ACRE

ACRE: WHAT DOES IT STAND FOR?

ACRE is the Action Committee for Rural Electrification.

ACRE also stands for political realism — the realism that if people expect to achieve reasonable political objectives, they must work together in citizen action to elect people who will support them.

That is what ACRE is really all about. Its purpose is to help elect friends of rural electrification to Congress.

Organized in 1966, ACRE is the nonpartisan, political action arm of NRECA, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

NRECA is the national organization of more than 900 member cooperatives, which serve some 42 million consumers in 47 states.

Each year, several thousand rural electric leaders from NRECA’s member systems make personal contributions to ACRE.

Then, during election years, acting on their behalf, ACRE contributes to candidates for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives who support the rural electrification program and its objectives. At the state level, ACRE contributes to those delegates and senators who represent and support cooperative values.

ACRE members live in every part of the country. They are “grassroots” America. And they cover the spectrum of American politics. Some are liberal, some conservative, and some are in between. Some are Republicans, some Democrats, and some are Independents.

But they are united in their support for a strong and progressive rural electrification program.

When it comes to determining candidate support, they agree on the long-standing ACRE policy that, “We support those who support us.”

Who makes the judgment on candidate selection? ACRE officials and committees on local, state, and national levels make the decision based on the candidates’ voting records, their speeches and public statements — all information available that indicates where he or she stands on basic rural electrification issues.

So, what is ACRE?

ACRE is farmers, ranchers, clerks, teachers, linemen, managers, businessmen, professional men and women, housewives, blue collar workers of all kinds — rural people using their basic political rights to fight for a program they believe in and for security in their jobs and improvement in rural living standards.