The Hired Guns: Who the Power Companies Field in Annapolis
Chicago made the revolt official. Back home in Annapolis, the industry’s side of the fight is already on the field — three armies, 59 registered advocates, and fresh money arriving every month.
The governors signed their memorandum of understanding in Chicago yesterday and went home. The power companies never left. Their fight with the states — over who pays for the grid, who gets a vote at PJM, and what the 2027 session writes into law — runs through Annapolis, and the State Ethics Commission rosters show exactly who is fielding armies. BGE runs 19 deep. Pepco counters with 24. Constellation fields 16, including two former legislators whose names tell you everything about how seriously the company takes this town.
This is the full map — every registered advocate on the energy fight, pulled from the Ethics Commission portal this week. All 59 of them, because in this village, the names are the story.
BGE: 19, built on contract firms
BGE spreads its Annapolis presence across the contract-firm model. The anchor is Harris Jones & Malone — Lisa Harris Jones’s firm, the $2.67 million number-one earner in the 2024 cycle — fielding Gabriel Auteri, Guy Joseph Guzzone Jr., Lisa Jones herself, Sean Malone, Caitlin McDonough, and Valerie Skvirsky. A Guzzone on a utility payroll is the kind of name your readers notice.
Behind them: Schwartz, Metz, Wise & Kauffman with J. Steven Wise, Danna Kauffman, Christine Krone, and Andrew Vetter; Venable with Marta Harting, Brian Quinn, and John Stierhoff; and the in-house team under Benjamin F. Andes IV, with John Haysbert, Brittany Jones, and Dytonia Reed. Plus two solo shops: Roderick Easter of Easter LSF and former delegate C. William Frick of The Frick Firm — the ex-legislator pipeline in one line.
Pepco: 24, the biggest army
Pepco fields the largest roster of the three — 24 registered advocates, spread wide. Rifkin Weiner Livingston brings seven: Matt Bohle, William Castelli, Obie Chinemere, Camille Fesche, Michael Vernon Johansen, John Reith, and Joel Rozner. Cornerstone Government Affairs brings five, including the name your readers know best: Patrick Hogan, with Bernie Marczyk, Manny Geraldo, Tiffany Harvey, and Delora Sanchez Ifekauche.
G.S. Proctor & Associates — the shop Len Foxwell says should rank second in the state by power — fields Joseph Green, Gregory Proctor Jr., and Gregory Proctor III. Kress Hammen Government Affairs brings Peter Hammen and William Kress. Carville Collins carries the Saul Ewing flag, Robert Glidewell runs his own consulting shop, and the in-house team — Allyson Black-Woodson, Ivan Lanier, Anne Klase, Amber Perry, and Poetri Deal — rounds out the 24.
Constellation: 16, the revolving-door army
Constellation — nearly $1.5 million in lobbying last year, more than any corporation in the state — builds its Annapolis team the old way: former legislators. Capitol Strategies fields former House majority whip Talmadge Branch, David Carroll, Sushant Sidh, and Joy Weber. Former state senator Roger Manno carries the company’s card solo through Manno & Associates. When a former whip and a former senator both work your account, you are not dabbling.
Manis Canning & Associates reps Constellation Energy Generation with Joseph Bryce, John Favazza, Nicholas Manis, and Andrea Mansfield — the same shop Anthropic just hired for its five-lobbyist AI team, which tells you something about where the smart money shops. The in-house Constellation Energy Generation team is Lael Campbell, Mason Emnett, and Maurice Simpson. Gordon Feinblatt’s Michael Powell and Jason Weintraub, Sasscer, Clagett & Bucher’s Michael Adams, and HB Strategies’ Lisa K. Smith complete the 16.
The pattern across all three armies is the two-kinds-of-lobbyists split this village runs on. The contract firms and the former legislators — Branch, Manno, Hogan, Lisa Jones — are the relationship generalists, the long game. The specialists get brought in for the fight. Right now, the fight is the PJM governance war, the data-center who-pays question, and everything the 2027 session will write about both.
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