NRA slashed spending on federal lobbying amid legal troubles
This article originally appeared in OpenSecrets. Sign up for their weekly newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Following years of legal setbacks, internal strife and declining revenue, the National Rifle Association reported spending $540,000 in federal lobbying spending during the first quarter of 2024 — the least amount of money the group has spent at the start of a year since 2009, according to lobbying disclosures reviewed by OpenSecrets. Last year, the preeminent gun rights group spent $2.3 million, a near-record low.
In February, a New York jury found former NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre liable in a civil trial for misusing millions of dollars of the organization’s money to pay for his lavish lifestyle, including exotic getaways and trips on private planes. LaPierre resigned as executive vice president and CEO on the eve of the trial.
Five years ago, the New York State Attorney General’s office launched a probe into the nonprofit after an investigation by The Trace, a newsroom that reports on gun issues, exposed self-dealing at the organization.
As the NRA’s legal troubles mounted, NRA revenue fell 40% from $352.6 million in 2018 to $211.3 million in 2022, the lowest in ten years, tax records show. At the same time, the organization nearly doubled the amount of money it spent on legal expenses.
The NRA’s federal lobbying spending peaked at $5.1 million in 2017 but then dropped off to $2.2 million in 2020, a 10-year low as the COVID-19 pandemic brought Washington to a standstill. When President Joe Biden entered office in 2021, the NRA ramped up spending to $4.9 million but quickly cut back to $2.6 million in 2022.
That year, Congress passed the most significant federal gun safety legislation in decades after a gunman killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Signed into law on June 25, 2022, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act expanded background checks, closed loopholes in federal gun laws and funded community-based violence prevention programs and mental health services. Twenty-nine congressional Republicans backed the bill, defying the NRA and other gun advocates.
The NRA also cut back on lobbying in state capitols, OpenSecrets found. Spending by the organization fell nearly 65% from a record-high of $1.3 million in 2020 to $458,000 in 2023 across the 19 states that release meaningful data on lobbying expenditures.
What all this means for the organization as it emerges from the scandals of the last few years remains unclear. The NRA did not respond to requests for comment but longtime watchers of the organization told OpenSecrets that the nonprofit will likely remain a powerful force in American politics, at least in the near future.
Though the NRA is losing revenue, shedding members and spending far less to influence federal policy than in previous years, the NRA remains one of the most powerful and well-funded groups within the gun rights movement. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearm industry’s largest trade association, and the Gun Owners of America are the only gun rights groups that have spent more than the NRA on federal lobbying since 2021. But these groups represent smaller and more niche factions than the 150-year-old NRA, experts said.
“I don’t think there are any groups that are in a position to really build a level of relevance that would rival that of the NRA,” Matt LaCombe, a politics professor at Case Western Reserve University, told OpenSecret. LaCombe is the author of Firepower: How the NRA Turned Gun Owners into a Political Force. “These groups have had opportunities to grow during this period, and they probably have grown at the margins. But the NRA is just so much bigger.”
Robert Spitzer, a political scientist and the author of six books on gun policy, said no other group has managed to attract the same level of support.
“The single most important thing to understand about the NRA in terms of its influence politically is its grassroots base of support,” Spitzer told OpenSecrets. “Its membership is highly motivated and mobilizable, and they will do things in politics to a degree of activism that the typical American does not.”
The NRA also continues to spend about as much on lobbying as all gun control advocates combined, OpenSecrets found. Groups including Everytown for Gun Safety, Sandy Hook Promise, Giffords and the Brady Campaign collectively spent about $2.3 million on federal lobbying in 2023 — roughly as much as the NRA. In the first three months of 2024, gun control advocates outspent the gun rights organization by just $40,000.
Protecting gun rights is to some degree “baked into Republican politics,” LaCombe added. The NRA has been closely aligned with the GOP for nearly 50 years, and it has successfully made opposing and even loosening restrictions on gun ownership a linchpin issue within the party, even though public opinion polls show a majority of Americans support stricter firearm regulations.
Ian Vandewalker, a senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program, told OpenSecrets that issues are “so well sorted from a polarization perspective” that the gun lobby doesn’t have to endorse or back a Republican candidate financially to know that they will be reliable on gun rights.
Despite some recent setbacks at the federal level and in left-leaning states, the gun rights movement has been largely successful at loosening state restrictions on gun ownership in most of the Deep South and Midwest. Since Biden entered office in 2021, 13 states have enacted NRA-backed measures eliminating the need to obtain a license to carry a concealed firearm. Earlier this year, Louisiana and South Carolina became the 28th and 29th states, respectively, to repeal permit requirements.
Gun advocates also stymied efforts by Uvalde families last year to raise the minimum age to buy a semi-automatic assault rifle in Texas from 18 to 21 years old. Instead, Texas state lawmakers approved a safety bill requiring an armed guard at every school. They also passed three NRA-backed bills, including a measure to prohibit local governments from requiring gun owners to purchase liability insurance.
And efforts are underway to undercut the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. On May 15, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — who helped negotiate the landmark bill — joined 43 of their Republican colleagues on a resolution to strike down a regulation created under the law. The new rule, which Cornyn called a “flagrant distortion of congressional intent,” would expand the number of gun sellers required to run background checks, closing a loophole that allowed tens of thousands of weapons to be sold by unlicensed dealers to buyers who may not have been legally permitted to purchase a firearm.
Days later at its annual convention in Dallas, the NRA endorsed former President Donald Trump, no stranger himself to legal troubles. During his convention speech, Trump vowed to roll back gun safety regulations enacted under Biden.