Grover Norquist

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Grover Glenn Norquist (born October 19, 1956) is an American conservative activist. He currently serves as president of anti-tax lobbying group Americans for Tax Reform.

Contents

[edit] Early years and career

Norquist, who is of Swedish descent, grew up in Weston, Massachusetts, where he learned politics at an early age when his father would liken each bite he took out of his ice cream cone to a different type of tax levied by the government. His political leanings were cemented at the age of eleven by reading anti-Communist tracts such as Masters of Deceit by J. Edgar Hoover and Witness by Whittaker Chambers.[1]

Norquist received a B.A. (economics) from Harvard College, which he attended from 1974 to 1978, living in Winthrop House. He later received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School (1979–1981).[2]

After leaving professional school, Norquist became executive director of both the National Taxpayers Union and the national College Republicans organization, holding both positions until 1983. He was an economist and chief speech writer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 1983 to 1984.[3]

Norquist founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985, and has headed the organization ever since. Although he is best known as the head of that organization, his introduction to conservative politics was rooted in the anti-Soviet arguments of the Cold War. "I was actually a foreign-policy conservative first," he told an interviewer in 1998.

From 1985 to 1988, Norquist was also an economic advisor to Angola UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi.[4] During this period, he was registered with the United States Department of Justice as a foreign agent of Angola.[5]

[edit] Political importance on national politics

Norquist is one of the so-called "Gang of Five" identified in Nina Easton's 2000 book by that name, which gives a history of leaders of the modern conservative movement. He has been described as "a thumb-in-the-eye radical rightist" (The Nation), and "Tom Paine crossed with Lee Atwater plus just a soupçon of Madame Defarge" (P.J. O'Rourke). Norquist's page on the web site of Americans for Tax Reform includes a laudatory quote about him from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Indeed, Norquist co-authored the 1994 Contract with America.

In 1999, he was instrumental in securing early support for then Texas Governor George W. Bush, continuing a decades-long association with Karl Rove ("The Wall Street Journal's John Fund dubbed him "the Grand Central Station" of conservatism and told The Nation: "It's not disputable" that Norquist was the key to the Bush campaign's surprising level of support from movement conservatives in 2000") [1]. After Bush's election to the White House in 2000, Norquist was the prime architect behind the many Bush tax-cuts ("Grover Norquist: 'Field Marshal' of the Bush Plan") [2].

Norquist is "adept at media appearances ... writes a monthly politics column for the American Spectator magazine, and frequently speaks at regional and state think tanks of the conservative movement," according to the critical website MediaTransparency.Org.

[edit] Wednesday Meetings

Shortly after Bill Clinton was elected president of the United States in 1992, Norquist began hosting a weekly get-together of conservatives in his Washington office to coordinate activities and strategy. "We were sort of like the Mensheviks after the Russian Revolution," recalls Marshall Wittmann, who attended the first meeting as a representative of the Christian Coalition.

In 1994 Norquist worked with Newt Gingrich and the Heritage Foundation to draft the Contract with America.

The "Wednesday Meeting" of Norquist's Leave Us Alone Coalition has become an important hub of conservative political organizing. George W. Bush began sending a representative to the Wednesday Meeting even before he formally announced his candidacy for president in 1999. "Now a White House aide attends each week," reported USA Today in June 2001. "Vice President Cheney sends his own representative. So do GOP congressional leaders, right-leaning think tanks, conservative advocacy groups and some like-minded K Street lobbyists. The meeting has been valuable to the White House because it is the political equivalent of one-stop shopping. By making a single pitch, the administration can generate pressure on members of Congress, calls to radio talk shows, and political buzz from dozens of grassroots organizations. It also enables the White House to hear conservatives vent in private — and to respond — before complaints fester".[6]

In addition to heading Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist is currently on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association[7] and the American Conservative Union.[8] He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and chairman emeritus of the Islamic Institute. He was the chair of the September 2005 convention of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies.[9]

[edit] Influence on state and local politics

Norquist's national strategy includes recruiting politicians at the state and local levels. Norquist has helped California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with selling his plan to privatize the CalPERS system.

In Virginia, Norquist was involved in the 2005 Republican primaries, trying to unseat a number of legislators who voted for higher taxes. Norquist has helped to set up regular meetings for conservatives in many states, meetings modelled on his Wednesday meetings in Washington. He wants to set up a nationwide network of conservative activists that he can call upon to support his causes, such as tax cuts and deregulation. There are now meetings in more than forty states.[10]

[edit] Lobbying, corruption, and money laundering

[edit] Connections to Jack Abramoff

Abramoff Scandal
Events & scandals
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Main article: Jack Abramoff lobbying and corruption scandal

Jack Abramoff pled guilty to conspiracy to corrupt public officials, mail fraud and tax evasion on January 3, 2006. According to an investigative report on Abramoff's lobbying released in June 2006 by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns. A second group Norquist was involved with, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, received about $500,000 in Abramoff client funds.[3]

Norquist has been close friends with Abramoff since college, when he ran Abramoff’s successful campaign to become national chairman of the College Republicans.

In 1996, the Choctaw tribe, an Abramoff client, donated $60,000 to ATR to oppose a tax on Indian casinos. The funds continued; in 1999, Norquist moved $1.15 million in Abramoff client money to Ralph Reed's for-profit political consulting company, Century Strategies, and to anti-gambling groups working to defeat a state lottery in Alabama. The money routing was deliberate: in one email reminder to himself, Abramoff wrote: "Call Ralph re Grover doing pass through."

ATR kept a small percentage of the funds that passed though the organization. In May 1999, Norquist asked Abramoff "What is the status of the Choctaw stuff?", in an email. "I have a 75g [$75,000] hole in my budget from last year. ouch." Abramoff eventually grew annoyed at the amount that Norquist took off the top before sending the money on, e-mails show. "Grover kept another $25 k!" Abramoff wrote in a February 2000 note to himself. [4]

On May 9, 2001, Chief Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe of Texas met with President Bush, with Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist in attendance. Days before the meeting, the tribe paid $25,000 to Grover Norquist's ATR at Abramoff's direction. According to the organization's communications director, John Kartch, the meeting was one of several gatherings with President Bush sponsored by ATR. On the same day, the chief of the Louisiana Coushattas also attended an ATR-sponsored gathering with President Bush. The Coushattas also gave $25,000 to ATR soon before the event.

The details of the Kickapoo meeting and a letter dated May 10, 2001 from ATR thanking the Kickapoos for their contribution were revealed to the New York Times in 2006 by former council elder Isidro Garza, who with Raul Garza (no relation), is under indictment in Texas for embezzling tribal money. According to Isidro Garza, Abramoff did not say the donation was required to meet the president; the White House denied any knowledge of the transaction.[11]

Emails released in an October 12, 2006 report by the US Senate Finance Committee investigation, show that Norquist exchanged support for cash donations to ATR. Abramoff asked Norquist, "I have sent over a $50K contribution from DH2 (the mutual fund client). Any sense as to where we are on the op-ed placement?" To which Norquist replied, "The Wash Times told me they were running the piece. . . . I will nudge again."[12]

Norquist denies that he has done anything wrong. His close association with Abramoff has definitely hurt his reputation.[10] Whether Norquist could face criminal charges, in addition to civil actions against ATR for violating its non-profit charter, is unclear. [5] [6]

[edit] Janus-Merritt Strategies

In 1997, Norquist and lawyer David Safavian (who was later sentenced to 18 months in prison for lying and obstruction in connection with dealings with Abramoff) founded a lobbying firm, the Merritt Group, later renamed Janus-Merritt Strategies (sometimes referred to as "Janus Merritt" or simply "Janus"). In a 1997 interview with Legal Times, Safavian said "We represent clients who really do have an interest in a smaller federal government." "We're all very ideologically driven, and have a bias in favor of free markets." He went on: "We're not letting people who offer us money change our principles."

Over the next five years, the firm's clients included businesses like BP America, the U.S. division of British Petroleum. There were foreign companies like the Corporacion Venezolana de Cementos and Grupo Financiero Banorte. And there were gaming interests, including Indian tribes: the Saginaw Chippewa - a client the firm shared with Jack Abramoff, the Viejas band of Kumeyaay Indians, and the National Indian Gaming Association. The firm also registered as a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan, the government of Gabon, and Pascal Lissouba, the corrupt former president of the Republic of the Congo.

Perhaps the most controversial client of the lobbying firm was the American Muslim Council and Abdurahman Alamoudi, a fierce supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah. Senate disclosure reports on file show that for years Janus-Merritt registered as a lobbyist for Alamoudi.

At a Senate confirmation hearing in April 2004, Safavian said that "To my knowledge, neither I nor Janus-Merritt did any work for Mr. Alamoudi." "I do not know why Mr. Alamoudi was erroneously listed in the client's lobby disclosure forms." More, "I do not believe Janus-Merritt received any funds from Mr. Alamoudi."

On December 17, 2001, eleven months after Safavian had left the firm, Janus-Merritt resubmitted its disclosure forms. This time the name of Alamoudi had been replaced by the name of Dr. Jamal al Barzinji. Why the firm changed its registration is unknown.

Safavian told the Senate that al Barzinji, not Alamoudi, was his client. "Dr. Jamal al Barzinji," he said, "should have been listed as the client retaining the firm for work related to Malaysian political prisoner Anwar Ibrahim." In fact, Barzinji had been listed as a contact, not a client, on all the disclosure forms.

The replacement name is also problematic. On March 20, 2002, Barzinji's home was raided by a federal task force investigating terrorist finances. A federal affidavit identifies Barzinji as the ringleader of a group suspected of aiding terrorists.[13]

In 2002, Janus-Merritt was sold to the firm Williams Mullen. Norquist has refused to release tax records of the firm for the period during which he and Safavian owned the company.

[edit] Alleged money laundering

Norquist has been accused of using his various organizations to launder political money for a number of like-minded individuals and groups. See, for example, the scandal involving Oregon's Bill Sizemore [7], whose political organizations were shut down by a judge after a jury agreed they had engaged in racketeering, in part due to evidence of a money-laundering scheme involving Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. However, no charges have been brought against Norquist or his Americans for Tax Reform.

[edit] Other criticisms and controversies

[edit] Personality

Norquist has struck many people as a combative figure. Even within conservative circles, he has made some enemies, possibly due to what some describe as a combative personality. Writer and TV show host Tucker Carlson, in retaliation for Norquist's criticism of Carlson's father (Tucker's father served as Director of Voice of America in Europe, and then as President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting), referred to him as a "mean-spirited, humorless, dishonest little creep ... an embarrassing anomaly, the leering, drunken uncle everyone else wishes would stay home...[he] is repulsive, granted, but there aren't nearly enough of him to start a purge trial".[14] In his book Blinded by the Right, former conservative David Brock revealed that even fellow right-wingers privately refer to him as "Grosser Nosetwist" and try to avoid being trapped in conversation with him at social gatherings because he never talks about anything other than politics.

[edit] Religious allies

Norquist's Muslim outreach to groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has drawn criticism from former Reagan Administration official Frank Gaffney for getting too close to some of its members who have not only openly expressed sympathy with Hamas and Hezbollah but refused to condemn their terrorist activities against Israel. According to an article[15] in The New Republic, Norquist believes that American Jews will never vote Republican in numbers large enough to make a difference in elections, so the party should reach out to Muslims.

Norquist's Muslim outreach is part of a larger approach - he also considers Catholics and Jews to be natural allies of people of faith who already are in the center-right movement. Norquist had a role in the founding of a Muslim free-market organization, a Jewish conservative group, and in two different Catholic conservative political groups.

[edit] Alleged links to radical Islamists and terrorism

In 1998, Norquist founded the Islamic Free Market Institute[16] (sometimes just called the "Islamic Institute") with money from a number of sources, mainly in the Middle East. One of the early major contributors was Abdurahman Alamoudi, the founder of the American Muslim Council. Alamoudi appears to have contributed $35,000 to the Islamic Institute.[17] Alamoudi was convicted of illegal dealings with Libya, tax, and immigration violations on July 30, 2004, and was sentenced to 23 years in jail.

Norquist has been linked to Florida professor and Muslim activist Sami Al-Arian. On March 2, 2006, Al-Arian pled guilty to one count of conspiracy "to make or receive contributions of funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad."[18] He was sentenced to 57 months in prison, of which he had already served 38, and to then be deported.

  • In July, 2001, Norquist received an award from the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF), a civil liberties group headed by Al-Arian. This award was for Norquist’s work to abolish the use of secret intelligence evidence in terrorism cases, a position Bush had adopted in the 2000 campaign.[17] After the September 11th, 2001 attacks, the NCPPF urged Muslims not to cooperate with the U.S. government.[19]
  • Conservative activist Frank Gaffney, whose offices were on the same floor of the building where Norquist works, said that Al-Arian visited with Norquist in July 2002.[17]
  • Norquist's name was mentioned by al-Arian's lawyers during his 2005 trial.[20]

There is no information suggesting that Norquist has ever personally engaged in any acts of terrorism or financially contributed to any terrorist group.

[edit] Anti-government approach

Norquist has been noted for his widely quoted quip: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."[21]

The pledge of "no new taxes" that many Republican legislators have signed was his project. As of mid-2005, more than two hundred and twenty Republicans in the House of Representatives had signed this pledge; in the Senate, forty-six Republicans had done so.[10]

"Cutting the government in half in one generation is both an ambitious and reasonable goal," Norquist stated in May 2000. "If we work hard we will accomplish this and more by 2025. Then the conservative movement can set a new goal. I have a recommendation: To cut government in half again by 2050".[22]

Following Hurricane Katrina, Thomas Friedman wrote an op-ed in the New York Times stating "An administration whose tax policy has been dominated by the toweringly selfish Grover Norquist ... doesn't have the instincts for this moment. Mr. Norquist is the only person about whom I would say this: I hope he owns property around the New Orleans levee that was never properly finished because of a lack of tax dollars. I hope his basement got flooded. And I hope that he was busy drowning government in his bathtub when the levee broke and that he had to wait for a U.S. Army helicopter to get out of town."[23]

When asked by Alain de Botton, "Why shouldn't the state help the needy?", in the television adaptation of Status Anxiety, Norquist replied, "Because to do that, you would have to steal money from people who earned it and give it to people who didn't. And then you make the state into a thief." Botton follows with, "You're suggesting that taxation is theft?" Norquist continues, "Taxation beyond the legitimate requirements of providing for justice is theft, sure."

[edit] 2004 criticism of Ohio Governor Bob Taft

During the 2004 election, an audiotape was released of Norquist criticizing Ohio governor Bob Taft at a private gathering of Republicans Abroad. He called Taft "an idiot, stupid, corrupt, dumb rotten Republican Governor ... who has been busy looting the state, raising taxes, lying to the gun owners," and considered him to be a serious liability for the Bush campaign as no Republican has ever won a presidential election without carrying Ohio.

[edit] Comparison of the estate tax to the Holocaust

A small controversy erupted after an interview between Norquist and Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air program. In the interview, Grover Norquist compared the morality that allows the estate tax to that which permitted the Holocaust. When pressed, Norquist noted that this was not a direct comparison, but rather a response to what he saw as apathy against a supposed government assault on a small group of citizens.[24]

[edit] "Screwing America"

Norquist was ranked 24th in the book 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America (ISBN 1-56025-875-6), by author Jack Huberman.


Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

[edit] Personal

On April 2, 2005, Norquist married Samah Alrayyes. She had been the director of communications at the Islamic Free Market Institute, which Norquist founded. She is now a Public Affairs Specialist for Arab and Muslim outreach at the Bureau of Legislative and Public Affairs at USAID.[25]

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1571/n3_v14/20174381/p1/article.jhtml
  2. ^ http://watch.pair.com/database2.html
  3. ^ http://www.mediatransparency.org/people/grover_norquist.htm
  4. ^ http://auctionhouse.tpmcafe.com/story/2006/1/26/94216/1282
  5. ^ http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fara/fara2nd97/COUNTRY/ANGOLA.HTM#5061
  6. ^ http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2001-06-01-grover.htm
  7. ^ http://www.nraleaders.com/grover-norquist.html
  8. ^ http://www.conservative.org/pressroom/speakers/norquist.asp
  9. ^ http://gopwing.com/modules.php?sid=963
  10. ^ a b c John Cassidy. "Wednesdays with Grover", New Yorker, July 25, 2001.
  11. ^ Philip Shenon. "$25,000 to Lobby Group Is Tied to Access to Bush", New York Times, March 10, 2006.
  12. ^ James V. Grimaldi and Susan Schmidt. "Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff", Washington Post, October 13, 2006.
  13. ^ http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/148kcyrb.asp?pg=2
  14. ^ http://slate.msn.com/id/3654/entry/23930
  15. ^ Franklin Foer, "Fevered Pitch", and article from The New Republic, November 12, 2001, alleging ties between Norquist and radical Islamist elements.
  16. ^ Jonathan Weisman, "Powerful GOP Activist Sees His Influence Slip Over Abramoff Dealings", Washington Post, July 9, 2006
  17. ^ a b c Mary Jacoby, "Friends in high places", St. Petersburg Times, March 11, 2003
  18. ^ Plea Agreement, Sami Al-Arian, February 28, 2006
  19. ^ As early as April 23, 1999, NCPPF was listed as a project of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization and as early as April 19, 2000, NCPPF advised "Know Your Rights Don't Talk to the FBI". That web page was still linked by NCPPF as late as August 2, 2002.
  20. ^ Paul Sperry, "Sami's Guardian Angel", FrontPageMag.com, December 9, 2005
  21. ^ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1123439
  22. ^ http://www.heritage.org/about/community/insider/2000/may00/welcome.html
  23. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/opinion/07friedman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fThomas%20L%20Friedman
  24. ^ Marx, Eric. "Anti-tax Activist Defends Holocaust Comparison", The Forward January 23, 2004.
  25. ^ "Conference speaker biographies", Network of Arab American Professionals, 3rd Annual Conference, September 2005

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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