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Total Spectrum’s Arizona team – Michael DiMaria, Former Congressman Erik Paulsen, Steve Gordon, and Patrick Robertson – have the experience, relationships, and understanding required to help solve your government affairs problem either at the Arizona State Capitol or the U.S. Capitol.
Michael DiMaria is a Partner and Southwest Regional Director of Total Spectrum. He came to Total Spectrum from CenturyLink, where he achieved success after success as their Arizona Director of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs. Michael currently serves on the Board of Directors and is the Tax Policy Committee Chairman for the Arizona Chamber and is also a Director on the Board of InvisionAZ. He is the past chairman of both the Arizona Tax Research Association (ARTA) and the Western Maricopa Coalition (WESTMARC). Before his work in Arizona, Michael worked in public policy for numerous Fortune 500 companies in the midwestern and southeastern United States, including AT&T, Comcast, and Cox Communications
Congressman Erik Paulsen (R-MN) represented Minnesota’s Third Congressional District from 2009-2019. He served as a leading member on the House Ways & Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax writing, health care, economic and trade policy. He was the Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, as well as the Co-Chair of the House Medical Technology Caucus, the House Digital Trade Caucus, and the House Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Caucus. Erik served in 2019 as the Co-Chair of the Pass USMCA Coalition, and currently serves as Chairman of the Institute for Gene Therapies serves, and as a member of the Task Force on the Coordination of Behavioral and Clinical Health for the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a bipartisan Washington, D.C. think tank.
Steve Gordon is the Managing Partner of Total Spectrum. He had a 36 year career in politics and is referred to as the “Dean of Republican campaign guidance”. He had an 18 year association with retired Senator and Assistant Republican Whip Jon Kyl, was a consultant to Senator John McCain’s reelection campaigns from 1991 through 1998, and served as a consultant to the campaigns of Senators Mitch McConnell and John Thune. Steve Gordon was Cory Gardner’s national political director during his years in Congress and continued in that role during Gardner’s successful 2014 run for U.S. Senate in Colorado. Steve retired from politics in December 2014 and now devotes his full time to building Total Spectrum/Steve Gordon and Associates. He currently writes and publishes This Week in Washington for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Patrick Robertson has spent two decades in Washington and advises executive teams, boards of directors and senior decision-makers on public policy issues that pose opportunities and challenges to their organizations’ enterprise values. He began his Washington career working on the staff of Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) for nine years, the last five as Deputy to the Chief of Staff, and later served as Campaign Manager for Senator Rockefeller’s 2008 re-election campaign. Patrick’s expertise is in the fields of tax, energy, telecommunications, trade, and transportation. During his career, Patrick has successfully represented a range of clients including Fortune 50 companies, small associations, a territorial government, and others. He coordinates a 75-member trade association, handling all aspects of its operation and leads its lobbying strategy. Patrick’s successes include reviving a preservation tax credit after it was eliminated early in the tax reform process of 2017. In addition, he has navigated other legislative challenges like the proposed regulation of an industry and government attacks on specific products or business lines. At the same time, Patrick designed custom plans to introduce businesses to Washington or to roll out new facilities, changing employee mixes, and updated messaging and branding. He has also planned grassroots fly ins and strategized how best to use grassroots and grass tops support. Patrick spent 10 years as Managing Director at FTI Consulting and as a Partner at C2 Group, both highly regarded bipartisan government relations and lobbying firms. In 2019 he founded Confluence Government Relations to continue that work.
Arizona Chamber Webinar: 2014 Elections Wrap-up
Featuring Steve Gordon and the Total Spectrum Team as well as Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report.
This Week in Washington - October 14, 2020 - October 14, 2020
“Heard on the Hill” looks at the last mile of this Congress, with a particular focus on additional stimulus legislation by discussing what happened, what did not happen, and why. We look over the fence at the upcoming lame duck session, cover some odds and ends, preview the “Art of Polling”→
This Week in Washington - September 30, 2020 - September 30, 2020
Erik Paulsen and Steve Gordon cover the October surprise in September, the last push for additional COVID legislation, the upcoming lame duck session, and significant developments at the Labor Department, the Small Business Administration, and the IRS – all that and more in Heard on the Hill.→
This Week in Washington - September 16, 2020 - September 16, 2020
The NEW This Week in Washington starts now.
We lead off with Patrick Robertson’s first “Washington Whispers” column. Erik Paulsen recently wrote an op/ed in Newsweek about the need for our trade agreements to prioritize American intellectual property, and we are reprinting it here. I write→
This Week in Washington - August 13, 2020 - August 13, 2020
This week we have a special ‘Cleaning off the Desk’ version of Heard on the Hill. Ramona Lessen covers a recent House Subcommittee hearing discussing the urgent need for a national plan to contain the novel coronavirus. Dana Marston shares some detail on vaccination strategies, G-20 energy→
This Week in Washington - August 5, 2020 - August 5, 2020
In this week’s Heard on the Hill, Steve Gordon and Erik Paulsen cover the process, negotiations, and the progress toward the next COVID-19 recovery legislation. They share an interview with Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), and provide updates on bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the U.S.,→