Democrats' Stock Is Rising on K Street (W Post)

[Omaha Steve]

Full story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/16/AR2006081601598_pf.html



Democrats' Stock Is Rising on K Street
Firms Anticipate A Shift in Power

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 17, 2006; A01

Washington lobbying firms, trade associations and corporate offices are moving to hire more well-connected Democrats in response to rising prospects that the opposition party will wrest control of at least one chamber of Congress from Republicans in the November elections.

In what lobbyists are calling a harbinger of possible upheaval on Capitol Hill, many who make a living influencing government have gone from mostly shunning Democrats to aggressively recruiting them as lobbyists over the past six months or so.

"We've seen a noticeable shift," said Beth Solomon, director of the Washington office of Christian & Timbers, an executive search firm that helps to place senior lobbyists and trade association heads.

In June, one of Washington's largest lobbying law firms, DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary LLP, transferred the chairmanship of its government affairs practice from a Republican, Thomas F. O'Neil III, to a prominent Democrat, James J. Blanchard, a former governor and congressman from Michigan.