English Only Legislation - an ALEC Connection?

Have you ever wonder where "English Only" "Model Legislation" comes from?

When I saw they were introducing an "English Only" bill in the State of Minnesota ( yep, not a city - at the state level) I decided to do some research.  (Authored by our good ole ALEC Member  Steve Drazkowski)

The "Model Legislation" comes from ProEnglish - and yes they call it "Model Legislation", just like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  They have "model legislation" for states and cities available.

U.S., Inc. is the parent organization of ProEnglish and The Social Contract Press. Founded by John Tanton in 1982.

The past three years ProEnglish has awarded their

Theodore Roosevelt American Unity Award

to

U.S. Congressman  Tom Price of Georgia,”

U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, and

U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma.

ALL ALEC ALUMNI - coincidence? - probably not!

I went to the   Media Matters transparency web page to try to find financial information and I have to tell you it made me swear more than a few times.  But below you will find some of the information that I found regarding financial issues.  (Don't know if it's my old computer - or their web page - but I hope I never want to go back there again to do research.)
There's money that flowed to ProEnglish or from ProEnglish (this page kept freezing up my computer) to:
The American Legislative Exchange Council - yep, ALEC

ProEnglish receives money from the following;

Funder Adolph Coors Foundation  - Coors representative on ALEC Board

Funder Allegheny Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC   Part of Scaife Foundation

Funder American Petroleum Institute  - ALEC MEMBER

Funder Armstrong Foundation, The  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder CIGNA Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder Castle Rock Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation FUNDS ALEC – A Koch Foundation

Funder David H. Koch Charitable Foundation 

Funder Eli Lilly and Company Foundation  - ALEC Member

Funder Exxon Mobil  - FUNDS ALEC. ALEC Member

Funder JM Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder Jaquelin Hume Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder John M. Olin Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder Roe Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder Scaife Family Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation  - FUNDS ALEC

Funder Walton Family Foundation  - WalMart is a member of ALEC

There are 150 funders listed - I didn't have the time and energy to look at all of them and most of the first 20 or so had no additional information that I could use - so I stopped.

UPDATE
I found this company that was an exhibitor at the 2008 ALEC Annual meeting - couldn't help wondering if these two companies are related - but I don't have time to do the research right now - someone else should and write a huge expose.

  US English is the nation’s oldest and largest non-partisan citizen’s action group dedicated to

  preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States.  Founded in 1983 by the 

  late Sen. S.I. Hayakawa of California, U.S. English, Inc. can be found on the web at:

   http://www.usenglish.org/.

   Booth Number: 608

   Matthew Santos

   Government Relations Associate

   1747 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 1050, Washington, DC 20006.

   U.S. English Inc.

   202-833-0100

Oh, my.........................

If you don’t know what ALEC is, you'd better learn!

Please read this, or  this, or  this, or this.