Cardenas Elected New ACU Chair

American Conservative Union Treasurer Al Cardenas has been elected as the next chairman of the ACU in a meeting of the organization’s board.

American Conservative Union Treasurer Al Cardenas has been elected as the next chairman of the ACU in a meeting of the organization’s board, FrumForum can report.

Outgoing chairman David Keene is stepping down from his post after 27 years to join the National Rifle Association, and the ACU’s thirty-one member board convened today to select his successor.

Cardenas has a long history in Republican circles: he was a former two-term state chair for the Florida Republican Party and a member of President Ronald Reagan’s transition team in 1980.

The new chairman’s selection will be formally announced at a press conference Thursday morning.

Cardenas now takes the reins of an organization whose main priorities include the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and the ACU’s yearly ranking of members of Congress.

CPAC has been the subject of some controversy lately, as the inclusion of gay conservative group GOProud as a co-sponsor has caused the Heritage Foundation, Sen. Jim DeMint, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to refrain from the event. Fringe groups like WorldNetDaily piled on, paying for a full-page ad in the Washington Times to condemn GOProud’s inclusion.

As such, Cardenas will be tasked with ensuring everyone in the broader conservative tent gets along in the run-up to next year’s conference.

David Keene, elected as ACU chairman in 1984, was the first ACU chairman not to be a member of Congress. His decision to step down and join the National Rifle Association was widely known in conservative circles but most prominently reported in the New York Times a week and a half ago.

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