Grover G. Norquist

For over a decade, ACU Board Member Grover Norquist has been one of Washington’s most effective issues-management strategists.

Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a coalition of taxpayer groups, individuals and businesses opposed to higher taxes at both the federal and state levels. ATR organizes the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which asks all candidates running for federal and state office to commit themselves in writing to oppose tax increases. To date, 206 House members, and 42 Senators have taken the pledge. On the state level, 6 governors and 1070 state legislators have taken the pledge.

Norquist writes the monthly column "Politics" for the American Spectator. He also authored the book Rock the House, an analysis of the 1994 elections, which has been translated and published in Japanese.

In the past, Norquist has served on the National Commission on Restructuring the Internal Revenue Service, as an economist and chief speechwriter for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as a campaign staff member on the 1988, 1992 and1996 Republican Platform Committees, as Executive Director of the National Taxpayers’ Union, and as Executive Director of the College Republicans.

In the words of Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist is "the person who I regard as the most innovative, creative, courageous and entrepreneurial leader of the anti-tax efforts and of conservative grassroots activism in America . . . He has truly made a difference and truly changed American history."

According to P.J. O’Rourke, "Grover Norquist is Tom Paine crossed with Lee Atwater plus just a soupcon of Madame Defarge."

Norquist holds a Masters of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Harvard University. He currently resides in Washington, DC.