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Grover Norquist, a national conservative leader with a big streak of renegade in him, is coming to Lincoln to promote immigration reform, which he supports primarily on economic grounds.

Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform, an advocacy group he founded in 1985 at President Ronald Reagans request. ATR works to limit the size and cost of government and opposes higher taxes at the federal, state and local levels.

His conservative credentials include his membership on the boards of the National Rifle Association of America and the American Conservative Union.

His most famous quote is: "My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

Newt Gingrich called Norquist the person who I regard as the most innovative, creative, courageous and entrepreneurial leader of the anti-tax efforts and of conservative grassroots activism in America. ... He has truly made a difference and truly changed American history.

But Norquist parts ways with many conservatives on the issue of immigration.

In an essay he wrote in 2013 for The Guardian, Norquist wrote, "People are an asset, not a liability. The United States is the most immigrant-friendly nation in the world and the richest country in the world. This is not a coincidence. Those voices that would make us less immigrant-friendly would make us less successful, less prosperous and certainly less American."

He endorsed immigration reform legislation that would allow 11 million undocumented immigrants to earn legal status by submitting to a background check to weed out those with felony convictions, and paying taxes and a fine.

"This legislation would greatly strengthen the American economy," he wrote in The Guardian.

Norquist was invited to speak at an invitation-only reception and dinner Feb. 2 at Lincoln Station by a coalition of businesses, people, lawyers and interest groups: the Nebraska Restaurant Association, the Nebraska Retail Federation, Nebraska Cattlemen Association, League of Women Voters of Lancaster County, Prairie Fire -- The Progressive Voice of the Great Plains, Brown Immigration Law LLC of Lincoln and Justice for Our Neighbors of Nebraska, a nonprofit in Omaha.

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Norquist coming to Lincoln to promote immigration reform