A senior staffer to Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) has been earning income as a lobbyist for multiple major corporations that are frequently subject to congressional scrutiny, according to a new Politico investigation.

Newly surfaced South Dakota state filings reviewed by Politico show that Robert Skjonsberg, a longtime aide to Rounds, has spent "more than a decade" at the senator's side while quietly lobbying the state legislature on behalf of more than a dozen outside clients. Under Senate rules, staffers must report outside income and receive approval from the Senate Ethics Committee for outside employment, though federal lobbying by congressional staff is barred outright — a restriction that does not extend to lobbying state governments, which is how arrangements like Skjonsberg's fall into a gap between federal and state rules.

According to the report, Skjonsberg's own government-affairs firm, 605 Strategies — whose website lists him as "co-owner" and "founding member" — does not appear in his lobbying paperwork.

His client roster includes Meta (formerly Facebook), tobacco giant Altria, the conservative Freedom Foundation, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM), and the South Dakota Dairy Producers and Pork Producers.

"Rounds has introduced several bills related to AI since Skjonsberg registered to represent Meta last year, including one that would establish a commission to study the impacts of AI on the workforce," Politico reported. "Rounds, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, has also worked on legislation that could impact the ag trade groups that Skjonsberg lobbies for in South Dakota. He introduced legislation this year to create new grazing land for the cattle industry and restrict individuals and entities controlled by foreign adversaries from purchasing agricultural land and businesses in the U.S., for example."

Skjonsberg managed Rounds' first Senate campaign in 2014 and served as his chief of staff from 2015 to 2022 before moving into a "senior advisor" role. His state lobbying registration dates to 2023.

"It's wholly inappropriate for somebody who's working as a Senate staffer to be lobbying, even if it's only at the state level, because you can't draw this line or wall between all the kinds of information you gain," Meredith McGehee, an independent congressional ethics expert who previously led the watchdog group Issue One, told Politico. "To me, this is pretty much a no-go, and it's an outside employment that should not be permitted."

AEM and Meta both stated that Skjonsberg's contract ended in March, when the legislative session concluded. Altria and the two farm groups did not respond to Politico, and the Freedom Foundation declined to comment.

"It poses the most obvious conflict of interest I can imagine," Craig Holman of Public Citizen told Politico. "Serving a public official, you're supposed to be working on the public's behalf, but then simultaneously working as a hired lobbyist, you're now working also on some private special interest's behalf and getting directly paid for it."