American Conservative Union

The American Conservative Union (ACU) is an American political organization advocating conservative policies, and is the oldest such conservative lobbying organization in the country.

Organization

The ACU is divided into three entities that share the same staff but maintain separate budgets:

• The American Conservative Union is a 501(c)4 organization that is responsible for many of ACU's activities.
• The American Conservative Union Foundation is a 501(c)3 organization that is best known for putting on the Conservative Political Action Conference.
• The American Conservative Union Political Action Committee is a PAC that formally endorses and funds conservative candidates for federal office.

Activities

ACU is well known for its annual ranking of politicians according to how they voted on key issues, providing a numerical indicator of how much the lawmakers agreed with conservative ideals. These scores are often used in political science research, in news stories and in election campaigns.

ACU publishes Battleline, an online e-magazine every few weeks on issues that are important to the conservative movement.

ACU's most well-known event is the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) which according to their press releases is put on by the ACUF, a foundation within the group. CPAC has an annual attendance of many thousands. Speakers regularly include sitting and former presidents and other famous conservatives. In 2009 the most viewed speaker was Rush Limbaugh, who spoke last, and whose speech was covered live on multiple cable news networks and CSPAN.

History

Founded in December 1964 by author and commentator William F Buckley Jr, the ACU was established after the defeat of Barry Goldwater.^[1] By 1974, ACU had roughly 70,000 members.^[2]

In 1984, David Keene, the current chairman of the ACU, assumed that position. He is also the managing associate of Carmen Group Lobbying, a Washington, DC-based lobbying firm.

FedEx controversy

In a letter dated June 30, 2009, ACU offered FedEx the option of paying as much as $3.4 million for e-mail and other services for "an aggressive grass-roots campaign" to stop a legislative provision being considered by the U.S. Senate.^[3] The letter said the ACU's campaign could include "Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and/or other members of the ACU’s Board of Directors."^[3]

On July 15, Keene and leaders of five other conservative organizations issued a letter saying that FedEx was mischaracterizing the legislative situation and was unfairly trying to tap into public resentment against federal bailouts to attack its competition.^[4] The letter included, at its top, logos from ACU and the other organizations.^[5] Whitfield said on July 16 that Keene had endorsed the second letter as an individual, even though the letter bore the logo of ACU.^[6] On July 17, ACU issued a press release saying that permission to use the logo had not been given by ACU, and that the ACU continued to stand with the policy supported by FedEx.^[7]

Lobbying

ACU has spent $137,000 on lobbying during the past five years (2004–2008).^[8]

References

1. ^ http://conservative.org/about-acu/history
2. ^ "Conservatives Worry About Watergate". The Argus-Press. 1974-01-26. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Zk0iAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jqwFAAAAIBAJ&dq=conservative-political-action-conference&pg=5276%2C2334107/. Retrieved 2010-08-20. 
3. ^ ^{a b} "Letter, June 30, 2009, from ACU Executive Vice President Dennis Whitfield to Rick Rogers, FedEx". The Politico. http://www.politico.com/static/PPM130_fedex_grassroots_proposal_6-30-09_final.html. Retrieved July 17, 2009. 
4. ^ Andy Barr (July 16, 2009). "Conservatives deliver FedEx smackdown". The Politico. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25027.html. 
5. ^ "Letter to Frederick W. Smith, President, Chairman & CEO, FedEx Corp.". The Politico. July 15, 2009. http://www.politico.com/static/PPM130_feex_letter.html. Retrieved 2009-07-17. 
6. ^ Mike Allen (July 17, 2009). "Exclusive: Conservative group offers to sell endorsement for $2M". The Politico. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25072.html. 
7. ^ "Press release: Statement from ACU regarding false headline by Washington publication POLITICO". American Conservative Union. July 17, 2009. http://www.conservative.org/pressroom/2008/StatementfromACU.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-17. ^{[dead link]}
8. ^ http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?year=2004&lname=American+Conservative+Union&id= Center for Responsive Politics

External links

• Official website