ACLU’s top lobbyist to step down

Laura Murphy, the American Civil Liberties Union’s top lobbyist, will be stepping down at the end of the month after two decades at the organization, according to an announcement on Thursday.

Murphy is planning to reopen her consulting firm, Laura Murphy & Associates and will become a student at Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership.

“She will surely go down in history as a true champion of the rights of all people,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero in a release.

She has been the American Civil Liberties Union’s longest-serving Washington legislative office director in the organization’s history and both the first woman and African-American to hold that position.

“As the ACLU’s top lobbyist, Laura has led Herculean efforts to enact, block, or repeal legislation that would positively or adversely impact the lives of millions of Americans,” Romero said.

In her first few years at the helm, she dramatically increased the group’s K Street profile.

In 1998, for example, the ACLU was only spending $200,000 per year on lobbying, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. However, by the mid-2000s, that spending had increased to a peak of more than $4.2 million per year.

Those figures have fluctuated and leveled out in recent years, hovering around $1.9 million, but still remain at sums remarkable for the nonprofit sector.

“Her ability to work across the political aisle and with all branches of government, her sharp political acumen, and her exceptional skill at forming and maintaining strong relationships with policy makers and advocacy leaders have helped make the ACLU a uniquely effective force in Washington,” Romero continued.

Murphy became the ACLU’s top lobbyist 17 years ago, though has spent a total of 20 years with the group. There will be a search for her replacement.