Ex-Rep. Thomas joins lobby firm

Former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) has signed on as a senior adviser to the law and lobbying firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, the company announced yesterday.

Thomas will assist the firm’s attorneys and clients with “strategic and tactical planning” but will not lobby, he told The Hill.

{mosads}“I said I wasn’t going to lobby and I’m not going to lobby,” Thomas said. Before retiring from Congress this year at the end of his 14th term, Thomas emphatically stated he would not become a lobbyist.

“I wanted to have a continued relationship with members,” Thomas said yesterday, noting that avoiding direct lobbying means he is not subject to a one-year moratorium on talking about policy with his former colleagues.

The director of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney’s government relations practice said that Thomas would be an asset nevertheless. “He doesn’t want to [lobby] and I understand that,” said Ron Platt, a former aide to the late ex-Senate Finance Committee Chairman Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas). Thomas has a master’s degree in political science but is not an attorney.

Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney has a growing lobbying business and accrued more than $7 million from lobbying last year, Platt said. The firm represents clients in a variety of sectors, including healthcare, media and public utilities. Thomas is regarded as an expert in healthcare, taxes, trade and pensions.

Thomas will remain a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a position he accepted in February.

Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney announced yesterday they also hired Alex Brill, a former Thomas aide.