Deirdre Shesgreen

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Former House Speaker John Boehner is poised to begin a lucrative second career as a consultant for a high-powered Washington lobby firm, Squire Patton Boggs.

The Ohio Republican will become a strategic adviser for the firm, said Squire’s chairman and global CEO, Mark Ruehlmann, in an announcement Tuesday.

The firm’s news release said Boehner will not lobby his former colleagues in Congress.

“Instead, he will serve as a strategic adviser to clients in the U.S. and abroad and will focus on global business development,” the Squire statement said.

Boehner resigned from the House in October, after serving for more than 20 years as Ohio’s representative for the 8th Congressional District. House rules require departing lawmakers to wait at least one year before registering to lobby.

Many high-powered ex-lawmakers choose the route Boehner is taking — putting their political expertise and extensive contacts to work behind closed doors. Even if they don’t technically lobby, they offer clients an insider’s perspective on how to work Washington’s levers of power.

“My role with Squire Patton Boggs will give me the opportunity to engage with leaders in business and government throughout the world and help them work through the challenges they face, as part of a world-class team,” Boehner said in a statement Tuesday.

Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign finance and lobbying spending, said Boehner's job title of strategic adviser "is code for an unofficial lobbyist.

“This is someone who can act as rainmaker — use their name recognition, their contacts, their high-level status and leverage them on behalf of a paying client.”

She said “strategic advisers” can do everything but actually meet with lawmakers. “They can lead the troops from the rear — tell the client and the lobbyist who they need to reach out to, who they need to meet with , what to say, how to go about the (lobbying) campaign.”

The Squire release gave no hints about how much Boehner would earn in this new post, but Krumholz said as a former House speaker, he could fetch a very high salary.

“He is able to I’m sure pick and choose” from job offers, she said, “and I’m sure this is a very lucrative post for him.”

The news of Boehner's new gig comes a week after he revealed he would be joining the board of tobacco giant Reynolds American Inc. The career moves are not surprising, given Boehner's longtime and often criticized coziness with members of Washington's influence industry.

Squire, which has 46 offices around the world, will also be hiring two of Boehner’s longtime political aides, John Criscuolo and Amy Lozupone. And the firm already employs Dave Schnittger, the former speaker’s deputy chief of staff, and his one-time policy adviser Natasha Hammond.

Schnittger emphasized the firm’s Cincinnati connections. Ruehlmann’s father, Eugene Ruehlmann, was mayor of Cincinnati from 1967 to 1971. The younger Ruehlmann and other Squire executives are based in the firm’s Cincinnati’s office.

Boehner gets a smokin' new job