Lobbying World

• Molly Harris has joined Arent Fox as a government-relations director in the firm’s Washington office. Harris was a legislative assistant in the office of Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.). She also was a field organizer for the 2008 Obama presidential campaign.

• Heath Tarbert has joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges as counsel to the firm’s corporate department in Washington. Tarbert was special counsel to the Senate Banking Committee. In the Bush White House, he served as associate counsel to the president and was responsible for legal issues relating to the financial markets and was also designated counsel to the National Economic Council and the Council of Economic Advisers. Tarbert was a law clerk to Chief Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and to Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. 

• Christopher Ornelas will join the National Association of Broadcasters as executive vice president and chief strategy officer. Ornelas worked at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck on telecommunications and technology policy. Before joining the firm, Ornelas was chief counsel on communications and technology policy in former Sen. Gordon Smith’s (R-Ore.) office. Smith is now the head of the trade group. Ornelas also spent a decade in the law firm Wilkinson Barker Knauer.

• Stefan (Steve) Miller has joined the National Patient Advocate Foundation as executive vice president of regulatory affairs. Miller is the former director of the Division of Non-Institutional Quality Standards, Office of Clinical Standards and Quality, at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He worked at the agency for more than 30 years. Miller left the agency once to serve as director of the Kennedy-Krieger Institute Design System and, earlier in his career, worked at the Maryland State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

• Karen Late has been hired by Simon & Co. as a director. Late previously was director of federal advocacy at the Florida Hospital Association’s Washington office. Melanie Morris, previously with the Jefferson Consulting Group, will be taking on a new position as senior policy consultant at the firm. Jamison Scott, once an aide to Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), has been promoted to government affairs manager.