John McCain. Norquist sits on the advisory board of the conservative gay rights group, and the organization often attends ATR's Wednesday meetings. Norquist joined GOProud in , calling it "an important part of the conservative movement. Norquist married Alrayyes, a Washington consultant who is 16 years his junior, in Since his marriage to Alrayyes, Norquist has begun to speak out on certain Muslim-related political issues.
In , he urged Republicans to stop politicizing the planned construction of the so-called "Ground Zero" mosque. He was involved in a dispute with the Center for Security Policy head Frank Gaffney, who questioned whether Norquist and his wife were sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood. For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options. Get the Insider App. Click here to learn more. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation.
Good Subscriber Account active since Shortcuts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile. Log out. US Markets Loading H M S In the news. Brett LoGiurato. Norquist came up with the idea for the anti-tax pledge when he was 12 years old. Norquist volunteered for Richard Nixon's presidential campaigns in and , but got in a tiff with the campaign staff because of his long hair.
In the s, Norquist traveled to different war zones to aid anti-Soviet guerrillas. He's funny. Norquist holds signature weekly meetings of conservative groups, which have been dubbed the "Grand Central station of the conservative movement. He was a major player in the scandal involving former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Norquist is a member of GOProud.
Many a GOP incumbent, stretching back to the first President Bush, has lost reelection after breaking the promise never to raise taxes. The pledge not to raise taxes, Norquist contends, is a promise Republicans make to their voters, not to him. In , however, Norquist was relegated to the sidelines, and early. His preferred presidential candidate, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, dropped out in September Norquist continued to pine for him nonetheless. Who would not nominate that.
Frank Gaffney, the head of an anti-Islam think tank, has spent nearly two decades attacking and harassing Norquist, claiming that Americans for Tax Reform is an Islamist front group tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. He also contends that Norquist is gay. In the past, Norquist has mostly won this intra-movement battle: He kicked Gaffney out of his influential Wednesday meetings of conservative activists, and had Gaffney barred from the Conservative Political Action Conference.
In early , Gaffney tried to get Norquist removed from the board of the National Rifle Association. This was the reason I was so shocked to find Norquist cheering on Trump. Gaffney himself was an informal adviser to the Trump transition team. Many analysts, myself included, saw Trump's success as evidence that perhaps the true mainstream of the GOP was always more Gaffney than Norquist, more Breitbart than National Review.
Norquist professes to have zero interest in any kind of racial politics. Norquist had polished off his frittata and was chewing on a toasted English muffin, pondering whether vitamin enthusiasts might be the next frontier in anti-FDA activism. He simply refused to accept that the libertarian goals he sought might come, under Trump, at the price of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim policies.
It was impossible to tell whether his insistence on seeing only the parts of Trumpism he agreed with was willfully disingenuous or an act of extreme denial. The EPA is being gutted, the Federal Communications Commission is in the hands of a hard-core telecom libertarian, financial rules are being loosened.
But in the wake of that fiasco, Trump declared that he would move on to focus on tax reform. Just imagine what it must be like to spend 30 years as the founder and president of an organization called Americans for Tax Reform and to finally have a president and Congress committed to tax reform as a top priority. It is the Washington policy-dork equivalent of winning the lottery—and changing the American fiscal landscape in the bargain.
Republicans also have unprecedented power at the state level. Americans for Tax Reform produces a map after every election showing which party controls each state, and Norquist handed me the latest version. It was redder than a blood-soaked towel. Twenty-five states are now totally in Republican hands, with a GOP governor and Republican majorities in both houses of the legislature. So Burning Man is a refutation of the argument that the state has a place in nature.
Prior to the November election, of House Republicans and 41 out of 47 Senate Republicans had signed ATR's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge", in which the pledger promises to "oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business; and to oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.
The November 6, elections resulted in a decline in the number of Taxpayer Protection Pledge signatories in both the upper and lower houses of the th Congress: from 41 to 39 in the Senate, and from to "fewer than According to journalist Alex Seitz-Wald, losses in the election by Norquist supporters and the "fiscal cliff" have emboldened and made more vocal critics of Norquist.
Referring to Norquist's activities as head of ATR, Steve Kroft , in a 60 Minutes episode that aired on November 20, , claimed that "Norquist has been responsible, more than anyone else, for rewriting the dogma of the Republican Party.
They're giving speeches that we should compromise on our deficit, but never do they compromise on Grover Norquist. He is their leader. Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson R-WY , co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, has been particularly critical, describing Norquist's position as "[n]o taxes, under any situation, even if your country goes to hell. According to a memoir by former lobbyist Jack Abramoff , Norquist was one of Abramoff's first major Republican party contacts.
Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform were also mentioned in Senate testimony relating to the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal which resulted in a guilty plea by Abramoff to three criminal felony counts of defrauding of American Indian tribes and corrupting public officials.
Records released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee allege that ATR served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns. Norquist has denied that he did anything wrong, and has not been charged with any crime. In , Norquist joined the advisory board of GOProud, a political organization representing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender conservatives and their allies, for which he was criticized by the Family Research Council.
Norquist also sits on a six-person advisory panel that nominates Time magazine's Person of the Year. Norquist has competed three times in the comedy fundraiser "Washington's Funniest Celebrity" and placed second in Humorist P. Lott, Jr. He has served as a monthly "Politics" columnist and contributing editor to The American Spectator.
In Virginia's Republican primaries, Norquist encouraged the defeat of a number of legislators who voted for higher taxes. Norquist has described himself as a "boring white bread Methodist. The couple has adopted two children, both girls, one of whom was adopted from the city of Bethlehem. Norquist was listed as one of the five primary leaders of the post-Goldwater conservative movement by Nina Easton in her book, Gang of Five.
0コメント