A new law that lengthens the duration ex-senators are prohibited from lobbying reputedly was a factor in Sen. Trent Lott’s decision to step down by the end of the year.

But Lott needn’t have worried, say headhunters, K Street experts and former senators-turned-lobbyists. The Mississippi Republican’s vast experience, which includes a stint as Senate majority leader, is likely to be attractive on K Street even if he can’t lobby his former colleagues directly.

Lott did not give a reason for his surprise resignation during a news conference Monday, other than to say he had decided that it was time to do something else. Lott added that he did not have any private-sector position lined up.

But congressional sources told The Hill that Lott’s decision was influenced by the potential impact of the new lobbying law, which lengthens the lobbying ban from one year to two years on former senators.

But ex-senators are often a different species of lobbyist than, say, former members of the House, who are much more likely to run trade associations or perform the day-in, day-out activities associated with lobbying.

Many senators, in fact, refrain from returning to Capitol Hill, hat in hand, on behalf of clients, no matter how well-paying the job.

Senators “are hired by clients to provide strategy and support,” said Jan Witold Baran, an election and government ethics law expert at Wiley Rein.

Senators tend to look at their post-Senate job roles as “providing great advice and making significant speeches,” Baran said.  

Ivan Adler, a headhunter at McCormick Group who specializes in placing lobbyists at firms, agreed.

“Senators are not going into direct lobbying positions. A lot of them offer senior-level counsel and advice, but not lobbying,” Adler said.

“Even if you had a five-year ban, it would not have that much of an effect. They are used as rainmakers. The fact that you can bring Bob Dole to a meeting with clients means a lot,” Adler added, referring to the former Senate Republican leader. While Dole is a registered lobbyist at Alston & Bird, he mostly provides strategic advice to clients, sources said.

“What he can’t do is appear or have his colleagues use his name,” said Kenneth Gross, partner at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, referring to Lott.

“But that leaves a wide berth for him to do other things, like strategic advice behind the scenes.”

A one-year lobbying ban didn’t keep Don Nickles, a former top Republican senator from Oklahoma, from starting his own shop after retiring.

Despite the ban, clients soon flocked to his new shop. Nickles said he consulted the first year, offering clients strategic advice, as his former aides who joined him at the firm did the legwork on Capitol Hill.
Now unencumbered by a lobbying ban, Nickles said he still mostly provides clients with advice.

Lott’s “strength will not so much be in lobbying but in consulting,” said Nickles, who called Lott a “big, big player in the Senate.”  

A two-year ban “wouldn’t make much of a difference,” Nickles said.

Sources repeatedly referred to Lott as a particularly attractive hire for K Street firms, given his experience as a Senate majority leader before being forced to resign the post after controversial comments about Sen. Strom Thurmond’s (R-S.C.) 1948 presidential run.

“I am sure he would be a highly marketable guy,” said former Sen. Richard Bryan (D-Nev.). Bryan and Lott entered the Senate in the same class following the 1988 election.

Bryan now helps run the government-relations practice at Lionel Sawyer & Collins, the Las Vegas-based law firm.

While the new law is not likely to hurt a former senator’s ability to find work on K Street, Bryan did say it could affect his or her salary.

The longer lobbying ban “could affect not his or her marketability, but the compensation package offered to the senator,” said Bryan. “The two-year ban, to state the obvious, that would be twice as long.”

Heading to K Street from Congress is not uncommon. According to CQMoneyLine, 195 former lawmakers — 37 with Senate experience — have registered to lobby since 2005.

Former senators have had an immediate impact on their new firms, even under the one-year ban.

A dozen ex-senators who registered to lobby shortly after leaving office worked on accounts that averaged roughly $1 million in fees, according to Senate disclosure forms. The figure jumped to $1.8 million on average by the second year when the ban was no longer in effect, which seems to support Bryan’s argument about compensation.

A bigger factor relating to compensation may be in play on the corporate boards Lott is likely to serve on, Nickles said. Lott would have been 71 if he served out his term. At 67, he may be more attractive to companies as a board member now. Additionally, he will have four additional years of collecting stock options and salary as a board member.

David Hoppe, a former chief of staff to Sen. Lott and now a lobbyist at Quinn Gillespie & Associates, said he did not know what his former boss would do. But Hoppe doubted that the new lobbying law weighed into Lott’s decision at all.

Lott had wanted to retire when his last term was up, Hoppe said. But he decided to come back to help ensure his home state got the federal support it needed to recover from Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005.

The decision of Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) to run again for the Senate likely left Lott more comfortable with retirement.

“He had done everything that he thought he could do,” Hoppe said of Lott.

“This was the first time he could do what he really wanted to do in 2006.”

Nickles, Adler and others predicted the new lobbying law would have the greatest impact on staffers.

The law prohibits top aides from lobbying the entire Senate, not just the office or committee they come from, which is the current restriction.

“Firms are talking that this affects their currency in the marketplace,” Adler said.

“I think you are going to have a lot of staffers leave by the end of the year,” Nickles said.