Cassidy & Associates

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VERIFIEDPRIMARY SOURCES
VERIFIED 2026-03-27
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lobbying k-street appropriations earmarks defense energy universities bipartisan

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Who They Are

Cassidy & Associates is the firm that invented modern earmark lobbying — the practice of hiring Washington lobbyists to secure congressionally directed spending for specific institutions. Founded in 1975 as Schlossberg-Cassidy Associates by Gerald S. J. Cassidy and Kenneth Schlossberg, both former aides to Senator George McGovern, the firm pioneered appropriations lobbying for universities, medical centers, and defense contractors, transforming a niche practice into a multi-billion-dollar industry that reshaped the relationship between Congress and the institutions that depend on federal funding.

Headquartered at 607 Fourteenth Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC, the firm reported $30.58 million in lobbying revenue in 2025 from 188 clients, employing 34 registered lobbyists. At its peak in 1999-2000, Cassidy & Associates led all Washington lobbying firms in reported income, with revenues exceeding $35 million annually. The firm briefly operated as a subsidiary of The Interpublic Group (IPG), the advertising and PR conglomerate that owns Weber Shandwick, before executing a management buyout in June 2017 to return to independent status.

Gerald Cassidy, who was once reportedly worth $125 million — possibly the richest Washington lobbyist — stepped down in 2015 after 38 years leading the firm. Current leadership includes CEO Kai Anderson (former deputy chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid), Chairman Barry D. Rhoads (former deputy general counsel to the 1991 Department of Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission), and COO Jordan Bernstein.

Client List

Cassidy’s 2025 client roster of 188 entities spans defense, energy, education, mining, tech, and transportation — a portfolio that reflects the firm’s appropriations DNA. The clients that pay the most are the ones who need Congress to direct federal dollars their way.

Energy & Renewables

  • SunRun Inc — $740,000 (top client, residential solar)
  • ClearPath Foundation — $360,000 (clean energy advocacy)
  • Energy Capital Partners / Calpine Corp — $360,000 (electric utilities)
  • Clean Energy Buyers Assn — $310,000 (renewable energy)
  • Vestas Wind Systems — $280,000 (wind turbine manufacturing)
  • Tesla Inc — $300,000 (automotive/energy)
  • EOG Resources — undisclosed (oil & gas)
  • EQT Corp / Cypress Creek Renewables — undisclosed (natural gas)

Defense & Aerospace

  • BAE Systems — $320,000 (defense)
  • Allen Control Systems — $170,000 (defense)
  • Airbus Group / Airbus Americas — $240,000 (air transport)
  • Fluor Corp — undisclosed (defense contractor)
  • ALL.SPACE — $10,000 (defense aerospace)

Education & Universities

  • University of Pennsylvania — $320,000 base + $80,000/quarter external retainer (2025); total lobbying spend including internal staff exceeded $2M in 2025
  • Northern Arizona University — undisclosed
  • Bradley University — undisclosed
  • Missouri State University — undisclosed
  • University of Nebraska — undisclosed
  • University of Southern Mississippi — undisclosed

Mining & Natural Resources

  • Barrick Mining — $350,000 (mining)
  • Newmont Corp — undisclosed (gold mining)
  • Anglogold North America — undisclosed

Tech & Telecom

  • Oracle Corp — $320,000 (electronics)
  • Broadcom Inc — undisclosed (tech)
  • Echostar Corp / DISH Network — undisclosed (telecom)
  • Turo Inc — $320,000 (automotive/tech)

Sports & Recreation

  • Big Ten Conference — $360,000 (recreation); active 2025 lobbying for congressional antitrust exemption to codify House v. NCAA settlement and prevent athlete employee classification
  • Pac-12 Conference — undisclosed

State Governments & Civil Servants

  • State of North Carolina — $290,000
  • State of New Jersey — $270,000
  • State of Nevada — undisclosed

Finance

  • GFS LLC (Kenneth Griffin) — undisclosed (Citadel founder’s personal vehicle)

Money

The client list tells the story of where the firm has been and where it’s going. Universities and state governments — the original earmark clients — remain in the portfolio, but the growth sectors are energy (both fossil and renewable), defense, and tech. Cassidy is selling the same product it always has: direct access to the appropriations process. The buyer profile has simply expanded from university presidents to energy CEOs and defense contractors. The Kenneth Griffin listing is notable — when the founder of Citadel hires an earmark shop, the product being purchased is congressional attention.

The Revolving Door

Of 34 registered lobbyists, 24 are revolving door hires (70.6%) — former government employees now lobbying the institutions they once served. Zero are former members of Congress, meaning Cassidy’s revolving door runs through staff and agency positions rather than the elected officials themselves.

Key Revolving Door Hires:

  • Kai Anderson (CEO) — Former deputy chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Anderson’s Reid connection provides direct access to Senate Democratic leadership and the Nevada political establishment. His client list includes multiple Nevada-connected entities: MGM Resorts, Las Vegas Valley Water District, Southern Nevada Water Authority, State of Nevada, Switch LTD.

  • Barry D. Rhoads (Chairman) — Former deputy general counsel to the 1991 Department of Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC). Rhoads now lobbies on defense, ports, and military affairs. His clients include BAE Systems, Fluor Corp, multiple port authorities, State of North Carolina Military Affairs Commission, and University of Pennsylvania — classic appropriations targets.

  • Jordan Bernstein (COO) — Revolving door profile. Client list spans energy, tech, education, and transportation including American Electric Power, Energy Capital Partners, Oracle, Tesla, Big Ten Conference, Pac-12, and multiple universities.

  • James Sauls — Former chief of staff to Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Joined December 2023. Handles defense and tech clients including Oracle, Broadcom, Nokia/Infinera, and defense/aerospace entities. Feinstein served on the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees — Sauls brings those committee relationships.

  • Neil Kornze — Former Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under the Obama administration. Joined December 2023. Handles natural resources and conservation clients: GFS LLC (Kenneth Griffin), JR Simplot, Southern Environmental Law Center, Trout Unlimited. A BLM director lobbying on land use issues is the revolving door in its purest form. In 2024, Cassidy registered Kornze to lobby on behalf of the Southern Environmental Law Center specifically on the Okefenokee Swamp — a landmark Georgia wetland threatened by a proposed titanium mining operation (Twin Pines Minerals). Kornze’s BLM expertise in federal land and water law positions him to navigate the Army Corps of Engineers permitting process and Interior Department oversight that will determine the swamp’s fate. 8 active lobbying clients in 2025.

  • John Dearborn — Revolving door profile. Handles the firm’s largest energy portfolio: American Electric Power, Antora Energy, Barrick Mining, California Resources Corp, Cheniere Energy, Clean Energy Buyers Assn, ClearPath Foundation, Energy Capital Partners, EOG Resources, EQT Corp, GFS LLC (Kenneth Griffin), Southern Co, SunRun, Tesla, Vestas Wind.

  • Charles Brittingham II — Revolving door profile. Maritime and ports specialist: Cheniere Energy, Georgia Ports Authority, Port Houston, Port of Corpus Christi, Waterways Council, National Wildlife Federation.

  • Ryan Mulvenon — Revolving door profile. Nevada and energy specialist: handles Churchill County NV, Las Vegas Valley Water District, MGM Resorts, Southern Nevada Water Authority, State of Nevada, plus energy clients SunRun, Tesla, LS Power, Oklo Inc.

  • Michelle Greene — Revolving door profile. Defense, health, and education: BAE Systems, Boston College, CSL Ltd/Seqirus, Ernst & Young, Fluor Corp, Oracle, UnitedHealth Group, University of Pittsburgh.

Contradiction

Cassidy employs zero former members of Congress but has a 70.6% revolving door rate among staff. This is the firm’s model: it doesn’t need former lawmakers because it hires the people who actually ran their offices. A Senate Majority Leader’s deputy chief of staff (Anderson), a defense secretary’s BRAC counsel (Rhoads), a BLM director (Kornze), and a senator’s chief of staff (Sauls) collectively have more granular access to the policy machinery than any former member. The revolving door at Cassidy operates at the staff level — where the actual legislative text gets written.

The University Crisis Boom (2025–2026)

The Trump administration’s 2025 funding threats against major research universities — particularly Ivy League and elite institutions — created a surge in academic lobbying demand that played directly into Cassidy’s core competency. The firm’s founding product was university appropriations navigation; in 2025, that product became university survival navigation.

University of Pennsylvania — The Cassidy Response:

Penn faced a multi-front funding assault from the Trump administration in 2025: a threatened $175 million suspension of federal contracts (citing a transgender athlete on the women’s swimming team in 2022), plus projected cuts to NIH research funding that could affect over $1 billion in Penn’s annual federal funding. Penn’s response was to dramatically ramp up lobbying — both internal staff and external firms.

Penn hired Cassidy & Associates as an external lobbyist (alongside BGR Group and Mehlman Consulting), paying $80,000 per quarter to Cassidy in Q3 and Q4 2025. Penn’s total lobbying expenditure in 2025 — internal and external — exceeded $2 million, a record. In October 2025, the Trump administration offered Penn and eight other universities a “Higher Education Compact” promising preferential funding treatment in exchange for compliance with a sweeping set of guidelines. Penn rejected the Compact, choosing to continue lobbying rather than comply.

The pattern reveals Cassidy’s strategic positioning: when universities face existential federal funding threats, they activate the appropriations lobbying infrastructure that Cassidy helped build. The firm that invented the university earmark is now the firm universities call when earmarks turn to threats.

Money

Penn paid Cassidy $80K/quarter while simultaneously paying BGR Group (another Cassidy cohort firm) and Mehlman Consulting. Three major K Street firms lobbying simultaneously for a single university’s funding survival tells the story of what happens when the Trump administration threatens $1 billion+ in annual federal funding. Cassidy’s institutional knowledge of the appropriations process — built over 48 years — makes it uniquely positioned for crisis lobbying on exactly this kind of threat.

Big Ten Conference — The College Sports Antitrust Fight (2025):

Cassidy’s representation of the Big Ten Conference ($360,000/year) positions the firm at the center of one of 2025’s largest lobbying battles: the fight over whether Congress will codify the House v. NCAA antitrust settlement and grant college sports governing bodies an antitrust exemption.

The House v. NCAA settlement — approved June 2025 — created a revenue-sharing model allowing major conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC) to distribute up to 22% of average conference revenue to athletes beginning July 1, 2025. The settlement provides an immediate framework, but the NCAA and conferences want Congress to go further: enacting legislation that would prevent athletes from being classified as employees and granting an antitrust exemption to enforce the settlement’s terms without continued litigation exposure.

The Big Ten — the richest conference in college sports, with a $7+ billion media rights deal with CBS, Fox, and NBC — has the most to gain from Congressional codification and the most to lose from continued antitrust exposure. Cassidy’s appropriations and legislative lobbying expertise positions it to pursue this dual agenda: seeking a Congressional carveout that would lock in the current settlement terms and protect conference power structures for a generation.

Contradiction

Cassidy simultaneously lobbies for University of Pennsylvania (a faculty-governed nonprofit research institution facing Trump administration threats) and the Big Ten Conference (a $7+ billion media rights behemoth lobbying to prevent its athletes from gaining employee status). The same appropriations expertise serves institutions with radically different relationships to federal authority — one defending academic freedom, the other defending commercial dominance over its workforce.

What They Deliver

Cassidy & Associates invented a specific product: converting lobbying fees into congressionally directed spending. The firm’s core competency is appropriations — steering federal dollars to specific clients through the budget process.

The Earmark Machine (1977–2011):

The firm’s foundational innovation was the university earmark. In 1977, Tufts University President Jean Mayer retained the newly formed Schlossberg-Cassidy to lobby for a human nutrition research center. The result was a $27 million earmark — one of the first modern congressionally directed spending items. This model was replicated for Boston University and dozens of other institutions, with clients routinely obtaining $10-20 million or more per earmark. Over three decades, Cassidy essentially created the market for academic earmark lobbying.

Post-Earmark Reinvention (2011–present):

When Congress imposed an earmark moratorium in 2011, Cassidy’s revenue cratered and the firm laid off nearly 20% of staff in December 2010. The firm pivoted to defense authorization, energy policy, and regulatory lobbying. The earmark moratorium was partially lifted in 2021 (rebranded as “Community Project Funding” and “Congressionally Directed Spending”), and Cassidy’s revenue has climbed back — from roughly $12.85 million in 2015 to $30.58 million in 2025.

Top Issues Lobbied (2025):

Issue AreaReportsLobbyistsClients
Fed Budget & Appropriations2643073
Defense2622772
Energy & Nuclear Power1322740
Transportation1052532
Natural Resources911431
Environment & Superfund862126
Taxes772022

Foreign Government Clients:

Cassidy has a documented history of representing authoritarian governments. In 2004, the firm began representing Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang — described as one of Africa’s most notorious dictators — at a reported rate of $120,000 per month. In 2017, the firm was hired by Egyptian intelligence services, a government accused of widespread human rights violations. The firm’s parent company Weber Shandwick dropped the Egypt account in July 2017, but Cassidy maintained it.

The Bipartisan Model

Cassidy’s bipartisan model is structural, not performative. The firm’s leadership team spans both parties:

  • Kai Anderson (CEO) — Democratic side, Harry Reid orbit
  • Barry Rhoads (Chairman) — Defense establishment, cross-partisan
  • Jordan Bernstein (COO) — Bipartisan client portfolio
  • James Sauls — Democratic side, Feinstein orbit
  • Neil Kornze — Obama administration BLM

The firm’s client list reinforces bipartisanship: defense contractors need both parties for authorization bills, universities need appropriators from both sides, and energy companies need regulatory access regardless of which party controls agencies. The 2025 issues profile — dominated by appropriations and defense — is inherently bipartisan because spending bills require cross-party coalitions.

Billing vs. Outcomes

Lobbying-to-Policy Timeline

DateRecipient/TargetAmountPolicy ReturnTime Gap
1977Senate AppropriationsTufts University fees$27M nutrition research center earmark — first modern academic earmarkImmediate
1999-2000Multiple committees$35M+ annual revenue (peak)Led all firms in income; hundreds of earmarks for university/defense clientsOngoing
2004-2017State Dept / Congress$120K/month (Equatorial Guinea)Diplomatic rehabilitation of Obiang regime; Condoleezza Rice praised Obiang as “a good friend”1-3 years
2010CongressFirm revenue decliningEarmark moratorium devastated business model; 20% staff layoff Dec 2010Immediate
2017Egyptian govt agenciesUndisclosed (Egypt intelligence)Image rehabilitation for government accused of human rights violationsOngoing
2021House/Senate AppropriationsClient earmark feesEarmark moratorium partially lifted as “Community Project Funding” — Cassidy’s core product restored10 years
2023Senate Intelligence / Judiciary / BLMSauls + Kornze hiresFeinstein CoS and BLM Director join firm — access to intelligence, judiciary, and land use policyOngoing
202573 appropriations clients$30.58M annual revenue264 appropriations lobbying reports filed; 72 defense clients with 262 reportsCurrent cycle
Q3-Q4 2025White House / Congress (Penn defense)$80K/quarter (Cassidy retainer)University of Pennsylvania crisis lobbying — Trump $175M contract threat + NIH cuts; Penn rejects White House “Compact” Oct 2025Ongoing
2024-2025Army Corps / Interior (Okefenokee)Client (SELC) feesKornze lobbies to protect Okefenokee Swamp from titanium mining — BLM director expertise deployed for wetlands defenseOngoing
2025Senate / House (Big Ten antitrust)$360K/year (Big Ten)Big Ten lobbies for congressional antitrust exemption to codify House v. NCAA settlement; revenue sharing (22% cap) begins July 2025Ongoing

Money

Cassidy’s revenue arc tells the story of earmark politics in America. The firm peaked when earmarks were unlimited, crashed when they were banned, and recovered when they were restored under a new name. The 2025 revenue of $30.58M with 188 clients represents roughly 75% of the firm’s late-1990s peak — suggesting that “Community Project Funding” has substantially restored the earmark economy, even if the individual earmark amounts are smaller than the pre-2011 era. The firm’s response to the earmark ban — pivoting to defense authorization and energy regulation — was a survival strategy, not a business model change. The core product remains the same: converting client fees into federal spending directed at those clients.

Class Analysis

Cassidy & Associates represents the institutionalization of the earmark — the conversion of a congressional spending mechanism into a privatized service industry. Gerald Cassidy didn’t corrupt the appropriations process; he professionalized it. Before Cassidy, universities and institutions lobbied Congress informally through alumni networks and institutional prestige. After Cassidy, they hired professional intermediaries who understood the mechanics of the appropriations process — subcommittee jurisdictions, markup timing, member interests, staff relationships — and could reliably convert lobbying fees into federal dollars.

The structural function this serves is to make the donor-to-policy pipeline look like constituent service. When a university gets an earmark through Cassidy, it looks like a congressman supporting education in his district. When a defense contractor gets an authorization through Cassidy, it looks like national security spending. The lobbying firm launders private interest through the language of public good.

The earmark moratorium of 2011-2021 is instructive. Congress banned earmarks because the practice had become visibly corrupt — too many bridges to nowhere, too many quid pro quos. But the moratorium didn’t eliminate the demand for directed federal spending; it just shifted the mechanism. Cassidy adapted by moving clients toward competitive grants, defense authorizations, and regulatory lobbying. When earmarks returned as “Community Project Funding” in 2021, the firm’s revenue immediately began climbing back. The product is indestructible because the structural incentive is permanent: institutions need federal money, and the appropriations process rewards those who hire professional navigators.

The firm’s representation of authoritarian governments — Equatorial Guinea’s Obiang regime at $120,000/month, Egyptian intelligence services — reveals the logical endpoint of professionalized access-selling. If the product is converting money into favorable government action, there is no principled reason to limit the client base to domestic institutions. A dictator’s money spends the same as a university president’s.

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