Kate Ackley
Bio:
Kate Ackley is a lobbying reporter and editor for Roll Call. For more than a decade, she has covered the K Street industry and the relationship between Congress and those seeking to influence it. She is an expert on the lobbying job market, the revolving door between Capitol Hill and the private sector, the culture of K Street and on Washington, D.C.’s business community including its lobbying associations, lobbying firms, unions and corporate offices.
Before joining Roll Call in January 2005, Ackley was news editor at Influence and Legal Times. She has held reporting internships with the Wall Street Journal, Reader’s Digest magazine and the Fort Collins Coloradoan.
A Denver native, Ackley graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
She has appeared on CSPAN, including in a documentary about a Congressional Delegation trip in 2008 to Colombia, and on XM Satellite Radio and various other programs around the country.
Stories by Kate Ackley:
June 15, 2012
Veteran lobbyist Andy Wright and former Dutko Grayling colleague Tracy Hammond have joined Polsinelli Shughart’s lobbying team. The duo will focus primarily on energy, environmental and telecommunications issues.
June 14, 2012
Former Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.), who joined the lobby practice of Olsson Frank Weeda last year, will leave the firm this summer to become general counsel of Raven Industries in Sioux Falls.
June 12, 2012
Move over, big business strategy sessions filled with corporate jargon. “Amen” just might be the new preferred lingo when it comes to pushing for comprehensive immigration reform.
June 7, 2012
If Tom Daschle, Newt Gingrich and Howard Marlowe sat around a table in a downtown Washington, D.C., conference room strategizing policy for a client, only one of the three would exist. At least according to the public record. That might sound like the lead-up to a punch line. But it’s no joke.
June 7, 2012
Former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) is setting up shop as a visiting scholar at the policy think tank American Enterprise Institute.
June 6, 2012
The Bond Dealers of America has made an investment in a new top lobbyist. Susan Collet will join the organization July 9 as its senior vice president for government relations. She will also take a leading role in the BDA’s new political action committee.
May 22, 2012
In an effort to encourage small businesses to get on Facebook, the newly public social network is giving away up to $10 million in free advertising.
May 21, 2012
While Senators in recent days fought a public battle over an Iran sanctions bill, lawyers and lobbyists for victims of terrorist attacks were quietly jockeying over a few words in section 503 of the legislation.
May 14, 2012
Groups lobbying for same-sex marriage may not receive the infusion of cash President Barack Obama’s campaign took in after he announced support for their cause. But gay-rights advocates say the commander in chief built needed momentum for their cause ahead of initiatives in up to four states this fall.
May 12, 2012
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, on pace to spend upward of $50 million on voter mobilization this campaign cycle, has launched a YouTube advertising campaign targeting residents of seven Congressional districts. More ads in other districts are likely on the horizon.
May 9, 2012
A pair of Congressional candidates will get a boost Thursday from a network of former aides to the late-Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.).
May 9, 2012
Pat Bousliman, a longtime Senate Finance Committee staff member, has joined the Democratic lobby shop of Elmendorf Ryan.
May 8, 2012
Sen. Dick Lugar’s K Street ties run deep and include a network of loyal former aides and family members. But the help of his downtown supporters wasn’t enough to push the Indiana Republican to victory Tuesday.
May 7, 2012
Google Inc.’s first K Street hire was a fledgling shop whose two lobbyists had been the subject of a mass email alleging they had an extramarital affair. That was nine years ago.
May 4, 2012
DLA Piper hosted an elegant two-course breakfast briefing at the Willard InterContinental last week. The audience was a collection of clients, Hill aides, lawyers, diplomats and reporters. The fare was unabashedly political. And that was the point.
April 30, 2012
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi is back in business on K Street, launching Laszlo Strategies this week.
April 24, 2012
After several years of relative calm, Walmart is once again in Capitol Hill’s cross hairs. Walmart’s top D.C. lobbyist, Ivan Zapien, convened a meeting of his outside consultants today as senior Congressional Democrats are investigating allegations that the company bribed Mexican officials.
April 24, 2012
Bill Thorne, Walmart’s senior director of community affairs, will join the National Retail Federation in June as its senior vice president of communications and public affairs.
April 20, 2012
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the 100-year-old big business group, spent more than $20 million on lobbying in the first quarter of the year, nearly double what it spent in the corresponding period of 2011, according to just-filed reports with Congress.
April 19, 2012
A trio of tax lobbyists — James Gould, Thomas Dwyer and Tucker Shumack — have opened a new shop, GDS Strategies.
April 18, 2012
Scandals and reforms to the appropriations process closed some lobbying shops, gutted the revenue of others and temporarily stopped the practice of steering taxpayer funds for local projects. But as appropriators take up the first round of fiscal 2013 spending bills this week, K Street will again be close to the action.
April 17, 2012
An elite network of K Streeters is on track to hitting the $117,000 limit that individuals are allowed to give federal candidates, PACs and party committees in the current campaign cycle, according to an analysis of federal records by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
April 15, 2012
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today put much of the blame of the nation’s slow economic recovery on Republicans in Congress.
April 5, 2012
One of Stephen Ciccone’s first jobs after getting hired at Toyota was to install roof antennas and clip wiring into the trunks of Camrys as they snaked along an assembly line in Georgetown, Ky. It was an unremarkable assignment for the average auto worker, but it was more of a challenge for Ciccone, who’s the company’s new top lobbyist.
April 5, 2012
Kraft Foods’ decision to split into separate grocery and snacks businesses will reshape the corporation’s lobbying team, according to an internal memo sent today.
