Professionally, Morton Blackwell is the president of the Leadership Institute, a non-partisan educational foundation he founded in 1979.
His institute prepares conservatives for success in politics, government and the news media. Over the years the Leadership Institute has trained more than 56,000 students. It currently has revenue of $12.7 million per year and a staff of 58.
In youth politics, Mr. Blackwell was a College Republican state chairman and a Young Republican state chairman in Louisiana.
He served on the Young Republican National Committee for more than a dozen years, rising to the position of Young Republican National Federation national vice chairman at large.
Off and on for five years, 1965-1970, he worked as executive director of the College Republican National Committee under four consecutive College Republican national chairmen.
He served on the Louisiana Republican state central committee for eight years.
First elected to the Arlington County (Virginia) Republican Committee in 1972, he is a member of the Virginia Republican state central committee and was first elected in 1988 as Virginia’s Republican National Committeeman (RNC), a post he still holds. In 2004 he was elected to the Executive Committee of the RNC.
Having worked actively in politics for more than forty years, he has probably trained more political activists than any other conservative. Starting in the 1960s, he has trained thousands of people who have served on staff for conservative and Republican candidates in every state.
Mr. Blackwell was Barry Goldwater’s youngest elected delegate to the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco.
He was a national convention Alternate Delegate for Ronald Reagan in 1968 and 1976, and a Ronald Reagan Delegate at the 1980 national convention.
In 1980, he organized and oversaw the national youth effort for Ronald Reagan.
He served as Special Assistant to the President on President Reagan’s White House Staff 1981-1984.
Mr. Blackwell is something of a specialist in matters relating to the rules of the Republican Party. He served on rules committees of the state Republican parties in Louisiana and in Virginia. He serves now on the RNC’s Standing Committee on Rules and has attended every meeting of the Republican National Conventions’ Rules Committees since 1972.
Mr. Blackwell’s writings have been published in the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Human Events, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. He has also appeared on major radio and television network news programs, including Fox News and CNN’s Crossfire.
In addition to serving on the board of directors of the American Conservative Union, Mr. Blackwell serves on the boards of the American Civil Rights Union, the Conservative Leadership PAC, the Free Congress Foundation, the National Right to Work Committee, and the Philadelphia Society.