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Grover Norquist

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Grover Glenn Norquist (born October 19, 1956) is the president of the noted anti-tax lobbying group Americans for Tax Reform, and a well-connected conservative activist with close ties to business and the media. His close business and political ties to recently indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff are the subject of a current federal investigation.

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, and 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].

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.

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.

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 is chairman emeritus of the Islamic Institute. He was the chair of the September 2005 convention of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies [9].

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]

In the Spring of 2005, a New Hampshire statewide grassroots organization, Democracy for New Hampshire (DFNH), initiated a campaign to expose the Norquist influence in that state's political infrastructure [11]. The grassroots strategic initiative, which DFNH believes can be a model for other statewide grassroots organizations, identified state legislators who have pledged allegiance to Norquist [12], described how this pledge trumps their oath of allegiance to their New Hampshire constituents [13], provided evidence of how Norquist-based tactics affect local communities [14], and called on their elected "Senators and Representatives to renounce the Norquist Pledge and re-affirm their oath to the citizens of New Hampshire".

Lobbying, corruption, and money laundering

Connections to Jack Abramoff

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.[1]

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. [2]

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.[15]

Norquist strenuously 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. [3] [4]

Janus-Merritt Strategies

In 1997, Norquist and recently-arrested lawyer David Safavian 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 problematical. 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. [16]

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.

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 [5], 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.

Other criticisms and controversies

Personality

Even within conservative circles, Norquist has made some enemies, possibly due to what some describe as a combative personality. Writer and TV show host Tucker Carlson criticized 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" [17]. 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.

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 [18] 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.

Norquist has apparently maintained ties to radical Islamists and supporters of terrorism since 1998. In 1998, Norquist founded the Islamic Institute with money from a number of sources, mainly in the Middle East [6]. 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 [7]. Alamoudi was convicted of illegal dealings with Libya, tax, and immigration violations on July 30th, 2004. He admitted that he participated in a plot to murder Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah for Muammar Gaddafi. He was sentenced to 23 years in jail.

Norquist has been heavily associated with Sami Al-Arian for many years now [8]. Al-Arian was convicted of supporting terrorism on April 17, 2006. Al-Arian supported Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an organization that has killed at least 100 people [9]. 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. The NCPPF urged Muslims not to cooperate with the U.S. government after the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

Norquist has indirect ties to Osama Bin Laden through Suhail Khan.[10] Suhail Khan’s father, Mahboob Khan hosted Ayman al-Zawahiri twice in the 1990s when al-Zawahiri visited Southern California (as reported by the New York Times on October 23rd, 2001). Al-Zawahiri is Bin Laden’s second in command in al-Qaeda. Suhail Khan, like his father, appears to be a radical Islamist[[11]].

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

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."

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" [19].

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." [20]

When asked by Alain de Botton, "Why shouldn't the state help the needy?", in the television adaption 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."

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.

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.[21]

"Screwing America"

Norquist was ranked 24th in the book 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America (ISBN 1560258756), by author Jack Huberman.

Quotations

Wikiquote has quotations related to Grover Norquist.
  • "We are trying to change the tones in the state capitols -- and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship."
    • quoted in John Aloysius Farrell, "Rancor becomes top D.C. export: GOP leads charge in ideological war," Denver Post, May 26, 2003 [22]
  • "And we've had four more years pass where the age cohort that is most Democratic and most pro-statist, are those people who turned 21 years of age between 1932 and 1952--Great Depression, New Deal, World War II--Social Security, the draft--all that stuff. That age cohort is now between the ages of 70 and 90 years old, and every year 2 million of them die. So 8 million people from that age cohort have passed away since the last election; that means, net, maybe 1 million Democrats have disappeared--and even the Republicans in that age group. This is an age cohort that voted for a draft before the war started, and allowed the draft to continue for 25 years after the war was over. Their idea of the legitimate role of the state is radically different than anything previous generations knew, or subsequent generations. Before that generation, whenever you put a draft in, there were draft riots. After that generation, there were draft riots. This generation? No problem. Why not? Of course the government moves people around like pawns on a chessboard. One-size-fits-all labor law, one-size-fits-all Social Security. We will all work until we're 65 and have the same pension. You know, some Bismarck, German thing, okay? Very un-American. Very unusual for America. The reaction to Great Depression, World War II, and so on: Centralization--not as much centralization as the rest of the world got, but much more than is usual in America. We've spent a lot of time dismantling some of that and moving away from that level of regimentation: getting rid of the draft."
    • interview with Pablo Pardo from the Spanish periodical El Mundo as transcribed from the recording by The Weekly Standard [23]
  • "Alexander Hamilton has been on the $10 since 1928, he's been well honored by the country, he was a great Secretary of the Treasury. But of all the people on the currency, the only one who isn't a president." [Note: Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait appears on the $100 bill, also was not a president.]
    • interview with CNN's Judy Woodruff on the possibility of putting Ronald Reagan on the $10 bill, June 8, 2004
  • "Yeah, the good news about the move to abolish the death tax, the tax where they come and look at how much money you've got when you die, how much gold is in your teeth and they want half of it, is that -- you're right, there's an exemption for -- I don't know -- maybe a million dollars now, and it's scheduled to go up a little bit. However, 70 percent of the American people want to abolish that tax. Congress, the House and Senate, have three times voted to abolish it. The president supports abolishing it, so that tax is going to be abolished. I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70-plus percent of Americans want to abolish the death tax, because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who played at the politics of hate and envy and class division will say, 'Yes, well, that's only 2 percent,' or as people get richer 5 percent in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust. 'Well, it's only a small percentage,' you know. 'I mean, it's not you, it's somebody else.' And this country, people who may not make earning a lot of money the centerpiece of their lives, they may have other things to focus on, they just say it's not just. If you've paid taxes on your income once, the government should leave you alone. Shouldn't come back and try and tax you again."
    • interview with NPR's Terry Gross on the program Fresh Air, October 2, 2003

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 (July 25, 2001). "Wednesdays with Grover". New Yorker. Cite error: The named reference "Wednesdays with Grover" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  11. ^ Peter Glenshaw (May 18, 2005). "DFNH statement on Norquist connection to New Hampshire politics". Democracy for New Hampshire.
  12. ^ http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/1245
  13. ^ http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/1243
  14. ^ http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/1244
  15. ^ Philip Shenon (March 10, 2006). "$25,000 to Lobby Group Is Tied to Access to Bush". New York Times.
  16. ^ http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/148kcyrb.asp?pg=2
  17. ^ http://slate.msn.com/id/3654/entry/23930
  18. ^ Franklin Foer, "Fevered Pitch", and article from The New Republic, November 12, 2001, alleging ties between Norquist and radical Islamist elements.
  19. ^ http://www.heritage.org/about/community/insider/2000/may00/welcome.html
  20. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/opinion/07friedman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fThomas%20L%20Friedman
  21. ^ Marx, Eric. "Anti-tax Activist Defends Holocaust Comparison", Forward January 23 2004.
  22. ^ http://tanque.org/peptide/norquist.html
  23. ^ http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/695jwmmb.asp?pg=1

See also

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