byLaura Clawson
The American Legislative Exchange Council has been influencing policy for the worse for decades; with the news that ALEC is struggling to keep members and raise the big corporate money to which it’s accustomed, let’s review just what all that money does:
by Kiley Kroh
Organizations that actively block efforts to address climate change are funded by a large network of conservative donors to the tune of nearly $1 billion a year, according to the first in-depth study into the dark money that fuels the denial effort.
The study, published Friday in the journal Climatic Change, analyzed the income of 91 think tanks, advocacy groups, and industry associations, funded by 140 different foundations, that work to oppose action on climate change. The study’s author, Robert Brulle, refers to these organizations as the climate change counter-movement, and concludes that their outsized influence “has not only played a major role in confounding public understanding of climate science, but also successfully delayed meaningful government policy actions to address the issue.”
“It is not just a couple of rogue individuals doing this,” Brulle told the Guardian. “This is a large-scale political effort.”
via NPR
ALEC is sort of almost a dating service between politicians at the state level, local elected politicians, and many of America’s biggest companies. It brings them together much as a dating service would do. It sits them in rooms behind closed doors where three times a year they come together to think about what should be the next wave of state-based legislation and they have presentations from the companies that say what they would like to see done legislatively in states right across America. Then they have a vote and the legislators begin. Hundreds of state legislators across America belong to ALEC and come to these meetings.
They begin to have a vote on what they’d like to do in the next state assembly session. And after the legislators have voted the companies get to vote and essentially they have a veto. If they don’t vote by at least 50 percent to approve a piece of legislation going forward, it doesn’t happen. If they think they do approve of it, it goes ahead and becomes a model bill, which is like a blueprint for a piece of legislation that ALEC wants to see spread across America.
By Dana Milbank
“What you fundamentally need to know about this organization is it’s completely legislator driven,” said senior director of public affairs Bill Meierling.
Uh-huh. And ALEC is proving that by keeping reporters from the rooms where the legislators are or are not receiving their marching orders from corporate patrons.
This probably won’t fly much longer. Arlington, Virginia-based ALEC has been a major force behind the conservative swing in state capitals, and it claims 82 alumni in the House — including Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) — and 11 in the Senate. Its advisory council includes Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, Diageo, AT&T, Peabody Energy, Koch Industries and UPS, and exhibitors at its conference this week include the Charles Koch Institute, the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) are addressing the conference.
But ALEC’s fortunes began to change with the killing of Trayvon Martin and the resulting attention to the danger of “stand your ground” laws, one of many initiatives ALEC spread from sea to shining sea. Some corporate sponsors, including Amazon, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Kraft, McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, quit ALEC. On Tuesday, the Guardian newspaper published a trove of internal ALEC documents showing how grim its situation has become.
It reported that the group has lost almost 400 state legislators in the past two years and more than 60 corporations. Its income fell a third short of projections in the first six months of this year. To raise money, the documents showed, ALEC considered expanding its policy portfolio to gambling, and, concerned about potential tax problems with its designation as a 501(c)(3) charity, it is considering 501(c)(4) status, which would allow it to lobby more openly.
Among the ALEC documents obtained by the Guardian: a draft loyalty oath for legislators who serve as the group’s state chairs, declaring that “I will act with care and loyalty and put the interests of the organization first.”
ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a business-casual matchmaker service between corporate interests and sympathetic lawmakers. They operate mostly in state legislatures, where they have used “model legislation” to enact such beneficial statutes as Stand Your Ground and Block Your Ballot and, most recently, a tidy fee for the society-destroying radicals who capture sunshine on their own homes, making them “free-riders” who steal from power companies by sometimes contributing surplus energy back to the power grid.. or something…
© 2024 Madison County Democratic Committee
Website by Ren LeVally — Up ↑
