Washington, DC - Ahead of the Biden administration's rollout of the American Jobs Plan Act proposal, JTR Strategies Founder Jenny Rosenberg spoke with Politico on the complicated politics of pushing an infrastructure bill through the Congress. 

From the story, "Biden infrastructure road could be long, painful":

While the Biden plan could be pushed through without Republican votes using the corporate tax hikes as a pay-for, lawmakers will have to find bipartisan support for a method of funding the surface bill, even if that's just through deficit spending. A gas tax hike is out of the question, as is a vehicle miles traveled fee, which was the subject of a brief kerfuffle involving Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg last week. Lawmakers have floated a truck-only tax, which the trucking industry has fiercely opposed.

Still, there is a significant history of bipartisanship on transportation matters, said former Obama DOT official and JTR Strategies founder Jenny Rosenberg.

“But frankly, if they know that Republicans at the end of the day are not going to vote for the bill, that could influence bipartisanship,” she said.
When it comes to the Senate, where Democrats have an even tighter margin and moderates like West Virginia’s Joe Manchin hold out for GOP participation, there could be a much slower timeline for passing the bill, she said.

In any case, she said Democrats were likely to be relentless on the bill this year.
“Democrats see this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get something done with the Biden plan,” she said. “So that may mean that the surface reauthorization is a reauthorization bill without anything more than that in it, and bold proposals will be in this infrastructure package that the president is going to lay out later today.” 
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Washington, DC - JTR Strategies was featured in Politico Influence's one year retrospective on the pandemic's impact to the lobbying industry. Influence featured JTR Strategies Founder Jenny Rosenberg and Senior Advisor Suzi Emmerling.

HOW DO YOU PUT ON A VIRTUAL FLY-IN?: When the world shut down a year ago this week due to the mushrooming coronavirus outbreak, K Street and many of the nation’s trade organizations were forced to make adjustments on the fly like every other industry, and that included making changes to a springtime Washington mainstay, the fly-in, which was forced from the halls of Congress onto Zoom (or Teams, or Webex). — A year later fly-ins are still taking place virtually, but K Street has learned from the growing pains of last spring. The demand for advice about putting on a successful virtual fly-in rose to the point that JTR Strategies along with Liberty Plain Consulting, put together a one-sheeter for clients with tips for putting on a virtual fly-in without a hitch.

— “It's not rocket science,” said Suzi Emmerling, who helped compile the tipsheet along with JTR Strategies founder Jenny Rosenberg. “But it's also like, if everybody did it, it would be a better meeting.” Their tips include being organized and doing your homework ahead of meetings, as well as doing a test run of tech platforms and ensuring good sound quality and lighting. They also recommend having a back-up plan in place in case of tech failures, making the most of your time with succinct messaging and making presentations and meetings interactive and visually stimulating.

— “It's really important for our clients to be prepared with concise materials, concise messaging, so that they can get their point across virtually,” Rosenberg said in an interview this week, noting that although the lack of travel time from meeting to meeting allows lobbyists to fit more in, “you, unfortunately, have lost the face-to-face contact that is such an essential part of lobbying.”

— But while lobbyists are itching to get back to face-to-face meetings, with Rosenberg emphasizing the importance of fly-ins to industries hit hard by the pandemic, Barnes, who said that there are a record number of participants signed up for her trade group’s fly-in later this month, noted that one upside to the shift online is that it’s created opportunities for trade associations with smaller budgets.

Influence can be found here: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2021/03/11/how-do-you-put-on-a-virtual-fly-in-793940
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