K Street

Big business, big tech and medical interests were K Street’s top players last year as those industries spent millions of dollars on federal lobbying in the final months of 2019, while lawmakers and the administration wrapped up spending and trade measures.

With the 2020 elections expected to consume lawmakers’ attention this summer and fall, lobbyists say they’re looking at a post-impeachment crunch on major 2020 priorities. Some clients already are gaming out a possible lame-duck session as well as a potentially revamped federal government in 2021.

K Street’s top-tier firms posted sizable gains last year, fueled by technology, pharmaceutical and big-business interests concerned with such policy matters as trade, health care, taxation and government spending.

And lobbyists say impeachment proceedings and the 2020 campaigns haven’t yet derailed the influence industry’s agenda this year.

K Street recruiters are poring over the list of 21, and counting, lawmakers planning to exit Congress, but the lobbying sector may offer a shrinking supply of big-money gigs heading into the 2020 elections. 

As more House members and senators consider making their escape from Capitol Hill, the realities of the K Street economy and the well-worn revolving door will be among their considerations, say insiders at lobbying firms and downtown headhunters.

Former House Speaker John A. Boehner is cashing in on K Street almost one year after resigning from Capitol Hill.

The Ohio Republican will join Squire Patton Boggs, a global law firm that traces its roots to one of Washington's oldest and most prominent lobbying practices. The shop is also the professional home of several former Boehner congressional aides and to former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi and Democratic ex-Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana.

A new trade group for lobbyists is positioning itself to fill the void left by the Association of Government Relations Professionals, which shut down last week .  

The National Institute for Lobbying & Ethics has begun offering free memberships to exiles of the defunct association who aren’t likely to get their 2016 dues refunded. The response from K Street has been strong, according to lobbying institute founder Paul Miller.  

A narrow set of policy issues -- aviation programs, the Zika virus and drug prices -- are keeping the lobbying business afloat, even as some big players scale back amid the typical election-year falloff.  

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce boosted its spending in the first quarter of this year, according to disclosures filed with Congress this week. But other prominent players, such as the Business Roundtable, Squire Patton Boggs and Comcast Corp., are seeing business slow.  

The trade group representing K Street lobbyists in Washington, D.C., is shutting down.  

The Association of Government Relations Professionals, formerly called the American League of Lobbyists, began winding down operations Monday, according to a notice posted on its website.  

Boehner Inc. begins.  

It took former Speaker John A. Boehner less than a week after leaving Congress to start assembling a team of power players to help him cash in.