in the House ($85,700 vs. $74,100) and seven percent more in the Senate ($106,400 vs. $99,500).

Doctorates were once so valued in Congress that a decade ago, PhD holders made 23 percent more in the House and 14 percent more in the Senate.

Some of the trend toward paying lawyers more than doctors comes from a rapid pay increase for congressional attorneys. JDs have seen the largest rates of pay increase of any degree over the last decade.

But some of the difference is that pay for PhDs hasn't kept up. In the House, PhD holders' median salaries have shrunk for two consecutive years and now lag thousands of dollars behind their 2019 pay rates. In the Senate, where larger staffs and a bigger budget allow for more specialized areas of expertise among staff, PhDs have continued to see a pay increase at similar rates to associate's, bachelor's and master's degrees.

A newly minted lobbyist is back with House Oversight and Reform Committee Democrats.

Kadeem Cooper rejoined the committee as deputy chief oversight counsel. He comes from the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where he was policy counsel and a registered lobbyist. The group was founded in 1963 at President John F. Kennedy's request as an extension of the civil-rights movement.

Cooper originally worked for the committee from 2018 until this past January. He is also a former Covington & Burling associate.