Gone are the days when a loss at the ballot box meant a loss in political currency.
Today the revolving door leads to TV riches as often as lobbying power.
And sometimes doors number one and two both open.
According to The Boston Globe, former U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) is celebrating his loss to Elizabeth Warren with two lucrative positions. First, he’s signed on with with Fox News to serve as a “regular pundit” (for $ of course). Second, he has a post at Nixon Peabody, a Boston law firm, where he will supposedly practice law, not work as a lobbyist.
According to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell:
[Business and governmental affairs] is the lobbying world’s euphemism for lobbying ‘government affairs.’ So today, Scott Brown became a lobbyist.
From Media Matters:
Nixon Peabody was paid over $2.5 million to lobby Congress from 2011-12. The group’s top lobbying clients include the Council on Affordable Housing & Rural Development, Sallie Mae, the Monroe County Water Authority, Wegmans Food Markets, and Goldman Sachs.
Thus it is doubtful that the firm would hire someone looked upon with disfavor by Wall Street. Perhaps this is a reward for his actions in 2010:
For instance, while a stronger version of the Volcker rule — a ban on banks trading for their own benefit with federally insured dollars — proposed by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) was included, conferees added an exemption to the rule sought by Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) that allows banks to continue to invest money in risky hedge funds and private equity firms.
Not only was Brown’s exemption included, but negotiators decided to allow banks to invest three percent of what’s known as Tier 1 capital, as opposed to three percent of what’s known as tangible common equity (TCE). This is a huge distinction, as banks have far more Tier 1 capital than TCE. As Shahien Nasiripour explained, this small change means that banks can place bets with billions of dollars more than was envisioned by the original Volcker rule proposal…
Let me remind you of the Bloomberg report from last week about too-big-to-fail implicit bank subsidies.
Because it’s all about who you know. From the company news release:
Brown joins a number of political and government officials at Nixon Peabody including: Tom Reynolds, a five-term U.S. Congressman who leads the firm’s Government Relations practice; Jim Vallee, former majority leader of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; and Navjeet Bal, the former Massachusetts commissioner of revenue.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com