With Hailey Fuchs, Brendan Bordelon, Daniel Lippman
OPENAI REGISTERS TO LOBBY: OpenAI, the Silicon Valley firm whose ChatGPT — the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot whose eerily human-like responses prompted this year’s global scramble to regulate the technology — has registered its first federal lobbyists, newly filed disclosures show, potentially signaling a shift in how one of the industry’s leading firms is engaging in Washington.
— DLA Piper’s Tony Samp, a former Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) staffer who was the founding director of the Senate’s AI Working Group, and Steven Phillips, have been lobbying for OpenAI, whose CEO Sam Altman was abruptly pushed out of the company just before publication today, since Oct. 2, according to the disclosures.
— Of course, the firm’s relationship with OpenAI dates back to at least this spring, when the firm was helping Altman prepare for his well-received appearance at a blockbuster AI hearing in the Senate, as our Brendan Bordelon reported a few months ago.
— The disclosure filing notes that DLA Piper has been lobbying on “legislative and regulatory proposals and oversight affecting the safe development and deployment of artificial intelligence technologies.”
— OpenAI registered its first in-house lobbyist as well. Chan Park, who joined the company last month as its head of U.S. policy and partnerships, has been lobbying since Oct. 3 on AI research and development, according to a filing.
— Park has been on K Street for around five years, first working at the multi-client firm Monument Advocacy before moving over to Microsoft’s lobbying team in 2019. Before that, he spent eight years on the Hill, where he was an attorney on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel whose subcommittee Altman testified before in May.
— The company is apparently in the process of staffing up its lobbying team further. A job posting for a U.S. congressional lead that went up this fall remains live on OpenAI’s website.
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FIRST IN PI — AMFREE CHAMBER REGISTERS TO LOBBY: The upstart business group American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce has lobbied up, too. The group launched last year in part to serve as a foil to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce amid the Republican Party’s drift away from corporate America, but it had yet to register any lobbyists.
— AmFree Chamber has inked lobbying contracts with four firms with close ties to former and current members of GOP leadership, some of whom have been working with the trade group since its early months: CGCN Strategies, Miller Strategies, S-3 Group and Daly Consulting.
— Miller Strategies’ Jeff Miller, one of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s longtime confidants and a major GOP fundraiser, has been working with the AmFree Chamber since last September as its chief public affairs adviser, while CGCN President and CEO Michael Catanzaro had been the group’s chief energy and environment adviser.
— The group’s focus on the Hill will be less about huddling with members of House leadership and more about “helping small businesses across the country … have a voice here in Washington D.C. with the rank-and-file members,” said Tim Pataki, a partner at CGCN who previously worked for McCarthy and served as President Donald Trump’s liaison to the Hill.
— The firm’s lobbyists will push to derail the Biden administration’s regulatory agenda and advocate for lower taxes, especially with several key business tax breaks from the 2017 GOP tax bill — like immediate research and development expensing — having begun to phase out, with more set to sunset in the coming years.
— Pataki argued it’s just as important for members to hear the case for extending those tax breaks, among other policy issues, from smaller businesses as it is from major companies or their trade associations.
— “I think they’re just providing something different,” added Matt Bravo, a partner at S-3 Group, noting that there’s excitement behind the group from new House Speaker Mike Johnson and other members of leadership who have sparred with the U.S. Chamber and broader business community. “The Chamber has … left a little bit of an opening for the Republicans and the pro-business world.” The AmFree Chamber “fills that void,” he said.
LEO-LINKED ANTI-ESG GROUP RAKES IN $10M: Consumers’ Research, the Leonard Leo-linked nonprofit group that’s been leading conservatives’ crusade against ESG investment strategies, brought in more than $10 million in revenue last year — a $2.4 million increase from the year before — thanks to a massive gift from the conservative donor fund DonorsTrust, according to the group’s tax filings.
— The filings, which were shared exclusively with PI by the liberal watchdog group Accountable.US, show Consumers’ Research continues to haul in money to fund the group’s anti-ESG campaign, one of Leo’s latest culture war fights. The nonprofit, which is run by an ally of Leo’s and is not required to disclose its donors, has seen a surge of resources in the past few years, with revenues soaring from around $800,000 in 2020 to $8 million in 2021.
— The $9 million contribution from DonorsTrust, the group’s third-largest gift in 2022, coincided with a major spike in grantmaking by Consumers’ Research, the filing shows. Consumers’ Research doled out $1.4 million in grants last year, compared with just $150,000 the prior year.
— That grant money went to groups like the State Financial Officers’ Foundation, another anti-ESG group representing state treasurers, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of conservative state lawmakers and companies, and the American Conservative Union, the nonprofit behind CPAC.
— Consumers’ Research also reported spending more than $2.3 million on media services from conservative consultancy Mentzer Media, and nearly $600,000 on legal services from CRC Advisors, Leo’s for-profit consulting firm.
FIRST IN PI — THIRD WAY TARGETS NO LABELS ON ABORTION: The centrist group Third Way, along with Reproductive Freedom for All, is launching a new digital ad campaign that highlights how they see abortion as a central problem if No Labels launches a third-party unity presidential ticket, Daniel reports. No Labels’ head Nancy Jacobson has reportedly said privately that they would put a moderate Republican at the top of their ticket if they launch a campaign.
— “No Labels frontman and potential presidential candidate Jon Huntsman is an abortion extremist,” the narrator says in the ad. “He has called for a national abortion ban and boasted about increasing penalties for abortion.” Third Way said the ad will be targeted on digital to the Washington area to reach D.C. opinion makers and the buy is in the “high five figures.”
— “Once again, the Third Way boys have worked themselves up into a tizzy and they need to relax,” No Labels co-executive director Liz Morrison told PI in a statement. “It’s abundantly clear that Americans want another choice for president in 2024. Third Way’s hysteria is ridiculous, because no decision has been made if, or to whom, No Labels will offer its ballot line.” Huntsman declined to comment.
ANNALS OF DARK MONEY: Meanwhile Sludge’s David Moore dug up through receipts on No Labels’ corporate benefactors, revealing that contrary to the group’s claims that it doesn’t take donations from corporations, No Labels “has received at least hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate donors, and at least hundreds of thousands of dollars from business lobbying groups. Some corporate donations to No Labels were made in 2021 and 2022 as the group was preparing its presidential ticket for 2024.”
HALEY-MENTUM IN THE 2024 MONEY RACE: “First comes the momentum, then comes the money. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s presidential bid started to pick up the first after well-received early debate performances. Now, she is starting to vacuum up the second, as an increasing number of GOP donors who oppose former President Donald Trump see her as the best alternative,” NBC News’ and CNBC’s Matt Dixon, Brian Schwartz and Jonathan Allen report.
— “That interest has picked up in recent weeks, including among donors who previously backed South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott but have started to raise money for Haley in the wake of her home-state rival’s exit from the race.”
— “Scott’s exit set up a donor and supporter scramble in South Carolina, as she continues to jockey with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the title of the most viable candidate besides Trump, who still holds a huge lead in the polls despite their pressure. ‘Tim Scott’s exit was a signal to donors that the time to coalesce around Nikki Haley is now,’ said Alex Stroman, a South Carolina Republican operative who is currently unaligned.”
— “DeSantis has also touted bringing in more money after the latest GOP debate, and he tasked his finance team with courting former Scott donors, too. But the move by a small group of past Scott fundraisers to shift allegiances to Haley is already paying off for the former South Carolina governor.”
— Stef Webb is joining the National Association of Manufacturers as managing vice president of government relations. She most recently was director of corporate affairs at GoPuff.
— Zach Sentementes has been promoted to be senior director of federal advocacy at PhRMA.
— Matthew Tejada is joining the Natural Resources Defense Council as senior vice president for environmental health. He most recently served as the deputy assistant administrator for environmental justice in EPA’s Office for Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.
— Touchdown Strategies has hired Anna McEntee as a senior director and Brendan Montesinos as a research assistant. McEntee was previously CEO of McEntee & Associates and is a Hill and Fox News alum.
— Aerospace Industries Association promoted Denise Brassé to senior director for membership and Tiffany Brumfield to senior manager for database and membership operations.
— Todd Harrison has joined the American Enterprise Institute as a senior fellow, where he’ll focus on the defense budget, defense-industrial base and space policy, per NatSec Daily. He joined the think tank from Metrea, where he was senior vice president and head of research.
ARIZONA FREEDOM JFC (Kari Lake for Senate, Abe for Arizona)
BO HINES VICTORY COMMITTEE 2024 (Bo Hines for Congress, BOPAC)
Areyto PAC (PAC)
Border Patriot PAC (Super PAC)
EST Employees PAC (PAC)
FIGHT RIGHT INC (Super PAC)
Mr.Joel Etietsola Asagba (Super PAC)
Capitol Counsel LLC: Sb Technology, Inc. (Sandboxaq)
Cgcn Group, LLC: Datamaxx Applied Technologies, Inc.
Colton Street Group: Recording Industry Association Of America
Dla Piper LLP (US): Openai Opco, LLC
Franklin Square Group, LLC: Moveworks, Inc.
Holland & Knight LLP: Perimeter Solutions
International Aviation Professionals, Teamsters Local Union No. 2750: International Aviation Professionals, Teamsters Local Union No. 2750
Invariant LLC: Family Voices
Maynard Nexsen Pc – Fka Maynard, Cooper & Gale, Pc: Engineering And Computer Simulations, Inc.
Maynard Nexsen Pc – Fka Maynard, Cooper & Gale, Pc: We Are Sharing Hope Sc
Openai Opco, LLC: Openai Opco, LLC
Todd Strategy Group: Health Supply US LLC
None.