Meet ALEC

"Corporations, like Koch Industries, Phillip Morris, Reynolds, Kraft, Wal-Mart, Bayer, Coca Cola, State Farm and more, sit on ALEC task forces and vote with state legislators to approve "model" bills in secret. They wine and dine legislators at swank hotels, with child care provided, fundraisers and other perks pre-arranged. After a swell time, participating legislators -- overwhelmingly conservative Republicans -- bring the bills home and introduce them into statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations. ALEC cuts out the middleman and the state legislators themselves become "super lobbyists" for the ALEC agenda."


"ALEC is not a lobby, and it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Behind closed doors, corporations hand legislators the law changes they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Corporations are "equal" members. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. Corporations and trade groups fund almost all of ALEC's operations directly through hefty membership dues and indirectly through corporate foundations, like the Charles G. Koch Foundation."


A little sampler:

Starving State Government of Revenue to Make It Dysfunctional and Despised: ALEC members are introducing hundreds of bills to grant tax breaks to big corporations and to cripple state's ability to raise revenue, including new constitutional rules to limiting state taxing powers. Grover Norquist would love these lethal proposals.

Privatizing Schools and Other Government Services: ALEC bills encompass over 20 years of effort to privatize public education through an ever-expanding school voucher system, to turn Medicare and Medicaid into voucher programs,and to privatize almost all aspects of government including toll roads and bridges, pensions, foster care and prisons. Foreign firms like Maquarie and Cintra, which are snapping up U.S. roads and bridges, are also using ALEC to push model bills.

Race to the Bottom in Wages for Americans: ALEC bills would repeal state or local laws that boost workers wages such as "living wage" and prevailing wage laws. ALEC bills call a starting minimum wage an "unfunded mandate" but think that prison labor is just terrific. ALEC also supports a radical "free trade" agenda that sends U.S. manufacturing and an increasing number of service-sector jobs overseas.

Defunding Traditional Supporters of the Democratic Party: ALEC purports to be nonpartisan, but only 1 of 104 legislators in ALEC's leadership is a Democrat. ALECexposed.org contains dozens of bills to defund public sector and private sector unions and to make it harder for trial lawyers to bring cases when consumers are injured or killed by dangerous products.

* Credit: Common Dreams 

Check out the website ALEC EXPOSED

They have their fingers in these government "pies":

• Worker & Consumer rights

• Tort reform & injured Americans

• Privatizing Schools & Higher Education bills

• Health, Big Pharma & Social Welfare

• Environment, Energy & Agriculture

• Tax & budget bills

• Guns, Prisons, Crims & Immigration

One part of their campaign is to: 

EXPOSE ALEC LEGISLATORS. Demand the truth about which politicians in your state are in ALEC. Uncover whether YOUR tax dollars are paying ALEC "dues." Expose politicians who accept “scholarships” from ALEC's corporate-funded coffers for fancy trips.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS....

High-Profile

ALEC Award-Winners

• President Ronald Reagan
• President George Herbert Walker Bush
• Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
• Governor John Kasich, identified by ALEC as involved in its formative years
• Governor Rick Perry
• Governor Tommy Thompson
• GovernorJohn Engler
• Governor Mary Fallin
• Secretary William J. Bennett
• Senator Jack Kemp
• CongressmanTom Feeney
• Congressman Mark Foley

(In addition to these politicians, ALEC has given awards to such corporate CEOs as Richard DeVos and Jay VanAndel of Amway (both in 1993) and Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch of Koch Industries (both in 1994).)

Featured Speakers

• President George W. Bush
• Vice President Dick Cheney (1994, then Former Defense Secretary)
• Vice President Dan Quayle
• Attorney General John Ashcroft
• Congressman Newt Gingrich
• Senator Trent Lott
• Chief Domestic Policy Advisor Gary Bauer (Family Research Council)
• Governor George Allen
• Senator Jon Kyl
• Governor George Pataki
• Senator Bob Dole

(Economist Milton Friedman has also been a featured speaker. At ALEC's 33rd Annual Meeting in 2006, he spoke about issues including the economy, school choice, education reform, tax reform.)

Alumni

• Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)
• Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois)
• Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (1995 Chair of ALEC Business Policy Board)
• Speaker Tom DeLay (R-Texas)
• White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card (for George W. Bush’s Administration)
• Senator Don Nickles (Oklahoma)
• Congressman Joe Wilson (recently called Obama a "liar")
• Representative Dan Burton (Indiana)
• Congressman Billy Tauzin (Louisiana)
• Representative Katherine Harris (Florida)
• Senator Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma)

WOW! I feel the need to go take a shower after reading this list of names. Katherine Harris is the former Secretary of State in Florida during the hanging chad election nightmare in the 2000 Bush2/Gore stolen election. 

Boehner just walked out on budget negotiations w the president yesterday, even though he makes $223,500 as Speaker of the House. How many jobs do you get to walk off in a hissy fit & still keep over $2 grand salary?

Tm Delay is now a convicted felon for money laundering. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Ashcroft  Bush2 should all be in jail for long lists of crimes against humanity. 

Click here to see a more extensive list of ALEC (owned) politicians. 

I thought lobbyists were bad enough, this takes it to a whole new lower level.