Robert B. Carleson (February 21, 1931 – April 21, 2006)[1] was a key policy advisor on welfare issues to Ronald Reagan in California and the White House; he also founded a conservative alternative to the American Civil Liberties Union called the American Civil Rights Union in 1998.

In 1968, Carleson was appointed as Chief Deputy Director of the California State Department of Public Works.

At the request of Governor Ronald Reagan, Carleson laid the major policy groundwork for California’s 1971 welfare reform.

Carleson's memoirs were published as Government IS the Problem: Memoirs of Ronald Reagan's Welfare Reformer edited by Susan A. Carleson and Hans A. Zeiger, foreword by Edwin Meese III (Alexandria, Virginia: American Civil Rights Union, 2009), 160 pages.

The ACRU founding Policy Board includes former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, Pepperdine Law School Dean Kenneth W. Starr, economist Walter Williams, and the late political scientist James Q. Wilson.