A Lobbyist in Congress? Not Exactly.
Has someone “been a lobbyist” if the person was registered as such but never had any clients? What if that registration was later retroactively deactivated? Those are the questions in a dispute in the Ohio Senate race.
Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown’s campaign is airing a TV ad that claims his opponent, Republican Rep. Jim Renacci, has “been a lobbyist even while in Congress.” Renacci’s campaign calls the claim “false.”
Renacci, an accountant and businessman, was first registered as a lobbyist in 2008, when he and two others launched Smokerise International Group, a consulting firm, in Wadsworth, Ohio, where Renacci had just served as mayor. In 2010, Renacci was elected to Congress in Ohio’s 16th District. Smokerise still listed him as a registered lobbyist when he entered Congress in January 2011 until May 2011,
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