“We were honored to hear from many of the great firms in town since leaving Congress, and chose what we think is the very best place to continue our careers,” Rep. Joe Crowley said in a statement. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images congress Crowley and Shuster head to K Street The hiring gives their firm a bipartisan duo of former lawmakers.

Former Reps. Joe Crowley and Bill Shuster are heading to K Street, making them one of the rare bipartisan pairs of former lawmakers to team up as lobbyists after leaving office.

Crowley, a New York Democrat, and Shuster, a Pennsylvania Republican, are joining Squire Patton Boggs, one of the largest law and lobbying firms in Washington.


The hiring of Crowley and Shuster gives Squire Patton Boggs a second bipartisan duo of former lawmakers, along with former Sens. John Breaux (D-La.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who joined Patton Boggs in 2010. (The firm later merged with Squire Sanders to create Squire Patton Boggs.)

“We kind of look at them as a younger House version of Breaux-Lott,” Lott said in an interview.

Crowley spent two decades in Congress, rising to become the No. 4 House Democrat before losing his primary last year to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He was particularly sought after on K Street after leaving office last month as the highest-profile House Democrat leaving Congress as the party took control of the chamber. He held preliminary discussions with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Hogan Lovells, among other firms, before deciding to head to Squire Patton Boggs, according to people familiar with the matter.

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“We were honored to hear from many of the great firms in town since leaving Congress, and chose what we think is the very best place to continue our careers,” Crowley said in a statement.

Two of Crowley’s former aides, Kevin Casey and Kate Winkler Keating, have also landed on K Street since Crowley left office.

Shuster didn’t run for reelection last year after nearly 18 years in Congress, the past six of which he served as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

He attracted attention in 2015 when POLITICO reported he was dating Shelley Rubino, a top airline lobbyist, and nearly lost his seat in a primary challenge the following year. (Shuster said at the time that Rubino didn’t lobby his office.)

In a statement, Shuster said he planned to continue to work on infrastructure issues.

Squire Patton Boggs is also home to former House Speaker John Boehner and former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), although Boehner doesn’t do any lobbying. The firm’s dozens of lobbying clients include Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and UnitedHealth, according to disclosure filings, as well as the governments of Cameroon, China, Croatia, Qatar and South Korea and the Palestinian Authority.

Crowley and Shuster plan to register as lobbyists, according to the firm. They’re banned from lobbying Congress for nearly 11 more months under House ethics rules, although they’re free to lobby the administration immediately. They’re also allowed to advise clients on how to navigate Congress as long as they don’t do work that qualifies as lobbying.

The pair is the latest to land on K Street out of the dozens of members of Congress who left last month.

Former Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), Luke Messer (R-Ind.), Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.), Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) and Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) have all joined lobbying firms, although not all of them plan to register to lobby. Former Reps. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.) and Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.) have started their own consulting firms.

Crowley and Shuster were represented in their search by Robert Barnett and Michael O’Connor of Williams & Connolly, who also represented Breaux and Lott during their own search years ago. Axios first reported last week that Crowley and Shuster were talking to firms together.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct Rep. Tom Rooney's state affiliation. He is from Florida.