ALECexposed: List of Corporations and Special Interests that Underwrote ALEC's 40th Anniversary Meeting

This year's annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) had fewer corporations listed as sponsoring that meeting for a seemingly smaller total amount of revenue.

Based on the sponsorship rates ALEC promoted earlier this year, the organization took in approximately $910,000 from firms specifically designated as "President" to "Trustee" level sponsors for its 40th Anniversary meeting compared with estimated revenue of approximately $1.2 million for the same level of sponsorships at last year's meeting in Salt Lake City.

These totals reflect the highest profile sponsorship levels promoted at the meeting, but ALEC obtained an additional amount of revenue from other event sponsorship opportunities for corporations and special interest groups, in addition to registration fees, booth fees for its convention, and other income sources. So its total revenue from this year's meeting is certainly greater than $1 million, and it is not known if some corporations funded ALEC's meeting at various sponsorship levels but chose not to have their names listed as sponsors in ALEC's brochure, or not.

ALEC's last publicly reported annual revenue amount from all sources (except for its so-called scholarship fund for trips to legislators, which is counted separately) was approximately $7 million. As CMD has documented, about 98% of ALEC's revenue comes from corporations and sources other than legislative dues.

As previously noted by CMD, ALEC's stated conference sponsorship rates for 2013 relating to the levels in the images below were: $100,000 (President); $50,000 (Chairman); $25,000 (Vice Chairman); $15,000 (Director); and $5,000 (Trustee).

ALEC August 2013 Conference Sponsors Highest Level

ALEC Mid-Level Sponsors for Summer 2013 Meeting

ALEC Lowest Level Sponsors for Aug 2013 Meeting

Here is the narrative version of these images:

  • President Level: Reynolds American
  • Chairman Level: K12, Peabody Energy, "How Money Walks," the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Institute for Legal Reform, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, ExxonMobil, Citizens for Self-Governance, the Cigar Association of America, and the State Policy Network
  • Vice Chairman Level: Celgene, BNSF, PhRMA, UPS, and the Illinois Policy Institute
  • Director Level: Cloud Peak Energy, Century Link, Takeda, TransCanada, U.S. Steel, Progressive Solutions, Boehringer Ingelheim, SAP, Uline, Crown, the Liberty Foundation of America, and Monarch
  • Trustee Level: the American Federation for Children, Wells Fargo, Lilly, the Illinois Credit League, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Prairie State, Exelon Generation, Caterpillar, Ameren Illinois, Opportunity Ohio, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, and the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.

A more detailed analysis of which special interest groups increased or decreased their corporate sponsorships for ALEC's annual meeting, their legislative agendas, and their history is available here. CMD's report on sponsors for ALEC's 2012 annual conference is available here, along with related images from that meeting.

Lisa Graves

Lisa Graves is President of the Board of the Center for Media and Democracy and President of True North Research. She is a well-known researcher, writer, and public speaker. Her research and analysis have been cited by every major paper in the country and featured in critically acclaimed books and documentaries, including Ava Du Vernay’s award-winning film, “The 13th,” Bill Moyers’s “United States of ALEC,” and Showtime’s “Years of Living Dangerously.”