Alston & Bird is uniquely positioned to advise clients in a bipartisan, bicameral manner on public policy matters. Spearheading Alston & Bird’s Legislative & Public Policy Group are four former Congressional leaders: Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS), former U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and former Congressmen Billy Tauzin (R, D-LA) and Earl Pomeroy (D-ND). These leaders are supported by a full-service team of strategic lawyers and counsel with unparalleled industry expertise and insight. We are able to offer our clients decades of experience in the intricacies of how Washington makes policy and deliver our clients the highest level of service and results.
Legislative & Public Policy Services
Global Business Strategy
Tax Policy & Regulation
Government Ethics & Compliance
Communications Policy
Privacy & Data Security
Experience
Senator Dole, the 1996 Republican candidate for president, former Senate Finance Committee chairman and Senate Majority Leader who served longer in a Senate leadership role (Minority and Majority) than any other Republican in U.S. history, has an enormous reservoir of knowledge and expertise—based on more than 40 years at the pinnacle of political life in Washington—that has proven to be invaluable to Alston & Bird’s clients, who have turned to him and the firm for representation in our nation’s capital.
Senator Blanche Lincoln advises clients on a wide variety of critical and complex public policy issues facing contemporary business and industry interests throughout the country. During her tenure, Senator Lincoln became the first female chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry in the committee’s 184-year history and, in addition to agriculture, became known for her expertise on financial and energy policy issues.
Chairman Billy Tauzin and former Representative Earl Pomeroy have decades of experience and records of leadership on a full range of domestic and foreign policy issues. Congressman Pomeroy served as a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee and its Trade Subcommittee. Congressman Tauzin chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee and served as deputy majority whip.
Joining Senator Dole in the Legislative and Public Policy Group are Tom Scully, the former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and numerous other former senior officials from every administration since Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in January 1981, with service in the White House; both houses of Congress; the Departments of Health and Human Services, Justice, State and Treasury; the Office of the Trade Representative; the National Security Agency; and a panoply of regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and the Office of Thrift Supervision, among others.
Alston & Bird’s Legislative & Public Policy attorneys provide a full range of services to help our clients participate in and shape public policy debates before, rather than after, decisions are made; we also provide guidance in how to respond to decisions once they are made. We are among the most visible and respected voices in political Washington on global business strategies, privacy and data security, tax policy and regulation, and telecommunications. We represent clients before Congress, the executive branch and regulatory agencies in Washington, as well as throughout the country at the state and local level. We are frequently consulted by Congress on legislative matters, testify on a wide range of issues and prepare our clients when they are called upon to testify. We work directly with members and staff on Capitol Hill and with senior officials in federal agencies to help craft legislative and regulatory language that harmonizes the needs of our clients with the other relevant stakeholders.
Accolades
- In 2011, Chambers USA ranked us as on one of the top-tier lobbying firms in the country.
- National Public Radio ranked us “one of the top lobbying firms in D.C.” in April 2010.
- Roll Call ranked us on of the “top 20 lobbying firms in the country” in January 2010.
- National Law Journal ranked us “one of the top lobbying firms in the country” in 2009.
- We are regularly ranked among the top 10 lobbying law firms by the Center for Responsible Politics.
Experience
- Navistar: We are currently trying to obtain federal funding on behalf of Navistar for their research and development initiatives.
- National Retail Federation: We have represented NRF and its digital division, Shop.org (comprised of the top 10 online retail companies and over 400 of the most frequented online retail websites), before Congress and the Federal Trade Commission on a wide range of public policy issues affecting both traditional retail operations and online retail websites. In the past year, this representation included work on proposed legislation and regulations addressing advertising practices, consumer financial products, data security, domain name registrations, e-commerce operations, ICANN policies, online behavioral marketing principles, organized retail crime and consumer privacy practices. Presently, we are most actively engaged in assisting NRF in its efforts to ensure that Congress and the Federal Trade Commission pursue balanced federal privacy and data security legislation that does not have the unintended effect of perpetuating the recession in the retail industry by limiting the ability of retail customers to promote their goods to targeted customers based on their customers’ shopping preferences. This advocacy effort has enabled the online retail industry to avoid significant new liability and compliance costs, not to mention potentially lost sales and lost customers, from overreaching federal legislation. We are also presently assisting NRF in its support of federal organized retail crime legislation in the Senate and House of Representatives to curtail retail losses that have been estimated by the industry and U.S. government to amount to as much as $15–30 billion annually. Due to our efforts, Congress is closer to enacting this legislation now than it has been at any time in the past four years.
- Experian: We have continuously counseled and provided strategic advice and advocacy services to Experian for many years. In the past year (2010–2011), as in previous years, we have represented Experian on a wide range of federal legislative issues before Congress and on a selected set of regulatory issues before the Federal Trade Commission and other agencies that monitor and/or regulate a number of the company’s business operations. We have also developed and advocated strategic positions before Congress on privacy and data security bills, marketing and behavioral advertising proposals, and other e-commerce issue legislation affecting the collection, use and disclosure of consumer information. Our efforts have enabled Experian to not only anticipate potential changes in the law that may result from current legislative and regulatory efforts in Washington, but also use that information to both shape the proposals and make timely, strategic adjustments in business operations to protect against significant new liability and compliance costs it otherwise might face.
- Rheem: We provide comprehensive energy policy advocacy and representation, including federal election law and Lobbying Disclosure Act counsel, to Rheem, a leading provider of gas furnaces, heat pumps, air conditioners, air handlers, indoor air quality products, gas and electric water heaters. Several of the company’s leading competitors crafted legislative and administrative strategies and proposals that were originally championed by policymakers and industry players and would have significantly affected Rheem’s enterprise. We came in at an advanced stage of their competitors’ policy advancement to reverse this business threat and were able to redirect the initiative, generating key stakeholder support that is beneficial to Rheem’s business plan. One of the packages we resolved in partnership with Rheem required us to lay out and execute an intense tactical plan to address the competitive threat. We were successful and no adverse action has been taken; we now anticipate resolution in a manner that is advantageous to our client’s business. Alston & Bird worked closely with the client to understand their business model, surveyed the political landscape, developed champions in Congress to stand up in opposition to the competing proposal, developed support with leading third-party stakeholders and non-government organizations, and partnered with the client to craft new legislative proposals that would benefit their business and the public interest.
- National Geographic: We assisted National Geographic in its effort to improve geography teaching, training and research through the authorization and annual appropriations process. We worked with members of Congress to introduce and attract the support of about a quarter of the House and Senate for the Teaching Geography Is Fundamental Act (TGIF), a bill that would bring the federal government to the table to correct an oversight that leaves geography as the only one of the nine core subjects recognized by No Child Left Behind not to have received designated federal funding since that Act went into effect in 2002. Other policy initiatives that we have led include the annual Geography Legislator of the Year Award Ceremony, annual Geography Alliance Hill Day event in support of TGIF, and State Geography Bee winner meetings on Capitol Hill.
- Autoliv: We have assisted Autoliv in outreach to the DoD, DoE, NRC and congressional stakeholders in connection with its ownership of Aerotest Operations, Inc.
- Safeway: We have counseled Safeway in its efforts to build and maintain active, substantive relationships with key policymakers in Washington and provided advice on a range of legislative and regulatory issues impacting Safeway, both as a grocery store and as an employer. We provided strategic advice during the health care reform debate, and our advice and counsel have helped Safeway contribute productively to the policy debates surrounding climate change, derivatives reform and food safety. In addition, our professionals have provided strategic advice regarding tax and pensions regulatory and legislative issues.
