Now you can swap out that GE lightbulb, Western Union $100 to the old country, continue that cell phone contract with Sprint, protect your computer from that nasty virus, smother that hot dog with French's mustard, and pay the electric bill in New Orleans, all without indirectly supporting the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Imagine a retreat at a swank Wisconsin resort, where elected officials are wined and dined by corporate lobbyists, have their travel and accommodations paid, have activities for their families and their child-care subsidized, and are given tickets to major league ball games and elite parties by corporate lobbyists with business before the legislature.
Wisconsin's Republican Attorney General is fighting to get vote-suppressing laws in place for the November election, asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reinstate the voter ID law that has been found unconstitutional by two separate state judges, despite that Court rejecting a similar request in recent months.
Florida Governor Rick Scott is spending taxpayer money defending a law conceived by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and proposed for ratification by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that would prohibit doctors from asking their patients about gun ownership. Though the law has been blocked by a federal court, it appeared set to follow the path to becoming an ALEC "model bill" paved by the infamous "Stand Your Ground" law, which was initially cited by law enforcement to protect Trayvon Martin's killer in Florida.
More companies have announced they are cutting ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) even as some corporations, like eBay, continue to stand firm.
A right-wing group that pledged to "continue the excellent work of the American Legislative Exchange Council" (ALEC) and promote voter ID has published a thinly-sourced blog post that purports to show people of color and the poor are actually helped by voter ID laws, an unsupported claim that is being hyped as a "study" by outlets like Fox News and the Daily Caller. More comprehensive research has demonstrated that these laws threaten to disenfranchise around 5 million people nationally, primarily people of color, students, and the poor.
The week the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was in Salt Lake City for its 39th annual meeting, award winning cartoonist Pat Bagley produced this gem in Utah's largest newspaper, The Salt Lake Tribune. The cartoon "A Legislator Walks Into a Bar" aptly characterizes the relationship between legislators, mega-corporations, and ALEC. State Representative Mark Pocan (D-WI) has put it bit more gently describing ALEC as a "dating service" for politicians and corporations.
Salt Lake City -- A close look at the annual meeting brochure of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) shows that anti-corporate campaigners are having an impact on the secretive "bill mill" that brings politicians and corporate lobbyists together behind closed doors to craft, amend, and vote on "model" legislation.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona has asked the man behind the "show me your papers" anti-immigrant law in that state to show them his emails. An open records request to former Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce netted thousands of email records sent from Pearce's account that suggest Arizona's SB 1070, which was taken up as an American Legislative Exchange Council "model bill" but recently struck down in large part by the U.S. Supreme Court, was motivated by racism and xenophobia.
SALT LAKE CITY -- American Legislative Exchange Council legislators, corporate lobbyists, and special interest group staffers awoke Thursday morning to bad news about ALEC delivered to every room at the "five diamond" Grand America hotel. Although the print edition of the Salt Lake Tribune's headline read "ALEC says it won't be threatened," the news story in the state's leading paper featured two prominent critiques of ALEC.
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