Works In Progress - June 2006 - ALEC: Writing Legislation Paid for by Corporate America

The U.S. public is becoming increasingly aware of federal corruption (in both the executive and congressional branches), but few are aware of a group of heavy-handed manipulators of State legislation: a corporate-funded organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC is a conservative public policy lobbying group funded by over 300 corporations which writes and promotes hundreds of pieces of state legislation that serve the corporate agenda. ALEC provided models for over 3,100 pieces of legislation introduced, and more than 450 laws enacted in 1999 - 2000.

Some examples of ALEC-written laws propose, for example,

To lower diesel emission standards and loosen testing requirements

Prohibit state regulation of greenhouse gas emission prior to ratification of the Kyoto protocol

Exempt large insurance providers from rate regulations

Require "economic impact" analysis on par with "environmental assessment"

Make it more difficult for states to mandate health coverage

Most recently, ALEC is the mastermind of state and federal legislation that puts animal rights protest actions into the realm of "domestic terrorism" -- drawing much more severe penalties and aggressive prosecution for those convicted of crimes formerly known as arson, for example. A Pennsylvania law passed in April 2006 is one state legislative example, and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (HR 4239) is its federal counterpart. Discussion of the latter occurred at a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee hearing May 23, 2006, and makes property damage such as the "loss of animals or records" and "conspiracy against scientists" prosecutable as terrorism under federal law.

ALEC, founded in 1973 by right wing activist Paul Weyrich (who coined the term "moral majority"), calls itself the "largest bi-partisan membership association of state legislators," but is actually one of the most powerful corporate lobbies in the U.S., and writes laws for state legislators. In the late 1980's ALEC's agenda became more shaped by corporate money, promoting laws which engender privatization of prisons and health care, and energy deregulation. Enron's Ken Lay was a keynoter at ALEC's 1997 convention, after he offered $20,000 of funding for the convention.

ALEC is funded by industry groups, conservative foundations, and corporations like: Enron, Exxon, the American Petroleum Institute, Philip Morris, Coors, the American Nuclear Energy Council, Shell, Texaco, Chlorine Chemistry Council, the NRA, Corrections Corporation of America, Archer Daniels Midland, International Paper, McDonald's, AT & T, Wal-Mart, and hundreds of others. Their funding base reads like a who's who in the extractive resource and chemical industries.

Corporate legislation written below the public's radar

Unlike Congress, many state legislators have little or no paid staff to carry out the research, drafting, and fact-checking required to scrutinize volumes of legislative proposals that flood their desks. ALEC operates by convening "task forces", bringing legislators (nearly all Republican) to the table to sit across from corporate reps to hash out "solutions" to impediments to corporate control. Thus, through ALEC, corporations have special interest legislation promoted to state legislators across the country without having their name on the legislation.

ALEC puts damage to property on par with actual harm to human life. When the Dept. of Justice announced environmental and animal rights activists as their top "domestic terrorism" priority, nowhere in the pronouncements of "terrorism" were body counts or even bodily injuries. Rather, "injury" is defined in dollars lost by corporations who are in the business of building multi-million-dollar developments on endangered species habitat.

ALEC, in collaboration with the U.S. Sportsman's Alliance, has written model legislation upping the ante for action taken against corporations in the business of development, logging, mining and vivisection. ALEC is responsible for legislation that has been introduced in 9 states in the last two years seeking to brand politically motivated property destruction, trespass or arson as acts of "domestic terrorism".

One such law passed in April, 2006 in Pennsylvania, amending the state code to include "eco-terrorism"-- defined as

a person committing one of a number of "specified offenses against property" with the intent to intimidate or coerce another individual lawfully participating in an activity which involves animals, plants, or natural resources -- or the use of an animal, plant or natural resource facility; or by committing a specified offense against property with the intent to prevent a person from lawfully participating in an activity involving animals, plants or natural resources, or using an animal, plant or natural resource facility.

Those "specified offenses against property" include risking catastrophe, criminal mischief and institutional or agricultural vandalism, as well as arson. A similar bill narrowly voted down by Maine's House of Representatives would make it a felony to "intentionally damage, destroy or tamper with the property of another ... for the purpose of causing substantial harm to the health, safety, business, calling, career, financial condition, reputation or personal relationships of the person with the property interest."

There is little doubt that the public's understanding of "terrorism" includes actual injury to living people, and not acts of protest that primarily affect the profit margin of a large corporation. But these proposed laws -- and the current sweep of environmental protesters who committed acts of sabotage against corporations or animal experimentation labs with zero injuries -- are right in sync with the corporate agenda of protection of wealth and protection of property above all else.

Working to expose ALEC

Groups including Move On, the SEIU and Steelworkers unions and others have launched PLAN -- the Progressive Legislation Action Network -- to provide a counter lobbying effort at the state level to ALEC's agenda of bringing the most radical, right wing policies to the floor of state legislatures across the country. Other organizations including NRDC and Defenders of Wildlife have put up an ALEC-watch website and campaign against ALEC policies.

The American Legislative Exchange Council's 33rd annual meeting is in San Francisco July 19 -- 23, 2006. The meeting is at the San Francisco Marriott, downtown SF, at 55 Fourth Street. Press are allowed, but screened by ALEC. ALEC even has a "Kid Congress"! See http://www.alec.org/3/annual-meeting/2006-annual-meeting-general-info.html for more details.

Sources:

Corporate America's Trojan Horse in the States http://www.ALECwatch.org/report.html

Ghostwriting the Law, Sept./Oct. 2002 Mother Jones

http://www.ALEC.org . You can download their booklet Animal and Ecological Terrorism in America