Tammy Baldwin’s Gain from the Lobbyist Revolving Door She Criticizes

To Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who is running for reelection in the swing state of Wisconsin in 2024, the “revolving door” between government and K Street is “spinning out of control as billionaires and special interests rig the system.”

Baldwin, the Badger State’s junior senator since 2013, says the constant flow of taxpayer-backed staffers to private industry, and vice-versa, poses conflicts of interest and results in working families getting left behind. The revolving door, she previously argued in an op-ed with Hillary Clinton in HuffPost, prompts the public to “start worrying that the foxes are guarding the hen house.”

But the Wisconsin Democrat’s criticism of the revolving door could place her in a tough spot this election cycle. Baldwin has accepted thousands of dollars in campaign donations from lobbyists at influential firms who earned their stripes as aides in her Capitol Hill office over the last two decades, according to a Washington Examiner review of Federal Election Commission filings.

The donations underscore how ambitious employees in Baldwin’s office have decided against heeding her calls to slow the revolving door. A total of 24 of her employees have reportedly come from or gone into lobbying, including on behalf of companies in Wisconsin. Moreover, the cash is an apparent irony that Republicans are aiming to exploit this election cycle amid the GOP rallying around Eric Hovde, a businessman largely self-funding his Senate campaign.

“After nearly 40 years as a career politician, Sen. Baldwin isn’t for Wisconsin anymore — she’s for the special interests that have set up shop in her office and that fund her campaigns,” said Ben Voelkel, a spokesman for the Hovde campaign. “With those priorities, it’s no surprise that she votes with Joe Biden 95.5% of the time.”

On her campaign website, Baldwin touts that she is “working to slow [the] revolving door and hold Washington accountable to Wisconsin.” The senator has fundraised in recent years off curbing the revolving door and introduced a handful of bills, which have not passed, that seek to reduce certain alleged conflicts of interest stemming from cases in which government officials depart to lobby or did so in the past.

At the same time, the revolving door keeps spinning in Baldwin’s own office. And the ex-staffers have made sure to boost their former boss financially, records show.

One such ex-staffer is Jeremy Steslicki, a registered lobbyist at the firm Strategic Marketing Innovations, congressional filings show. He worked between 2014 and 2019 as Baldwin’s national security adviser and director of appropriations, according to his profile on the firm’s website.

Since 2021, Steslicki has given $10,500 to Baldwin’s leadership PAC and campaign, including $2,500 in the first quarter of 2024, newly released campaign finance records show. Steslicki lobbies for various Wisconsin-based groups, some of which scored key funding thanks to Baldwin joining other lawmakers to vote in favor of the federal handouts.

Steslicki is listed in congressional records as lobbying since 2021 for the Wisconsin shipbuilder Fincantieri Marinette Marine, which has an office in Washington, D.C. Fincantieri Marinette Marine expects to take home roughly $1 billion to build warships through the since-passed 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which Baldwin signed off on.

Similarly, the ex-aide has lobbied since 2020 on issues related to federal research into water technology and energy for Marquette University, according to congressional filings. In multiple press releases in recent years, Baldwin touted how she has secured funding for certain programs at the Milwaukee-based school. The lawmaker also helped push for a $3.8 million Defense Department grant in 2021 to Marquette “to develop novel, sustainable technologies to protect the environment and to provide clean drinking water,” noting at the time she was “extremely proud” to support the effort, according to a press release.

Since leaving Baldwin’s office in 2019, Steslicki has also lobbied for Wisconsin’s Oshkosh Corporation on issues related to military truck procurement and Army training platforms, filings show. In 2023, Baldwin sent a letter to the Army demanding to know why it would award a five-year contract to AM General instead of Oshkosh.

Then there’s David Stacy, who has given $1,000 to Baldwin this election cycle and also directed nine separate checks to her campaign over the years totaling $4,250, according to federal records.

Stacy worked for seven years as a legislative assistant for Baldwin when she was in the House before heading in 2005 to lobby for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT advocacy firm in the United States.

Baldwin has established herself as a key ally of the Human Rights Campaign, which endorsed the Wisconsin Democrat in December 2023 and hosts her at events. Last year, Baldwin introduced a bill to require federal surveys to include LGBT data collection, a proposal that Stacy thanked Baldwin for in an official press release on the senator’s website.

Elizabeth Pika Sharp, who now heads up government affairs and policy at Philips, has donated $5,300 since 2009 to Baldwin. Pika Sharp was the senator’s legislative director from 2003 to 2008. The ex-aide worked in 2013 for the Advanced Medical Technology Association, which lobbied against a medical supplies sales tax that Baldwin, who opposed it, voted to repeal.

Pika Sharp lobbied from 2018 to 2023 for the Cook Group, a medical devices manufacturer that contracts with the federal government, according to lobbying and federal spending records.

In 2022, Cook Medical and other companies sent a letter to Baldwin and three other lawmakers to press for more funding for a Food and Drug Administration medical devices grant program. In turn, the initiative was reauthorized that year until 2027 through President Joe Biden’s signing of the $1.7 trillion 2023 appropriations act, which earned the approval of Baldwin, chairwoman of a subcommittee under the Senate Appropriations panel.

Another ex-top aide to Baldwin who departed Capitol Hill to lobby and has donated to the senator includes Elissa Levin, now senior vice president of government affairs at Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Vicki Hicks, who did a brief stint in 2021 as a special projects aide to Baldwin, has donated over $4,200 to Baldwin’s campaign since 2012. Hicks has lobbied before and after this role for various entities, including the pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co., and financial services companies.

Baldwin is “beholden to special interests, not the people of Wisconsin,” said Tate Mitchell, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

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The Wisconsin Senate race is shaping up to be one of the most competitive in 2024. A Marquette University poll released in April found Baldwin and Hovde tied at 50% among likely voters, while Baldwin held a 5-point advantage among registered voters.

Baldwin’s office and campaign did not reply to requests for comment.