Lobbyists are eager for details on a potential reconciliation that could quickly move through the Senate.

Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Reconciliation 2.0, not long ago, was just a K Street pipe dream. Now it’s reality.

Lawmakers are gearing up for a second round of the strategy that can whisk legislation through the Senate on a party-line vote. President Donald Trump’s prodding and pressure from MAGA influencers mad about the Senate filibuster set this one in motion.

Lobbyists see opportunities.

It’s aimed at overcoming a partisan funding impasse over the Department of Homeland Security. Though many lawmakers say they want to keep it tight to just DHS, lobbyists are working to get in on the action.

• “I think it’s going to be narrowly focused, but everybody in town is going to try to get on it,” said GOP lobbyist Aleix Jarvis, founder of Tholos Government Relations.

Lobbyists with Capitol Hill experience in last year’s mega reconciliation package, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, said clients are intrigued by the idea of legislation with good odds of passage.

“Everyone is always looking for a vehicle, so the increased chatter around a reconciliation bill moving certainly gets a lot of attention among clients,” said Sean Clerget, a senior principal at Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies, who was chief tax counsel for Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.).

Stacy McBride, executive VP of federal government affairs at HB Strategies, said she’s lost track of how many times she’s explained reconciliation to clients this week.

“It presents a lot of opportunity and a lot of risks,” she said, noting risks could come if lawmakers seek offsets.

Defense industry clients see another reconciliation as a potential revenue stream.

• “Clients are looking at reconciliation as another source for defense dollars in the year ahead,” said Brandt Anderson, a lobbyist at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

The bigger it gets, though, the harder it might fall: “I see growth as a death sentence for reconciliation. The larger reconciliation gets, the more difficult it will be to pass,” he added. Read More

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Squire Patton Boggs today is launching a sovereign advisory group to expand its representation of foreign governments on public policy, legal, financial, and economic matters.

Jill Dauchy, founder of CEO of Potomac Group, is joining Squire Patton Boggs as senior adviser to anchor the new group. She advises governments on sovereign debt management and will also remain at Potomac Group.

• “Governments today are navigating an unprecedented convergence of fiscal stress, geopolitical pressure and policy disruption,” SPB’s public policy co-chair Robert Kapla said in a statement.

Plus: Venable signed on to represent the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development for a $25,000 monthly fee, a Justice Department filing shows.

• The firm will engage with “federal officials to help ensure that members of Congress and the administration have an accurate understanding of Qatar Foundation’s support for education and its work with U.S. universities,” said recent Foreign Agents Registration Act documents.

Joshua Raymond, who co-chairs Venable’s legislative and government affairs group, is part of the team from Venable working for the foundation. Venable already represents the Qatari government, previously FARA filings show.

Anthropic PBC formed a federal PAC to make campaign contributions to Washington lawmakers and preferred House and Senate candidates in the November midterm elections, scooped BGOV’s Greg Giroux.

• Anthropic donated $20 million to Public First Action, a political advocacy group that’s backing congressional candidates who favor safety guardrails for AI. Read More

Photographer: Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images

New bipartisan legislation calls on companies creating the largest AI models, including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, to publicly disclose certain information about how they train their tools, such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, BGOV’s Oma Seddiq reports.

• Industry players have asked the federal government to lead on so-called transparency requirements so they have one guideline to comply with rather than several rules in states like California, New York, and Colorado.

The AI Foundation Model Transparency Act (H.R. 8094), unveiled March 26, follows the White House’s release of a national AI framework to override state laws, and comes as lawmakers are considering a potential package this year. Read More

State policymaking is accelerating, making it harder for government affairs teams to keep pace. Join Bloomberg Government for a webinar on April 9 at 1 p.m. to see how AI-powered tools and comprehensive state insights can help you track legislation, refine outreach, and strengthen your 2026 policy strategy. Register Here

Former Senator Norm Coleman is now representing Calvin Klein.

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

PVH Corp., the clothing company whose brands include Calvin Klein, has tapped former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and another lobbyist who worked in the Trump administration on trade policy as tariffs rile the apparel sector, new lobbying disclosures show.

Coleman is a senior counsel at Hogan Lovells.

PVH also hired Kelly Ann Shaw, a partner at Akin. She was previously deputy assistant to the president for international economic affairs. She was also trade counsel at the House Ways and Means Committee.

Trade associations are very different organisms from other clients represented by lobbying firms, argue Rob Burgess, CEO of Connector, and Joshua Habursky, the CEO of the Premium Cigar Association.

Treating them like a corporate client with a slightly more complicated org chart is one of the most common and costly mistakes in the lobbying business, they write. In addition to staff leadership, a trade association has a board — sometimes dozens of member companies with competing interests, conflicting timelines, and very different definitions of success. Read More

Google Cloud is hiring a senior policy manager.

Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

Google’s Cloud division is hiring a senior manager, national security on its government affairs and public policy team, per a new listing. The role requires 14 years working on policy issues, experience with the Pentagon and tech policy, plus US government top secret security clearance.

Base salary is up to $307,000, plus bonus and equity, the job listing said.

Kirsten Donaldson, most recently vice president of public policy at the National Association of Broadcasters, joined Holland & Knight’s public policy and regulation group as a partner, the firm said Tuesday.

It’s budget season on Capitol Hill. Over the coming months, Congress will respond to President Donald Trump’s $2.2 trillion spending plan, which proposes a record $1.5 trillion for defense spending and a roughly 10% cut to civilian agencies.

During Tuesday’s Hill Watch Live, Senior National Security Reporter Roxana Tiron, Budget and Appropriations Reporter Ken Tran, and Deputy News Director Loren Duggan discussed Republicans’ interest in using the reconciliation process to advance funding for the Defense Department and war needs as well as provisions addressing government fraud and alternatives to the SAVE America Act requiring voter ID.

Download Tuesday’s slides and visit the Hill Watch Live hub for a replay of past editions.