Personnel Notes

Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-S.C.) announcement on Thursday that he will resign from the Senate opens up the top Republican position on a powerful committee.

DeMint was set to succeed Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas) as the ranking Republican on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee until he revealed on Thursday that he would step down to lead the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Seven House Repubicans will be joining the Agriculture Committee in January, Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) announced late Wednesday.

The new members are: Rep. Dan Benishek (Mich.), Chris Collins (N.Y.), Rodney Davis (Ill.), Jeff Denham (Calif.), Richard Hudson (N.C.), Doug LaMalfa (Calif.) and Ted Yoho (Fla.).

"I am pleased to welcome our new Republican members to the House Agriculture Committee. I look forward to working with all of them in the next Congress as we continue to ensure the health and vitality of production agriculture and rural economies," said Lucas.

Leadership removed conservative Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Kan.) from the committee to punish him for bucking leadership on too many votes. 

In total, nine of this year's members will not be returning. Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) lost in a primary and Rep. Tim Johnson (R-Ill.) retired. Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) is heading to Financial Services. Also not coming back are: Reps. Jeff Fortenberry (Neb.), Randy Hultgren (Ill.), Bobby Schilling (Ill.), Steve Fincher (Tenn.) and Renee Ellmers (N.C.). 

Lucas is struggling to get a five-year farm bill enacted this month as part of a fiscal-cliff deal. He has been in regular talks with Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) about getting the deal in the package. Key to that will be coming to a compromise on food-stamp cuts. The House farm bill has $12 billion more in food-stamp cuts than the $4 billion in the Senate bill. 

His victory is a rebuke to the founding members of the Republican Study Committee, who had backed Rep. Tom Graves.

Retiring Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has signed a contract with the agency run by Rahm Emanuel's brother. 

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's communications director is departing to join the Financial Services Forum, The Hill has confirmed. 

Kenneth Baer, President Obama's top budget spokesman, will be leaving his position next week, The Hill has confirmed. 

As the head of communications for the Office of Management and Budget and a key adviser to White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew, Baer has played a pivotal role in messaging during the big fiscal showdowns with Congress during this administration. He has been with OMB since the start of the Obama administration, serving budget directors Peter Orszag, Lew and acting director Jeff Zients. Prior to coming to government, Baer co-founded the publication Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. 

The Peterson Institute for International Economics on Friday named Adam Posen to succeed Fred Bergsten as its president.

Posen, 45, currently serves as an adviser to the Bank of England, where he has advocated credit easing to boost economic growth. He has collaborated closely with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in the past and, like Bernanke, is viewed as dovish on monetary policy, preferring stimulus more than other central bankers.

Under Bergsten's leadership, the Peterson Institute has become a major force in economic policymaking in Washington, and Posen's new post can be expected to give his ideas greater prominence. Bergsten's specialty was currency policy and he became a leading voice for forcing China to revalue its currency to give U.S. exporters a greater shot at succeeding in China.

Steve Bartlett will step down as president and CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable at the end of the year.

Bartlett played a big role in the battle over the Wall Street reform law, otherwise known as Dodd-Frank. After more than 12 years leading the business group, Bartlett, a former Republican House lawmaker from Texas, chose to step down in 2012 and announced his decision to the group's board of directors this week. 

Tom Wilson, chairman of the Financial Services Roundtable and chairman, president and CEO of Allstate Corp., said in a statement that Bartlett "always put his members first."

Mike Fulton, a former executive vice president at GolinHarris, has opened up a Washington office for The Arnold Agency.

A major payday loan association registered a former Hill staffer as its first in-house lobbyist last week, public records show.

Charles Halloran, a former chief of staff to former Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), is now the in-house lobbyist for the Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSAA). His lobbying registration was filed in March but backdated to late January.

Halloran will be lobbying for the “small dollar, short-term loans” advocate on “[i]ssues regarding the regulation of short term financial products,” the disclosure form states.