By State Representative Leon D. Young
Leon D. Young
First and foremost, what is ALEC? ALEC is an acronym for the American Legislative Exchange Council. It should be noted that ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line.
Since Scott Walker and his political cronies seized political control in Wisconsin, they have been vigilant in their attempts to adhere to ALEC’s conservative blueprint. Moreover, the recently signed 2013-15 State Budget contained a number of major policy changes taken directly from ALEC’s playbook, such as: rejection of federal money for BadgerCare (Medicaid) expansion, expansion of the school voucher program statewide and ending residency requirements.
ALEC describes itself as a non-partisan Capitol Report – Page 2 organization. The facts show that it currently has one Democrat out of 104 legislators in leadership positions. Moreover, the organization boasts 2,000 legislative members and 300 or more corporate members. The unelected corporate representatives (often registered lobbyists) sit as equals with elected representatives on nine task forces where they “voice and a vote” on model legislation.
So how does ALEC advance its nefarious agenda? The scram works like this: a bunch of corporations get together and get tax write-offs for bankrolling a charity called “The American Legislative Exchange Council” – (sounds pretty official).
Then, they schmooze and booze a whole lot of politicians from states all over the country at posh hotels. Corporate bucks also buy “scholarships” for politicians – if you are a scholar of drinking scotch, smoking cigars and playing golf at a resort.
So now, there’s suddenly one, big happy family – the corporations, the lobbyists and the politicians. They all get together, Capitol Report – Page 3 far away from you — citizens and voters, and the unelected lobbyists secretly vote with the politicians (as equals, of course!) – on the things that corporations want to do like: gut clean air and water rules; raise credit card rates as high as they want; crush Democratic unions; make it easier to shoot people (stand your ground laws); and privatize schools, prisons and bail.
So once the politicians have been suitably wined and dined (a little campaign contribution here, a good time there!), the politicians/legislators head back to their capitols and Congress and fast track as many of these bills as they can.
And there you have it: a model ALEC bill.
Sadly, under this new political paradigm financed by ALEC and exacerbated by the Citizens United decision, “government by and for the people” of this nation is becoming increasingly obsolete.