ALEC - Here to Help You - Hah!

From InsideALEC March 2010

ALEC is here to help you.

Please contact Amy Kjose at (202) 742-8510 or akjose@alec.org.

From InsideALEC July 2010

Task Force Directors

ALEC’s Task Force Directors [ALEC staff] are available to help you to find model bills that may be a benefit to your state. They also can help vet solutions to problems you are facing and make suggestions and recommendations for your consideration.

And they mean it!!!!!

Here’s a snip from an article in the New York Times where Ohio legislators sought ALEC’s help.  And they got it.   FRONT PAGE of the online edition - just below the fold on April 22, 2012 - AWESOME!

I recommend reading the whole article – It is very good. – My emphasis in bolding.

Conservative Nonprofit Acts as a Stealth Business Lobbyist

Desperate for new revenue, Ohio lawmakers introduced legislation last year that would make it easier to recover money from businesses that defraud the state.

It was quickly flagged at the Washington headquarters of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a business-backed group that views such “false claims” laws as encouraging frivolous lawsuits.

One of them [ALEC member] , Bill Seitz, a prominent Republican state senator, wrote to a fellow senior lawmaker to relay ALEC’s concerns about “the recent upsurge” in false-claims legislation nationwide.

The legislation was reworked to ease some of ALEC’s concerns, making it one of many bills the group has influenced by mobilizing its lawmaker members, a vast majority of them Republicans.

As for his decision to write a memo raising objections to the Ohio false-claims bill, Mr. Seitz, a lawyer and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that occurred after he attended an ALEC task force meeting and talked about it with his co-chairman, a Washington lawyer and lobbyist who represents the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other businesses. He said he learned that the bill, as originally written, would have been “a trial lawyer’s bonanza,” and so he has been working with the state attorney general to draft legislation more acceptable to himself — and to ALEC.

ALEC’s bylaws also grant its corporate members greater power over task force appointments. They say lawmakers can be removed from a task force leadership position for any reason, while private-sector members can be removed only “with cause,” like nonpayment of dues.

EXAMPLE NUMBER TWO

from South Carolina

COLUMBIA — Sen. Mike Rose stoodup on the Senate floor earlier this month to clear confusion over a bill and asked for a delay so he could check with the measure’s creator.

But the proposal’s author wasn’t a fellow lawmaker or anybody in South Carolina.

“This is an American Legislative Exchange Council bill,” the Summerville Republican told his colleagues. “What I would like to do over the break is to do the research now with ALEC and address the senator from Orangeburg’s concerns.”

The moment provided a rare public outing of a little-known player in the state Legislature — a Washington-based, mostly corporate-funded nonprofit that pairs lawmakers across the country with business interests.

The extent of ALEC’s influence in the Palmetto State is difficult to nail down, as there is no complete or definitive public tracking of just how many of its model bills have been introduced or passed here in some form over the years.

But the group’s bills are materializing at the Statehouse.

It’s rare for state legislators to publicly admit that a bill they sponsor is actually the work of ALEC, but the similarities between the group’s model bills and some introduced here are undeniable. Whole sections of some, with a few words changed, match ALEC models.

EXAMPLE THREE

New York

Last year, for instance, New York state lawmakers introduced a pair of bills requiring corporations to get shareholder approval before making donations to politicians or outside groups, such as super PACs. Backers argue the measure would provide crucial safeguards for investors. “Giving shareholders a voice ensures that their money isn’t used for political purposes they don’t agree with or that are detrimental to the corporation,” explains Adam Skaggs, a senior counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University law school.

Nevertheless, ALEC’s Public  Safety and Elections Task Force — which has since been disbanded amid the outcry over stand your ground — sent out an “issue alert” to its New York members urging them to vote the measure down. Among other things, the document, which was dated Feb. 15, 2011, argued the bill imposed “oppressive and impractical requirements on corporations,” which restricted corporate free speech and thus could “deter and delay these entities from participating in political debate.”

“Not only do these burdensome requirements impede upon First Amendment rights, they are also unnecessary,” the memo continued. “Shareholders always have the option of voting out board members and removing management who engage in independent expenditures contrary to the interests of the company and its owners … Legislation punishing speech stifles uninhibited public debate and undermines the very purpose of the First Amendment.” The effort was apparently successful: The New York legislation is currently stalled.

ALEC’s advocacy on the issue apparently began shortly after the Supreme Court’s landmark Citizen’s United decision

Oh, my........................
Kinda looks like lobbying to me.

And a good reason to remember  ... 
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ALEC members and those affiliated with ALEC in any manner
MUST NOT BE RE-ELECTED or receive our support in any means or manner!

Without state and federal legislators ALEC will cease to exist and it will implode.

For more information on ALEC –
Please read this or this or this
or this series of six articles.

This is what ALEC is About  - An Interview with Mark Pocan about the ALEC Annual Meeting.

A Minnesota specific report about ALEC by Common Cause.

And watch this news video  from North Carolina on how other ALEC "model legislation" is going to screw the citizens of North Carolina - legislation introduced by ALEC legislators.

Do your own "act of education".
Distribute these materials about ALEC to your friends and family.
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