Barbara Boxer joins D.C. lobbying firm

Barbara Boxer, a longtime senator who left office in 2017, is joining a Washington lobbying and public affairs firm.

The California Democrat, who spent a decade in the House and 24 years in the Senate, doesn’t plan to register as a lobbyist. Instead, she’ll advise clients of Mercury Public Affairs, which represents corporate clients such as Airbnb and AT&T, as well as foreign governments, including those of Qatar and Turkey.

In an interview, Boxer said she’d been recruited to the firm by two fellow California Democrats now at Mercury: Antonio Villaraigosa, a former Los Angeles mayor, and Fabian Núñez, a former California State Assembly speaker. She plans to advise clients on transportation, infrastructure, health care and municipal issues, among other things.

“I started off in local government,” she said. “I know how important it is for local governments to get the resources they need.”

Boxer, whose title at Mercury will be co-chairwoman, also plans to advise clients on issues at the state level and in Washington.

She’s the latest addition to Mercury’s stable of former lawmakers, which also includes former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and former Reps. Joe Garcia (D-Fla.), Vin Weber (R-Minn.) and Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.). Vitter served as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s ranking member while Boxer was its chairwoman.

Mercury is also home to allies of President Donald Trump, including Bryan Lanza, who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign and transition effort, and Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster.

Mercury isn’t Boxer’s first step into the private sector since leaving the Senate. In August, while working as a paid consultant to Lyft, she published a op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle urging state lawmakers not to pass a bill that would mandate gig-economy companies treat contract workers as employees. The bill passed and was signed into law in September over the objections of Lyft and other companies.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) criticized Boxer at the time. “Fmr officials should not become corporate lobbyists, in letter or spirit,” she tweeted. “It’s an abuse of power + a stain on public service.”

Asked to respond on Monday, Boxer said she hadn’t heard Ocasio-Cortez’s remark but didn’t agree with her. She wrote the op-ed after talking to Lyft drivers, most of whom told her they didn’t favor the bill’s provisions, and urged lawmakers to reach a compromise, she said.

“How do you abuse power when you’re out of power?” Boxer asked.

But Boxer said she wasn’t troubled by Ocasio-Cortez’s comments.

“She has a total right to say whatever she wants,” Boxer said.

Boxer isn’t working for Lyft anymore, but she’s consulting for Poseidon Water, a company working to build a desalination plant in Orange County, Calif., and for CityLift Parking, a company in Oakland, Calif., that designs automated parking lifts.

Since leaving office, she has also given paid speeches; raised money for her PAC, called PAC for a Change; and hosted a weekly podcast with her daughter, Nicole Boxer, chatting with guests such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Jared Huffman, both of California.

Boxer hasn’t endorsed any of the Democrats running for president.

“I want someone who can beat Donald Trump and who knows how to bring together the country,” she said.

Asked who that might be, she said, “I would say at this point it looks like Joe” Biden.
“I haven’t endorsed, but to me it looks like Joe.”