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Good News! (Really)

It’s old news that K Streeters have plenty to moan about in the lobbying reform package.

But finally, along comes a bright spot, if not a silver lining, for influence brokers. As part of the new regime, lobbyists can wave goodbye to a cumbersome disclosure system that required them to file separately, and with separate requirements, to both the House and Senate. [IMGCAP(1)]

The Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House announced over the weekend that starting Dec. 10, lobbyists can file disclosure forms to a single online location. The best part: They no longer will have to add an electronic signature to the reports — a two-year-old House requirement that, due to frequent technical glitches, caused no end of headaches for filers.

“It’s a great deal easier, and we’re thrilled by that,” said Brian Pallasch, president of the American League of Lobbyists. Added Paul Miller, a past president who spent three years campaigning for one-stop filing, “Anytime you can streamline the process for us to make it easier to comply while giving the public what they supposedly want, it’s win-win for everybody.”

Outed! Megan Carpentier is anonymous no more. The former lobbyist at Crowell & Moring and the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association outed herself this week as gossip site Wonkette’s one-time “Ask a Lobbyist” scribe.

In a most unusual career move, Carpentier, 30, has traded in her lobbying gig for a full-time job with Wonkette as an associate editor.

She gave a few of her former lobbying colleagues a heads-up before taking the permanent post with Wonkette. “I certainly didn’t want anybody who had been kind to me … to feel betrayed in any way,” she said in an interview.

Carpentier has admitted to a few fibs during her “Ask a Lobbyist” days, to maintain her veil of anonymity. For one, she majored in German literature and sociology, not political science, as she once said.

When she joined The Tax Foundation as manager of government relations, the group hailed her as bringing “extensive experience in promoting sound economic and tax policies to Congress and state legislatures.”

Those days are history.

In addition to coming clean, to introduce herself to Wonkette readers, Carpentier posted a photographic collage of herself, including one of her sprawled in a bathtub wearing a black dress and heels. “Sometimes, it’s the only way to get the stale beer smell out,” the caption reads.

We think she’s fully made the transition from K Street to the world of Wonkette.

Fundraising of a Different Kind. When lobbyists hit up their colleagues for money, it’s usually to help fill the coffers of politicians. But several K Streeters have signed on to an annual effort, Art for Life, to raise money for the Whitman-Walker Clinic’s HIV/AIDS services to Latinos.

The Raben Group’s Robert Raben is the effort’s host committee chairman. He said he wants the Nov. 15 art auction to bring in $200,000 for the clinic. Most of the paintings and sculptures are by local Latino artists.

“I went around to my colleagues, and I didn’t get a single no,” Raben said. “My competitors and my colleagues and my rivals and friends immediately said, ‘Let’s help.’”

Tickets are $75 and members of the host committee agreed to sell at least 10 tickets.

Lobbyists helping the cause include Steve Elmendorf of Elmendorf Strategies, the firm American Continental Group, Andrea LaRue of the Nueva Vista Group, and Point Blank Public Affairs, among others.

K Street Moves. Tad Segal, formerly with Venn Strategies and UPS, has returned as senior vice president to Widmeyer Communications, a firm he first joined in 1997. “We are thrilled to welcome Tad back to Widmeyer,” said Joe Clayton, the PR firm’s president and CEO, in a statement. Before heading to the private sector, Segal served as communications director to then-Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.).

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