This conservative activist group-American Conservative-Union pretends to care about certain issues to pad their pockets. Take this case where they were going to endorse FedEx in a bitter legislative dispute to the tune of $2M-3 million dollars. FedEx and UPS are at war over a provision under consideration in Congress that would expand union power at FedEx. Currently Fed Ex has one US union contract for all of its locations. Under a change passed by the House and awaiting action in the Senate, FedEx — like UPS — would have to negotiate union contracts for individual locations, which FedEx claims would make it much more difficult to promise worldwide regularity for deliveries.
http://www.politico.com/...
Here's the catch — an expensive one. ACU asked FedEx to pay as much as $3.4 million for e-mail and other services to stop the legislation in the Senate.
So here comes the calvary, the ACU, to solve FedEx’s problem:
The American Conservative Union, which calls itself "the nation's oldest and largest grassroots conservative lobbying organization," took UPS’s side on Wednesday as part of a conservative consortium that accused FedEx of "misleading the public and legislators." ACU's logo is at the top of the letter, along with those of six other conservative groups.
Just two weeks earlier, ACU had offered its endorsement to FedEx, saying in a letter to the company: "We stand with FedEx in opposition to this legislation."
But there was a catch — an expensive one. ACU asked FedEx to pay as much as $3.4 million for e-mail and other services for "an aggressive grassroots campaign to stop the legislation in the Senate."
The reason ACU changed their mind and are now backing UPS instead-they wanted FedEx to pay if the ACU was going to play. Meanwhile ACU’s Chairman David Keene (Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill) and other members of the ACU’s board of directors write op-eds thus their ability to lobby for their client. They have a big database of emails and conservative voters and contacts to help sway the public on issues for their clients.
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 that was provided to POLITICO.
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.
Maury Lane, FedEx’s director of corporate communications, said: "Clearly the ACU shopped their beliefs and UPS bought."
Not a fan of Politico but wanted the community to see the dirty GOP laundry.