Becker & Poliakoff

Alfonso Lopez

Senior Corporate and Government Relations Consultant

ahlopez@beckerlawyers.com

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Alfonso Lopez LinkedIn link.

Bio

Alfonso Lopez is a Senior Corporate and Government Relations Consultant in Becker’s Federal Lobbying Practice. He has extensive experience serving municipalities and corporations in the areas of Federal Government Relations and Interstate and Regional Organization Advocacy. Among other clients, Alfonso currently represents Advanced Green Technologies, OST Global, Brooke USA, the City of Virginia Beach, and the Virginia Port Authority. Alfonso was recently named the White House Liaison for the Hispanic National Bar Association.

Prior to joining Becker, Mr. Lopez served as the Assistant Administrator for Congressional and Legislative Affairs of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) in the Obama administration where he helped lead the SBA effort to pass the Small Business Jobs Act which successfully opened the credit markets for entrepreneurs – creating one million new jobs and $12 billion in tax relief for small business owners. In this position he led SBA efforts to enact legislative proposals in economic development, job creation, lending, and contracting.

Mr. Lopez also currently represents the 49th District in the Virginia House of Delegates and served as the Whip of the Virginia House Democratic Caucus. He has successfully championed legislation that created the Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund, provided DREAMer/DACA students in-state tuition, dedicated $800 million to help revitalize the Chesapeake Bay, established the Small Business Investment Grant Fund, expanded Medicaid coverage to immigrant mothers and children, and raised the cap on nonresidential solar net metering in Virginia. And as the House Majority Whip, he helped increase teacher salaries by 5%, secured a dedicated source of revenue for METRO, banned the death penalty, created the first State Voting Rights Act in the South, and expanded Medicaid and health care protections to 500,000 Virginians.

He is the founder and Chair of the bipartisan Virginia Environment & Renewable Energy Caucus (2015) and the Virginia Latino Caucus (2018) and is the first Latino Democrat ever elected to the Virginia General Assembly. Mr. Lopez also serves as the Chair of the Government, Social Justice, and Taxation Task Force of the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators. He previously served as the Chair of the Broadband and Technology Task Force, where he worked closely with national corporations in the areas of cybersecurity, privacy, and improving access to broadband in rural and low-income areas.

He was also then-Governor Tim Kaine’s Director of the Virginia Liaison Office in Washington, D.C. In this position he directed all federal and intergovernmental affairs for the Governor’s Administration. He also served as the Governor’s representative to the National Governors Association, Democratic Governors Association, and the Southern Governors Association. Mr. Lopez was the highest-ranking Latino in the Kaine Administration and served as the Deputy Policy Director on Governor-Elect Kaine’s Transition Team. He worked closely with the Virginia cabinet secretaries, and senior policy staff to organize and execute comprehensive legislative/regulatory advocacy efforts before Congress and the White House and had a proven record of effectively negotiating political solutions for issues between federal, state, and local interests.