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Heritage Action gets it — loud and clear
« on: February 10, 2014, 05:27:20 am »
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/heritage-action-gets-it-loud-and-clear-103300.html#ixzz2sskMuy2U

Heritage Action gets it — loud and clear


Conservative Policy Summit will celebrate ideas from lawmakers like Lee, Cruz and Labrador. |
By BURGESS EVERETT | 2/9/14 5:03 PM EST

When Speaker John Boehner declared in December that conservative groups like Heritage Action for America had “lost all credibility,” Washington was stunned.

For years, the powerful organizations had pushed congressional Republicans further and further to the right, keeping score of every vote — even if a “no” vote meant shutting down the government.

But Heritage Action is now rolling out a less confrontational approach by holding its first-ever Conservative Policy Summit on Monday to celebrate ideas from conservative stars like Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas, and Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho on everything from health care to education. It’s a sign that the conservative wing of the party heard Boehner loud and clear. Heritage Action is willing to adapt — but it isn’t going away.

“We wanted to do something that highlights the fact that there’s a bold, conservative reform agenda,” said Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham.

The question: Will a gentler and more proactive Heritage Action pull the same weight on Capitol Hill, where it has often shaped the priorities of House Republicans by trying to block bills, not pass them?

The strained relationship between Boehner and groups like Heritage Action — The Heritage Foundation’s lobbying arm — has brought the long-simmering GOP civil war into full view.

In an interview last week at Heritage Action’s Capitol Hill offices, Needham said Boehner’s comments in December were a distraction, and he defended his organization’s work lobbying Congress.

“What we’re trying to do is educate the grass roots and give the grass roots voice in Washington,” Needham said. “We’re not trying to make this about us. The speaker clearly is trying to make it about the groups.”

But there are still clearly hard feelings on Capitol Hill, where top Republicans blame Heritage Action for pursuing an unworkable strategy to gut Obamacare that triggered the government shutdown.

“The problem is that they aren’t ‘educating’ the grass roots, they’re misleading them,” a GOP leadership aide said. “For example, by telling them we can defund Obamacare with control of only one House in Congress. And when it turned out they didn’t actually have a plan to win in the Senate, let alone get President [Barack] Obama to sign anything into law, the only effect was to damage the party and disillusion committed conservatives across the country.”

The influence of Heritage Action and other conservative groups appears to have declined recently, especially in the House. Scores of Republicans defied Heritage Action’s opposition to bipartisan budget, government funding and farm bills that passed the House by comfortable margins.

The group faces its next test as the House GOP wrestles with immigration reform — a policy that Needham says shouldn’t be addressed this year. Boehner has backed down from his push for an overhaul in 2014, saying last week that it will be difficult for congressional Republicans to pursue legislation because they don’t trust President Barack Obama.

Heritage Action and similar groups built their clout in Washington by developing so-called scorecards that rate lawmakers on how they vote on key legislation. Though Heritage Action isn’t shuttering the scorecards and will continue aggressive email campaigns, lawmakers say the threat of a low rating doesn’t pack the punch it once did.

“I don’t look at them,” said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who received a 39 percent rating from Heritage Action. “More and more members need to understand, they represent their constituents, not outside groups.”

Others said a bevy of new lawmakers who had never before experienced a shutdown are now unlikely to pay much attention to outside groups going forward.

“Their influence has waned since they became such a political arm. When they were a think tank, when it was Heritage Foundation, I think a lot of us read their material, listened to it, went to it for advice,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho). “Since they became so political, a lot of people said: ‘I don’t need that anymore.’”

Needham said interest in Heritage Action is at an all-time high and pointed to the defeat of a farm bill in June 2013 as the group’s greatest victory in the past year.

“This summer, when 62 voted against the farm bill, conservatives, the grass roots were the most powerful people in the world. A week ago … the same exact number for all intents and purposes vote against it and allegedly conservative grass roots have no voice in Washington anymore,” Needham said.

The House and Senate passed a version of the farm bill last week with commanding majorities. Obama signed it into law on Friday.

Now, as lawmakers embark on a five-year journey to write the next farm bill, Needham has big ambitions. He hopes to be in the room with the House Agriculture Committee to exercise the muscle Heritage Action showed in 2013. He hopes to repeat the same playbook by bending transportation and education re-authorization bills to the right later this year.

Needham, who sees his organization as an underdog up against a “broken” Washington, said he has no regrets about how the shutdown played out. In fact, he’d “absolutely” do it again.

Conservatives “felt like there was a fight; they felt like Washington, D.C., the House of Representatives actually heard them say this was a fight we want you to get engaged in. And they did it for 16 days,” Needham said. “They’re disappointed that Senate Republicans not only didn’t fight, but seemed kind of emotionally invested in the strategy failing and they actually worked against it.”

House insiders say Heritage Action’s influence extends to two or three dozen Republicans. Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) is decidedly on “Team Heritage,” calling the group’s staffers “some of the most brilliant conservative minds in the world.”

“I rely on them very heavily,” Salmon said. “I respect their opinion immensely.”

It doesn’t take too many Matt Salmons to undo House leaders’ plans — as demonstrated when the farm bill collapsed last year. The question is whether skeptical Republicans will find Heritage Action’s new tone persuasive.

“Recently, they just haven’t been able to be useful for drafting legislation, so I’m glad [about the new approach]. Hopefully, they get back to a point where they’re being productive,” Nunes said.

Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), whom Heritage Action scores at 72 percent, said both outside groups and his party should be primarily pushing things in “a positive fashion with positive agendas.”

“They should head in that direction, tell people what they’re for,” Mica said.

Heritage Action’s influence is much less significant in the Senate, where Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) called the defund strategy the “dumbest” thing he’s ever heard of. A policy conference is not going to change the mind of Burr, whom Heritage Action rates at 62 percent compared to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s pristine 100 percent.

“I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen them listen to anybody,” said Burr, a close ally of Boehner. “They can have all the summits they want to, but I don’t think that makes a squat of difference.”

But Needham isn’t backing down.

A former aide on Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign, Needham saw the need for Heritage Action the same year the GOP took the House in 2010. The Heritage Foundation’s motivation to spin off a lobbying arm came after what Needham described as years watching conservative principles being rolled back during George W. Bush’s presidency, when deficits went untamed and the auto and financial industries were bailed out.

Those years are evidence that Republicans’ right flank needs someone doing the “blocking and tackling” in the Capitol, said Needham, who talks in succinct TV-ready soundbites and frequently splices sports and military metaphors into his rhetoric.

“It would be totally dishonest of us to sit back and write papers and say: ‘Well, we’ve recognized that for the last 15 years none of them have gone anywhere and that we’ve had the presidency, 55 seats in the Senate, controlled the House and conservatism took steps backward in that time period and we’re just going to keep doing business as usual,’” Needham said. “We aren’t just going to sit here and continually keep losing.”

Though he doesn’t like incremental change, Needham realizes the limitations of his role in a divided government. He wants House Republican leaders to adopt Heritage’s sweeping brand of conservative legislation in a host of policy areas and pass it with all GOP votes to draw a sharp contrast between the Republican House and Democratic Senate.

Needham argues that will help Republicans retake the Senate, leading to a GOP-controlled Congress that forces Obama to veto conservative legislation. And he thinks that raises the odds that a Republican will win the White House in 2016.

Despite its status as an explicit political arm of the storied Heritage Foundation, Heritage Action does not play in elections or endorse candidates, leaving that to allies like Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the Senate Conservatives Fund. Needham says Heritage Action is filling a “market niche” that is necessary to eventually enact conservative laws.

“Establishment politicians think about this … as a sequential thing: So, we’re going to win elections, and then, once we win elections, we’re going to do all sorts of stuff to change the status quo in Washington, … and then once we do that we can advance bold policy,” Needham said. “The only way for conservatives to win is, we have to figure out how to do all three at once.”




�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776