ALEC

~think of it as that dark, damp, corner of your basement that always has that bad smell…

_________________________________________________________________________________

Bad law, like black mold, needs a dark place to grow and eventually become toxic and dangerous. Legislatively speaking, that dark place is called ALEC;

ALEC is an acronym for The American Legislative Exchange Council. It is a 501(c)(3) organization that was started by the Koch brothers who remain its primary source of funding. It is composed of conservative legislators, businesses and foundations which produces model legislation for state legislatures and promotes so-called Free Market and conservative ideas.

ALEC currently has more than 2,000 legislative members representing all 50 states, amounting to nearly one-third of all sitting legislators, as well as more than 85 members of Congress and 14 sitting or former governors who are considered “alumni”. The vast majority of ALEC’s legislative members belong to the Republican Party.

ALEC also claims approximately 300 corporate, foundation, and other private-sector members. The chairmanship of ALEC is a rotating position, with a new legislator appointed to the position each year. The current chair of ALEC is David Frizzell, a member of the Indiana House of Representatives.

_________________________________________________________________________________

BusinessWeek wrote that “part of ALEC’s mission is to present industry-backed legislation as grass-roots work.” ALEC’s role in drafting and distributing model legislation through its lawmaker members became public knowledge as the result of a Freedom of Information Act filing and a leak of ALEC’s internal library of model legislation,resulting in scrutiny and controversy over the group’s role in the legislative process.

The New York Times wrote that “special interests effectively turn ALEC’s lawmaker members into stealth lobbyists, providing them with talking points, signaling how they should vote, and collaborating on bills affecting hundreds of issues like school vouchers and tobacco taxes.^“

Progressive advocacy groups such as Common Cause questioned ALEC’s non-profit status, alleging that the Council engaged in lobbying. ALEC responded by denying that it engaged in lobbying, and arguing that liberal groups were attacking ALEC because “they don’t have a comparable group that is as effective as ALEC in enacting policies into law.”

Many legislators would then have to tell their constituents what they’ve mostly been able to hide up till now – that via ALEC they’ve been wined and dined by high-powered corporate lobbyists who took a hand in shaping laws in the state where you live.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Here’s an example of what’s at stake. The American Chemistry Council – that’s the trade group for the chemical industry – has used ALEC to press for changes in health and safety rules on toxic chemicals. Earlier this fall the council poured nearly 650,000 dollars into supporting Wisconsin republican Tommy Thompson’s bid for the U.S. Senate this November.

By now it won’t surprise you to learn that Wisconsin’s former governor has been a friend of ALEC going all the way back to his days as a state legislator, when he himself was an ALEC member. Take a listen to a speech Thompson made at an ALEC conference in 2002: “I always loved going to those meetings because I always found new ideas. Then I’d take them back to Wisconsin, disguise them a little bit, and declare that’s mine.“—Tommy Thompson