Former U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln has set up her own political consulting (lobbying) firm.
In 2011, Lincoln joined the powerhouse D.C. firm of Alston and Bird and, after the required cooling off period of working as a former senator only as a consultant, moved into full-time lobbying with clients such as Walmart, the natural gas industry and many more. She was joined at Alston and Bird by Robert Holifield, who'd been staff director of the Senate Agriculture Committee when Lincoln chaired it.
(Still somewhat hard to believe that Arkansas turned out a senator who chaired the Ag committee. Wouldn't have mattered much as it turned out, given the influence of Club for Growth Republicans like Tom Cotton and Tim Griffin on the House side. I do believe Lincoln would have fought for food stamp funding, though she would have shared the Republican passion for ending taxation of wealthy people's vast estates.)
Lincoln and Holified are going out on their own. Holifield, an Arkansas State grad who also worked previously on Lincoln's staff, said in a letter that was passed along to me:
For the last two years I have had the honor and pleasure of working with the incredible team at Alston and Bird. I have made many lifelong friendship here and that is not a surprise given the caliber of people in the firm. It has been a wonderful place to work and learn. This coming Monday I will be starting a new endeavor with my mentor, friend, and now business partner Senator Blanche Lincoln. We are starting Lincoln Policy Group and we will be working with several of the clients we’ve developed over the last two years. I’m excited about this new adventure and I hope that it will cause our paths to cross often.