Paul Ryan is tapping his Rolodex of wealthy Republican donors to fund a new political nonprofit organization committed to promoting the conservative policies that drove the former House speaker’s legislative agenda over two decades in Congress.
The American Idea Foundation, with headquarters located in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, is the Republican’s answer to the question of how to influence American public policy while in his political retirement. The organization plans to partner with academics, think tanks, and other groups to address poverty, drug addiction, education, upward mobility, and other reforms Ryan worked on in Washington. Ryan is the foundation’s president, with two longtime aides running it day to day.
“I cannot wait to get started on this endeavor,” Ryan said in a statement.
Ryan, 49, retired from Congress last year after 20 years representing a House district situated in southeast Wisconsin. He rose from being a young, obscure lawmaker to the Republican Party’s 2012 vice presidential nominee. His career, marked by support for reforming political third-rail entitlement programs Medicare and Social Security, included stints as chairman of the Budget Committee and Ways and Means Committee in the House and, eventually, as speaker.
Ryan is a policy wonk and was much happier writing legislation than socializing with colleagues or raising money. But he understood that making policy required winning a majority in Congress — and that required raising money. Always a prodigious fundraiser, Ryan enlisted the GOP donors he cultivated during his vice presidential run and turned into a rainmaker for House Republicans.
In the 2020 election cycle, Ryan has donated some of the money sitting in his old campaign committees, $650,000, to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Ryan also is headlining fundraisers for some of the Republicans he once led while speaker. Now, some of Ryan’s leftover campaign cash is being used to seed the America Idea Foundation, a 501(c)(3) group.
