Council for National Policy: Coordination Network

The Council for National Policy is the node in this network that no other node can function without understanding. Founded by Tim LaHaye in 1981, it has operated continuously for over four decades as the private coordination body for the Religious Right coalition — the place where the movement's donors, strategists, media figures, politicians, and religious leaders meet regularly without press access, without public records, and without the accountability that public organizing requires. Anne Nelson's 'Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right' (2019) is the definitive documentary account, based on leaked membership rosters and internal documents. Members listed in the CNP's 2014 membership directory (leaked and published by the SPLC in 2016) include: - Donors: Elsa Prince Broekhuizen (Betsy DeVos's mother); past presidents include Rich DeVos - Strategists/organizers: Ralph Reed, Phyllis Schlafly, Morton Blackwell (Leadership Institute), Richard Viguerie, Kellyanne Conway, Stephen K. Bannon; founders and past presidents include Tim LaHaye and Paul Weyrich - Politicians and officials: Edwin Meese, Ken Blackwell, Gary Bauer - Media: Stuart Epperson (CNP president, 2014) and Edward Atsinger (Salem Communications), Tim Wildmon (American Family Association) - Religious leaders: James Dobson, Tony Perkins (CNP secretary/treasurer), Richard Land; past members include Jerry Falwell Sr., Pat Robertson, and D. James Kennedy - Legal: Leonard Leo (Federalist Society), Michael Farris (HSLDA/ADF) - Think tanks: Edwin Feulner (Heritage Foundation) A January 2022 list obtained by the watchdog group Documented added former Vice President Mike Pence. The CNP's operational significance: 1. Coordination without accountability: CNP meetings allow the movement's leaders to align strategy, allocate resources, and coordinate messaging without any of this coordination being visible to the public, to journalists, or to regulatory agencies. 2. Donor-to-activist pipeline: Major donors meet directly with organization leaders and elected officials at CNP meetings, creating direct relationships that shape organizational priorities and funding flows. 3. Long-term strategy development: The CNP's continuity — it has met regularly for 40+ years — provides a strategic coherence across election cycles that no single organization could maintain. 4. The 2016 Trump accommodation: Anne Nelson's reporting documents that CNP members were divided on Trump in 2015–2016 but that a consensus emerged through CNP meetings that Trump's Supreme Court commitment made him acceptable. The August 2016 CNP meeting — attended by Steve Bannon, who had just been named campaign CEO — was described by attendees as a pivotal moment in the Religious Right establishment's accommodation of Trumpism. 5. Reported discussions: Anne Nelson and Sara Diamond describe CNP meetings as venues where the 1994 Contract with America push, the 2004 Bush evangelical mobilization, the anti-Obergefell effort, and the 2016 Trump evangelical outreach were discussed; the group's secrecy makes the extent of coordination hard to document. The CNP is why this network has the coherence it does. Without the CNP, the individual nodes would be less coordinated and less effective. With it, they function as a unified political movement.

Themes this entry appears in

• Christian Nationalism
• Anti-Democratic
• Political Strategy

Connections from Council for National Policy: Coordination Network

• influenced → Trump Evangelical Advisory Board (2016) (2016) — The Council for National Policy's August 2016 meeting — attended by Steve Bannon as Trump's newly appointed campaign CEO — was a pivotal moment in the Religious Right establishment's accommodation of Trump, according to Anne Nelson's 'Shadow Network.' In Nelson's account, CNP members who had been divided or reluctant converged at this meeting on the calculation that Trump's Supreme Court commitment and his Federalist Society-vetted nominee list made him acceptable. The meeting's participants included figures who subsequently served on or supported the evangelical advisory board.

Sources

• Council for National Policy 2014 Membership Directory (published by the Southern Poverty Law Center) — Council for National Policy (2014)
• Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right — Anne Nelson (2019), pp. 1–320
• Secretive Conservative Group Has Bulk of Its Money Going to Influence Elections — New York Times (2020)
• The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism — Katherine Stewart (2020), pp. 196–220