“Taylor Hansen, who previously worked for The Center for Education Reform and the main lobbying group representing for-profit colleges, has joined the Trump administration’s Education Department,” POLITICO’s Michael Stratford reports. “He was part of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ meeting last week with the leaders of nearly a dozen public universities, according to the department. Hansen previously directed legislative and regulatory affairs at the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (which is now called Career Education Colleges and Universities) for nearly three years and was also a Republican staffer on the House education committee. Hansen is also the son of Bill Hansen, the former deputy secretary of education during the George W. Bush administration who now leads United Student Aid Funds.”
— The hire wouldn’t have been possible under the Obama administration without a special waiver. Obama banned anyone who had lobbied in the past year from joining the administration, and Hansen was lobbying for the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities as recently as last spring, according to disclosure records. Trump’s executive order on ethics allows lobbyists to join the administration immediately as long as they don’t “participate in any particular matter on which” they lobbied in the past two years or that involves matters “directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients.” It’s unclear exactly what Hansen will be working on, but the appointment could be one test of how narrowly the administration interprets Trump’s order.