www.breauxlott.com

News, reported exclusively in The Hill on Tuesday, that Chet Lott, son of Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), registered the domain name www.breauxlott.com six weeks ago fuels suspicion that a powerful new K Street firm is not merely on the drawing board but is already being test run in beta.

The senator, former majority leader and current minority whip, stunned the Capitol by announcing that he would quit Congress by the end of the year to pursue other opportunities. An obvious opportunity is lobbying, in which Lott’s smooth dealmaking could be deployed to great (and greatly rewarding) effect.

As was noted earlier, by leaving before Dec. 31, Lott will also sidestep new revolving-door rules that ban Senate lawmakers from lobbying former colleagues for two years after they leave Capitol Hill.

The combination of Lott and former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) will make other firms wince, not least Patton Boggs, K Street’s most successful lobbying shop and Breaux’s current employer.

When Breaux moved in three years ago, Patton Boggs forgivably crowed about its new hire. His reputation as a dealmaker, admired and liked by people on both sides of the aisle, made him a great catch. Patton Boggs’s pleasure at having landed Breaux could be inferred not least from a senior insider’s observation that a lobbying link between Breaux and former Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), about which there was much contemporaneous chatter, was never a realistic prospect and existed only in the Republican’s wishful thinking.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that Patton Boggs is reportedly trying to arrange a continued link with Breaux.

Lott’s office says the senator knew nothing of his son’s decision to register the breauxlott domain name, so one must conclude that Chet and John Breaux Jr., who decided on it, are merely wily entrepreneurs with a degree of forward thinking that would make their dads proud.

So let’s stipulate that BreauxLott, the lobbying firm, is not yet a done deal. But even if we can’t be sure of that, here’s something we’d bet the house on: If BreauxLott does get launched, it won’t establish any links with The Nickles Group, the shop set up by Nickles.

Lott blames Nickles in part for his 2002 ouster as majority leader in the wake of remarks deemed racially offensive. Lott wrote of Nickles: “As my whip he’d made it clear he was after my job …”

So there is no love lost there, and it looks like Lott and Nickles will find themselves battling again fairly soon.