Most people have heard the “I’m Just A Bill” song on Schoolhouse Rock on Saturdays. In this somewhat simplified version of the legislative process, we learned that laws originate with citizens who contact their elected representatives to help them solve problems in their daily lives. However, this outdated, cumbersome process is well over 200 years old, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has a much more modern way. They’re aggressively taking us annoying citizens out of the legislative loop by providing a “forum” where representatives of industries and individual corporations write legislation and give it to state legislators for introduction in their states, all without mentioning ALEC. ALEC has quietly built a library of over 800 “model” bills on every conceivable legislative issue, and their alumni include luminaries like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, House Speaker John Boener, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Senate Minority Whip John Kyl, and many more.
In July, 2011, a massive amount of internal ALEC data including model bills, resolutions, personel, and more were leaked to the Center for Media and Democracy, who built the website ALECexposed.org to make it available to the public at large. We’ve included a link to their site, but if you don’t want to wade through all that text we’ve also included links to ALEC reporting from The Nation magazine, and two radio reports from NPR that can give you the basics to make you eye-buggingly, teeth-grindingly furious.
“Shaping State Laws With Little Scrutiny” 7-minute audio-only report by Laura Sullivan for NPR’s “Morning Edition“, October 29, 2010
“Who’s Really Writing States’ Legislation?”, 32-minute interview with The Nation’s John Nichols by Terry Gross for NPR’s “Fresh Air“, July 21, 2011
ALEC Exposed– Exhaustive ALEC website from Center for Media and Democracy
ALEC.org– ALEC’s own website
This is the main ALEC article from The Nation, and the articles below are sub-articles linked to this main one
- Business Domination
- Sabotaging healthcare
- The Koch Connection
- Starving public schools
- Rigging Elections
Update 12/4/13– ALEC’s still at it. This time plans call for taxing people who put solar panels on their roofs and for further gutting the EPA. The goal? Destruction of any advancement of a green energy economy. Check out the full article from The Guardian here.
