Howard Phillips (born February 6, 1941) has served as the Chairman of The Conservative Caucus, a conservative public policy advocacy group, since 1974.

A 1962 graduate of Harvard College (where he was twice elected chairman of the Student Council), Phillips is president of Policy Analysis, Inc., a public policy research organization which publishes the bimonthly Issues and Strategy Bulletin.

Jewish by birth, Phillips converted to evangelical Christianity in adulthood^[1] and has been associated with Christian Reconstructionism.

Phillips and his wife, Peggy, reside in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Republican years

During the Nixon Administration, Phillips headed two Federal agencies, ending his Executive Branch career as Director of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity in the Executive Office of the President, a position from which he resigned when President Richard Nixon reneged on his commitment to veto further funding for "Great Society" programs.

Conservative Caucus

Phillips left the United States Republican Party in 1974 after some two decades of service to the GOP as precinct worker, election warden, campaign manager, Congressional aide, Boston Republican Chairman, and assistant to the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. In 1978 Phillips finished third in the Democratic primary for the US Senate in Massachusetts. Paul Tsongas won the primary and defeated the incumbent, a liberal African-American Republican, Ed Brooke, in November.

Since 1974, Phillips has been Chairman of The Conservative Caucus, a nonpartisan, nationwide grass-roots public policy advocacy group which has been in the thick of battles, in opposition to the Panama Canal handover and the Jimmy Carter-Leonid Brezhnev SALT II treaties in the 1970s, in support of Strategic Defense Initiative and major tax reductions during the 1980s, and in the vanguard of efforts to terminate Federal subsidies to ideological activist groups under the banner of "defunding the Left."

Other Conservative Caucus campaigns have involved opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization, support for a national version of California's Proposition 187 (to end mandated subsidies for illegal aliens), as well as continuing efforts to oppose publicly-funded health care, abortion, and gay rights. Phillips is the host of Conservative Roundtable, a weekly public affairs television program.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Phillips coordinated efforts to build private sector support for anti-Communist "freedom fighters" in Central America and Southern Africa. He played an instrumental role in the leadership of the New Right, as well as in the founding of the religious right in 1977. Phillips has led fact-finding missions to Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, South America, Central America, Western Europe, and the Far East.

Constitution Party years

He is one of the founders of the U.S. Taxpayers Party (which changed its name to the Constitution Party in 1999), a third party associated with conservative, pro-life issues, and constitutional government ideas on both social and fiscal issues. He was that party's presidential candidate in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 elections for President of the United States.

Phillips was chosen by an overwhelming majority of delegates at the National Convention of the U.S. Taxpayers Party, in San Diego, California on August 17, 1996 to serve as its presidential candidate. Controversy--After the 1992 National Convention at New Orleans it was discovered that Michael Skaggs, the party's first convention manager, was fired by nominee and founder Phillips because Skaggs did not vote for Phillips at the convention for president. Skaggs, who was also a delegate representing the District of Columbia and was at no time told his vote for president was a requirement for remaining employed, instead voted for Arizona Governor Evan Mecham and as a result of his vote was fired from his position with Phillips' group, the Conservative Caucus. The only reason Phillips gave for the firing was Skaggs' vote for Mecham. Skaggs filed a lawsuit for wrongful firing which was settled out of court for a very small amount. At no time has Phillips admitted wrong doing or taken responsibility for denying Skaggs' First Amendment Voting Rights. The story was reported to a number of conservative news outlets, including "Human Events", "The New American" and "Southern Partisan".

Writings

• The New Right at Harvard (1983)
• Moscow's Challenge to U.S. Vital Interests in Sub-Saharan Africa (1987)
• The Next Four Years (1992)
• Judicial Tyranny: The New Kings of America? (Amerisearch, 2005) ISBN 0-9753455-6-7 - contributing author

See also

• Wikia:campaigns:Howard Phillips

References

External links

• Video interviews with Howard Phillips
• Howard Phillips' Blog
• Official Website of The Conservative Caucus
• Congressman Dan Burton, referencing a visit to Angola by Phillips and Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst Michael Johns, cited the article "Savimbi's Elusive Victory in Angola" in the Congressional Record, October 26, 1989.
• "The Last Honorable Politician", a WorldNetDaily interview
• The Constitutional Education Project, founded by Phillips,
• Speech: "Why Our Cause Has Been Losing—How We Shall Win"
• Official website of Conservative Roundtable

Template:Start box |- ! colspan="3" style="background: #FFBF00;" | Party political offices

|- style="text-align: center;" |- style="text-align:center;" |width="30%" align="center" rowspan="1"|Preceded by
No one (Party not yet commissioned) |width="40%" style="text-align: center;" rowspan="1"|Constitution Party Presidential candidate
1992 (lost), 1996 (lost), 2000 (lost) |width="30%" align="center" rowspan="1"| Succeeded by
Michael Peroutka |- Template:End box