Periscope POLITICS
12 NEWSWEEK.COM
Those who do big
business’ bidding
and then either fail to
win reelection or
retire quickly end up
scoring lucrative
careers on K Street.PUBLIC SPEAKER Then-Senator Kent
Conrad talking to the press in 2012. After
retirement, he became a senior fellow
at a corporate sponsored think tank.affairs firm, Agenda Global, lists sev-
eral fossil fuel clients on its website,
including Chevron and ConocoPhil-
lips. The firm also says it represents
“doctors, private insurance companies
and university research hospitals to
ensure that their respective interests
are heard.”
Nelson’s own company, Heart-
land Strategy Group, describes
itself as “a full-service consulting,
issue management and advocacy
firm” that represents “corporate,
nonprofit, political and trade asso-
ciation clients.” Heartland Strategy
Group says its clients have included
Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Nebras-
ka, tobacco company Altria and TC
Energy, the oil and gas company
that sought to build the Keystone
XL pipeline.
In September, Nelson told The Hill
that Democrats would likely have to
scale back their reconciliation bill,
warning that their social spend-
ing proposal was too large. “I don’t
know that anybody has the political
strength to get $3.5 trillion, so I sus-
pect there will be some negotiating
along the way to come up with an-
other number or maybe in steps over
the next three or four years,” he said.“That’s a daunting number.”
Kent Conrad, a former North Da-
kota senator who also opposed the
public option, retired in 2013. He
went on to become a senior fellow at
the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think
tank whose donors include corpo-
rate lobbying groups, fossil fuel com-
panies, health insurers, drugmakers,
defense contractors and big banks.
Corporate records show Conrad
also signed onto the paperwork for
Dakota Strategies LLC, a consult-
ing firm led by his wife, who was a
longtime lobbyist for Major League
Baseball and the Children’s Hospital
Association. Conrad is also a board
member at the Committee for a Re-
sponsible Federal Budget, a pro-aus-
terity think tank that’s received
funding from conservative billion-
aire Charles Koch’s family founda-
tion, the Koch Network’s Americans
for Prosperity Foundation, and the
foundation led by Walmart heir Car-
rie Walton Penner.
In July, Conrad wrote a column de-
manding Democrats constrain their
ability to spend money.
“As a former chairman of the Sen-
ate Budget Committee, I am uniquely
familiar with budget reconciliation,”
he wrote. “I have seen it used wisely,
and I have seen it used recklessly, and
I urge the Senate to reinstate the rule
we put in place in 2007: the ‘Conrad
Rule,’ which prevents any reconcilia-
tion bill from increasing the deficit.”ƠAndrew Perez is senior editor for
and Walker Bragman is a reporter for
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*(77<NOVEMBER 26, 2021