Are the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America out to depose Speaker John A. Boehner?
Leaders of both conservative advocacy groups stop short of saying so, but they are clearly clamoring for a House Republican leader more closely aligned with their principles.
And they are doing everything they can to steer the House GOP membership in their direction.
Heritage Action CEO Mike Needham told CQ Roll Call there is “a disconnect” between the GOP leadership “and the conservative voters they allegedly represent.”
He said his group is “dying to go into battle alongside leadership” but won’t cede ground on issues that matter to it.
“Leadership’s job is to get to 218,” Needham said. “Our job is to make it impossible for them to get to 218 unless they are doing the right thing.”
Needham said Heritage Action had “very open lines of communication” with members leading up to decisive floor action. And it has built an army of seven D.C. lobbyists, 10 regional coordinators, 5,000 “sentinels” who organize their own grass-roots lobbying, and an email list of about 400,000 supporters in the three years it has been in existence.
Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on Heritage Action, the Heritage Foundation's lobbying arm.
Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on the lobbying arm of think tanks.
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.
