By Betsy Woodruff
January 23, 2014 3:23 PM
National Review

With the first event of its kind, Heritage Action will seek to prod congressional leadership through an early-February policy summit. The day-long event, called “The 2014 Conservative Policy Summit: An Agenda to Unite America,” will come a week after the House GOP wraps its annual retreat. The timing, per Heritage Action COO Tim Chapman, isn’t a coincidence. Party leaders will convene to choose their focuses for the coming months, he says. And his organization isn’t confident they’ll choose the right ones.

“Our concern is that they would be focusing their time and energy on things that don’t highlight the big, bold ideas conservatives stand for,” Chapman tells National Review Online. “And so we want to take the affirmative step to do that while they’re in that thinking mode.”

Attending lawmakers — including Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Tim Scott, as well as Representatives Tom Price, Raul Labrador, and Matt Salmon — will give speeches on legislation they’ve proposed. Those talks will be followed by panel discussion of the bills’ prospects in Congress and potential to help the country.

Topics will include health care, welfare reform, electronic privacy, and school choice. Immigration will be absent from the discussions, per Chapman.

“We’ve said that we need immigration reform, but we are not in a political climate where we can have honest brokers on the other side with the Obama administration,” he says.

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