Amy Ridenour

and is a frequent radio and television guest.

Background

According to Nina Easton's "Gang of Five", Amy Moritz was a veteran organizer of the College Republican National Committee. She was a candidate in 1981 for election as national chairman of the organization, opposed by Jack Abramoff.

Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Grover Norquist persuaded Moritz to drop out of the race by promising her the appointed position of executive director. With the only serious competitor out of the way, Abramoff won the election easily.

Although Moritz was later rebuffed by the "Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate" and only given the titular position of "deputy director", she continued to work with the group and became a good friend of Norquist. Abramoff would also later become a director of the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR).

Moritz later married fellow College Republican David A. Ridenour.

National Center for Public Policy Research

Ridenour was a founding chief executive officer of the NCPPR in 1982. The NCPPR claims to promote "the conservative and free market perspective on U.S. domestic, foreign and defense policy issues." Ridenour's husband David A. Ridenour is vice president of the organization.

NCPPR bulletins have been heavily cited by conservative members of Congress, sometimes apparently being copied entirely with little more than a change in letterhead. [An example from House member Richard Pombo:
* [http://www.nationalcenter.org/EarthDay02Myths.html "Earth Day 2002 Fact Sheet Myths and Facts About the Environment" from NCPPA]
* [http://www.house.gov/burton/RSC/word/Pombo.PDF "Earth Day 2002 Myths & Facts" from Richard Pombo] .]

Pro-tobacco, anti-environmental positions

During the national tobacco litigation, a memo from Phillip Morris executive Frank Gomez revealed that Ridenour (under her maiden name of Amy Moritz) had offered "to use any information we can provide re the current anti-tobacco onslaught..." [http://web.archive.org/web/20030930182136/http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/ncppr.pdf] Ridenour wrote many op-eds attacking the filing of lawsuits by state attorney generals against tobacco firms and on tobacco policies, such as "Ironies of the Tobacco Wars," [http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA198.html] "Federal Tobacco Lawsuit Could Pave Way for Litigation Tax on Other Industries," [http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA263.html] "Latin America Go Home: Tobacco Policies in Foreign Countries Should Be Made by Foreign Countries, Not in U.S. Courts" [http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA244.html] and "Lawyers' Fees in Tobacco Case Should Be Capped." [http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA195.html] Ridenour said that such lawsuits were improper, that regulation of tobacco was the province of legislatures, not law enforcement, and that private attorneys were using the suits to enrich themselves by many millions of dollars.

Environmentalists also claimed articles by Ridenour skeptical of the global warming theory were written only because NCPPR received support from ExxonMobil. Ridenour, writing on her blog, countered that her writing on the issue began in 1992, predating by many years her institution's recept of any funding from fossil fuel industries. She also claimed that total fossil fuel funding of NCPPR in 2004 amounted to sixth tenths of one percent of her organization's total funding.

Abramoff connections

upport for Abramoff clients

In a series of editorials between 1999 and 2001, Ridenour attacked efforts to expand federal immigration laws to the Commonwealth of the Marianas Islands, [http://www.nationalcenter.org/PRCNMI401.html] defended the islands' meager wages, [http://www.nationalcenter.org/PRCNMI499.html] and attacked Clinton Administration attempts to tighten labor laws. [http://www.nationalcenter.org/PRCNMI899.html] Ridenour also lent her support to the Western Pacific Economic Council, a trade group composed of Marianas garment manufacturers. Her group’s name appeared in a Saipan newspaper backing the Council in 1999.

Both the Marianas and the Economic Council were clients of Jack Abramoff at the time. The Marianas paid Abramoff’s firm Preston Gates $1.9 million in 1999 and 2000 and his second firm, Greenberg Traurig, $1.1 million in 2001. The Western Pacific Economic Council paid Preston Gates $2.3 million in 1999 and 2000.

In 2001, Ridenour wrote an editorial in the Washington Times which attacked the rival of Abramoff’s then-client, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamed. Her article, titled "The U.S. Must Tread Carefully to Avoid Creating More Fundamentalist Islamic Governments," touted Malaysia as a "prosperous, stable and democratic state" and smeared Mahathir opponent Anwar Ibrahim as an Islamic radical. Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to arrange a meeting between the Prime Minister and President Bush. [http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Washington_nonprofit_where_Abramoff_was_director_0308.html]

Funding of Abramoff-sponsored trips

Ridenour has come under fire for allegedly using the NCPPR as a clearinghouse for clients of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff to pay for a luxurious golf trip to St. Andrew's in Scotland, attended by congressman Tom DeLay and others. Ridenour was called to testify on this matter before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on July 22 2005.

Records allegedly showed that Abramoff directed one of his clients to donate to the NCPPR; the NCPPR then paid an equivalent amount to provide most of the funding for the golf trip, which was described in required House filing paperwork as for "educational purposes". Two months after the trip, DeLay voted against legislation opposed by the client. DeLay and Ridenour have both defended the propriety of the arrangement, asserting that the donation was in no way connected to the trip, nor were the donation or the trip connected to the vote. [ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12416-2005Apr23.html "DeLay Airfare Was Charged To Lobbyist's Credit Card"] , "The Washington Post", April 24 2005.]

Ridenour also attended the 1997 DeLay-Abramoff trip to Russia funded through NCPPR by the Russian energy giant Naftasib. [ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28319-2005Apr5.html "A 3rd DeLay Trip Under Scrutiny"] , "The Washington Post", April 6 2005.]

References

* Easton, Nina J. (2000), "Gang of Five". Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-684-83899-0.
* [http://indian.senate.gov/2005hrgs/062205hrg/ridenour.pdf "Statement of Amy Moritz Ridenour"] , before Senate Indian Affairs Committee Hearing on Lobbying practices Involving Indian Tribes, June 22 2005.

External links

* [http://www.nationalcenter.org/Staffbios.html NCPPR staff bio]
* [http://www.nationalcenter.org/Blog.html NCPPR/Ridenour blog]
* [http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml/Amy_Moritz_Ridenour Disinfopedia entry]
* [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=ridenour+delay+abramoff&btnG=Search Google search of "Ridenour DeLay Abramoff"] , with 424 hits as of October 2005