Here is what The Wall Street Journal is reporting:
For four decades, the Heritage Foundation was a stately think tank that sought to define conservative thinking for Republicans.
Now, in one of the more significant transformations in the capital's
intellectual firmament, it has become an activist political operation
trying to alter the course of conservative thinking. It now challenges
establishment Republican leaders as much as it informs them, making
waves in the process.
Here is what the article says about the think tank's lobbying arm, Heritage Action:
Heritage Action says it has 61,000 donors but doesn't disclose sources
of its funding. It raised $5.9 million in 2012, according to figures
provided by the group, a significant uptick from 2011 but still a sliver
of the $82 million its parent organization raised. A number of
prominent conservatives sit on the Heritage Foundation board, including
billionaires Steve Forbes and Richard Mellon Scaife.
Unlike Club for Growth, a small-government advocacy group that built
its reputation by wading into GOP primaries to knock off incumbent
Republicans it sees as insufficiently conservative, Heritage Action
seeks primarily to influence legislation. The group has recruited 5,000
local activists, known as "sentinels," in 160 key congressional
districts and claims an email list of 400,000 supporters. Hundreds of
those activists dial in to weekly Monday night conference calls run from
the fourth floor of the foundation's headquarters, where they are often
warned about coming legislation frequently authored by House
Republicans.
Aides rank each member of Congress based on his or her votes on key
measures, alerting supporters about each important roll-call vote.
The Heritage Foundation was recently
ranked
as the 18th best think tank in the world by the annual University of
Pennsylvania think tank rankings. It was rated the 9th best think tank
in the US. It was also rated as the #1 think tank in the world in terms
of best use of social media and the Internet. Heritage was also rated
as the 10th best think tank in the world in terms of most significant
impact on public policy.
