ROLL CALL, DECEMBER 15, 2005
“Linda Tarplin, Raissa Downs and Jennifer Young, all health care veterans with executive branch and Capitol Hill experience, are joining forces to launch Tarplin, Downs, and Young. The strategic consulting firm will help clients navigate the increasingly complex world of federal health care regulation, said Tarplin…”
NATIONAL JOURNAL, DECEMBER 17, 2005
“Veteran health policy lobbyists Linda Tarplin, Raissa Downs, and Jennifer Young know how they’ll be ringing in the new year—by launching their new consulting firm, Tarplin, Downs and Young. Tarplin and Downs are leaving big-name lobbying shops—OB-C Group and Barbour Griffith & Rogers, respectively—for their venture.
Young is coming from the Health and Human Services Department, where she headed the legislative-affairs shop after serving as senior counselor to Secretary Mike Leavitt. Young joined the Bush administration following stints with two of Congress’s top health policy panels, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.
Tarplin and Downs may be old K Street hands, but both have lengthy executive branch and congressional résumés as well. Tarplin worked on Senate legislative affairs, and was the White House health care liaison to Congress under President George H.W. Bush. She also held top policy posts at HHS for the Reagan and Bush I administrations. And she has ties to the Ways and Means Committee, having overseen health policy issues for former Rep. Bill Frenzel, R-Minn., who served on the panel. Downs’s nearly 10 years of HHS and congressional experience includes a tour of duty heading legislative affairs for HHS and a tenure as a top aide to Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., now chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
Tarplin said that the firm intends ‘to become bipartisan over time.’ And that it may eventually branch out into other issues. But she expects the trio to have plenty of work, both regulatory and legislative, in their area of expertise. ‘Health care has become such a large and complicated issue, and has demanded, over time, that you be more specialized and be able to offer clients more than one thing,’ she noted—making Tarplin, Downs and Young just what the doctor ordered.”
LEGAL TIMES, MARCH 6, 2006
“Linda Tarplin, Raissa Downs, and Jennifer Young opened their three-woman health care shop, Tarplin, Downs & Young, only two months ago, but it can already boast one of the most impressive client lists of any health care practice in town.”
THE WASHINGTON POST, MAY 1, 2006
“Linda E. Tarplin, for example, is considered one of Washington’s top health-care lobbyists and is part of an all-woman, all-Republican, all-health-care lobbying company called Tarplin, Downs & Young LLC.”
THE HILL, MAY 9, 2006
“’Healthcare legislation continues to become a bigger part of what Congress does, and working on healthcare legislation continues to become more complicated and more important,’ Tarplin says…”
“The veteran healthcare lobbyist recently launched the small specialty healthcare shop with two colleagues who have similar experience and similarly top-quality contacts in the executive branch and Congress.”
“’ We’re all well-connected in the … [Department of Health and Human Services] and White House and Hill arenas,’ says Tarplin.”
“Raissa Downs and Jennifer Young are Tarplin’s partners. Downs joins the firm from Barbour Griffith & Rogers after working as a senior member of the HHS legislative-affairs shop during this administration and a senior aide to Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.). Young is new to lobbying, having left HHS last year as assistant secretary for legislation. Her résumé bears a rare and distinctive feature: She has worked on both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. Her experience is rounded out by an earlier stint at the National Governors Association.”
“Tarplin is counting on the partners’ combination of political savvy, policy expertise and inside access to make them stand out in a crowded, competitive field.”
THE HILL, MAY 9, 2006
The Hill newspaper names Tarplin, Downs & Young, LLC one of Washington’s top biotechnology lobbyists.
Though the firm is still relatively new and small in stature, this trio has been a magnet for big-name clients and a frequent recipient of praise on K Street and the Hill.”
THE WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 15, 2008
“Healthcare lobbying firm Tarplin, Downs & Young has grabbed Michelle Easton, the Chief health staffer to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus.”
