Is the ACU "Pay-to-Play" Racket Real?

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Jul 17 2009, 10:52 am by Megan McArdle

According to Politico, the American Conservative Union is selling off endorsements to the highest bidder. Actually, that's too kind; this sounds more like an extortion racket:

The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group's endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.
For the $2 million plus, ACU offered a range of services that included: "Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU's Chairman David Keene and/or other members of the ACU's board of directors. (Note that Mr. Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill.)"
The conservative group's remarkable demand -- black-and-white proof of the longtime Washington practice known as "pay for play" -- was contained in a private letter to FedEx , which was provided to POLITICO.

The letter exposes the practice by some political interest groups of taking stands not for reasons of pure principle, as their members and supporters might assume, but also in part because a sponsor is paying big money.
In the three-page letter asking for money on June 30, the conservative group backed FedEx. After FedEx says it rejected the offer, Keene signed onto a two-page July 15 letter backing UPS. Keene did not return a message left on his cell phone.

I'm skeptical of this, not because I feel that political groups are above selling their services, but because I'd be shocked if one of them was actually stupid enough to put it in a letter. On the other hand, crazier things have happened. I expect this will be a fairly major ongoing story during the August doldrums. I can't wait to hear what the ACU has to say. Developing . . .

Comments (2)

James Joyner July 17, 2009 12:45 PM

Sadly, they put it in a letter. The POLITICO story has it on PDF and links it.

Further, ACU's press release on the matter doesn't deny sending out the letter. They merely deny that they received any money and claim Keene -- who they haven't fired -- signed the second letter, endorsing the UPS position in opposition to ACU's official stance.

Average Joe LE July 20, 2009 9:54 AM

As a conservative, it kills me to see how the American Conservative Union is totally a sellout. But evidently, this sort of phoniness has been going on for a while. A writer, "JFK" wrote an article I saw last night about his time working at ACU and how they often changed their position to match a crowd: http://bit.ly/s1ojC . This seems like the next logical step.