# American Action Network **Type:** 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organization **Founded:** 2010 **Headquarters:** Washington, D.C. **President:** Dan Conston (also President of [[Congressional Leadership Fund]]) **Chairman:** Norm Coleman (former Republican U.S. Senator from Minnesota) **Twin organization:** [[Congressional Leadership Fund]] (the House-Republican-leadership Super PAC) American Action Network is the **Republican-aligned House dark-money 501(c)(4)** — the twin organization to the [[Congressional Leadership Fund]] Super PAC. The pair, founded in 2010 contemporaneously with the broader post-Citizens-United dark-money infrastructure, supports House Republican candidates with the standard twin-structure division of labor. The pair operates under common leadership: Dan Conston has been President of both organizations, mirroring the operator-continuity pattern documented at [[Crossroads GPS]] / [[American Crossroads]] and [[One Nation]] / [[Senate Leadership Fund]]. The House-Republican-leadership operation is therefore structurally parallel to the Senate-Republican-leadership operation: a single operator running an interlocking Super PAC + 501(c)(4) pair supporting the House Republican leadership's electoral coalition. ## The Twin-Structure Pattern | Entity | Tax Status | Donor Disclosure | |---|---|---| | [[Congressional Leadership Fund]] (Super PAC) | 527 / IE-only PAC | Disclosed to FEC | | American Action Network (501(c)(4)) | 501(c)(4) social welfare | Not disclosed | Operational division of labor: - **Congressional Leadership Fund** runs disclosed Super PAC operations supporting Republican House candidates - **American Action Network** runs undisclosed 501(c)(4) operations on the same races and the same broader House-Republican political program ## 2026 cycle — $43,500,000 into CLF's non-contribution account FEC-verified, five grants, all on **Line 17 (Other Federal Receipts)**, each carrying the memo text **"NON CONTRIBUTION ACCOUNT"** — i.e. into the unlimited independent-expenditure side of CLF rather than its hard-money side: | Date received | Amount | FEC file | |---|---|---| | 2025-06-17 | $5,500,000 | 1923597 | | 2025-06-25 | $1,500,000 | 1923597 | | 2025-12-31 | $9,000,000 | 1978836 | | 2026-03-31 | $7,500,000 | 1978840 | | 2026-06-30 | **$20,000,000** | 1996816 (amended report) | | **Total** | **$43,500,000** | | The Q2 2026 grant is **nearly triple** the Q1 grant and 46% of the cycle total on its own. Issue One puts the AAN-to-CLF flow at roughly **27% of CLF's total receipts**. Recorded as [[American Action Network 43.5M to Congressional Leadership Fund]]. What it funds is recorded at [[CLF 18.7M House IE September 2026]] — $18,688,377.36 in one notice across 25 House districts, **100% of it opposing Democrats**. > [!warning] Amended rows included > Three of these rows carry amendment or corrected indicators. Excluding them here would have > reported **$23,500,000**, a 46% understatement. ## Significance for the KB American Action Network completes the **four-vehicle Republican-congressional dark-money architecture** alongside: - [[Senate Leadership Fund]] (Senate, Super PAC) - [[One Nation]] (Senate, 501(c)(4)) - [[Congressional Leadership Fund]] (House, Super PAC) - American Action Network (House, 501(c)(4)) Together with the corresponding Democratic-side operations (Senate Majority PAC + [[Majority Forward]] on the Senate side; House Majority PAC plus various 501(c)(4)s on the House side), these eight vehicles constitute the principal contemporary congressional-cycle political-spending architecture. The substantial majority of post-2010 federal-congressional cycle outside spending flows through these organizational structures. The Norm Coleman chairmanship is also structurally instructive: Coleman is a **former Republican Senator** (Minnesota, 2003-2009) who lost his 2008 reelection bid to Al Franken. The post-electoral career trajectory — losing senator → conservative-movement organizational chairman — is a common pattern in the contemporary Republican infrastructure, illustrating how electoral losses are absorbed into the broader movement-infrastructure architecture rather than ending the loser's political role. ## See Also - [[Congressional Leadership Fund]] — the paired Super PAC twin - [[Senate Leadership Fund]] — the Senate counterpart - [[One Nation]] — the Senate 501(c)(4) counterpart - [[Crossroads GPS]] — the Republican-side dark-money template - [[501(c)(4)]] — the entity type - [[Citizens United v. FEC]] — the case enabling the post-2010 architecture - [[Dark Money]] — the broader funding infrastructure - [[Campaign Finance Timeline]] — full chronological view - [[Campaign Finance]] — Foundations hub