Dirty Money: ALEC’s Monopoly on American Law
To itself, the American Legislative Exchange Council — also known as ALEC — is an organization that stands to promote efficient and limited governance and the advancement of the free market through the maintenance of a unique partnership between a collection of state legislators and the private sector. To its critics, ALEC is but a shadowy back-room arrangement where big corporations pay significant sums of money to pollinate the nation’s legislatures with pre-packaged “model” bills that are friendly to their agendas. Objectively speaking, ALEC has come to be the nation’s leading bill-template “factory” over its four decades-long history, braving controversy after controversy by providing conservative elected officials with an elusive and exclusive social network — a means of accessing future campaign donors and accelerating political careers at an irregular pace safe from public scrutiny. By providing such a valuable service to both members of government and the nation’s leading businesses, ALEC has ensured its own survival for decades more to come.
ALEC’s ingenuity and power were on display in July of 2017, when nearly fourteen-hundred lawmakers, lobbyists, and corporate representatives descended on a hotel in downtown Denver, Colorado. With exhibit booths, workshops, TED Talk-esque speeches, and even entertaining activities to keep the families of attendees happy, ALEC’s casual facade was no accident — it was intended to foster strong relationships. As attendees including the likes of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Forbes editor-in-chief and heir Steve Forbes, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich dined on regal-crest chicken and Yukon potatoes at a kickoff luncheon inside a dimly lit ballroom, the sapphire ALEC logo was projected upon a screen along with the logos of some of its biggest private sponsors: Farmers Insurance, Chevron, AT&T, and UPS. With speeches over lunch centering round the fight to take back control of the states from the federal government, tax and regulation reductions, and the transformation of the nation as a whole, Denver was ALEC at its finest.
Formed in Chicago in 1973 by a small group of state legislators and conservative activists with one goal in mind — to support conservative limited government ideas and disseminate appropriate policies more efficiently — ALEC’s members consist of corporate giants across all industries — Altria (tobacco), Anheuser-Busch (alcoholic beverages), Bayer (pharmaceuticals), FedEx (delivery), DuPont (chemical), ExxonMobil (oil/gas), State Farm (insurance), Visa Inc. (financial), UnitedHealth (healthcare), and the infamous National Rifle Association among others. Other companies such as Amazon, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and General Motors have pulled out only within the last decade or so following exposes being published and the subsequent public uproar — ALEC maintains a vice-grip on the American state.
ALEC is a powerful social network that — according to its chief marketing officer and executive vice president Bill Meierling — private-sector members pay upwards of $12,000 a year to be a member of, with most membership fees ranging between $12,000 and $25,000 annually depending on how much “accessibility” members are seeking. Raking in an estimated $10,300,000 in revenues, which includes $8,900,000 from “donations and grants,” according to its 2016 IRS Nonprofit Tax Report, private sector members can expect to pay an additional $5,000 to join an ALEC “task force,” or the closed-door “rooms” where template bills are drafted and debated. For its public sector members, lawmakers, an ALEC membership costs $100 for two years of membership, with conference attendance fees covered by either voter donations or by applying for travel reimbursements from ALEC directly.
In layman’s terms, ALEC’s bill templates are drafted up by lawmakers, lobbyists, interest group representatives, and corporate executives in secrecy, distributing the draft only to members deemed “trustworthy” and discouraging members from engaging in cellphone photography as a means of reducing the chances of leaks. After the template is finished, it is distributed to lawmakers throughout the fifty states to be introduced as their own, original bill. In return, said lawmakers are looked upon favorably by the drafting members in their respective upcoming election cycles, a relationship sure to result in campaign donations and further cooperation through the ALEC network. In its four decades of operations here are some of ALEC’s finest products — if you’re not interested in reading through all of them, at least give their names a read.
No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act (Introduced in 23 States)
- The NSCII Act Template mandates that federal immigration laws be enforced by local law enforcement and works to further criminalize the employment of illegal immigrants. The act strictly bans that act of “trespassing” on state land without proper immigration status and having an illegal immigrant in one’s motor vehicle. Additionally, the NSCII Act permits private citizens the ability to sure their local governing body if they feel that immigration law is not being fully enforced.
ALEC State Withdrawal from Regional Climate Change Initiative (Introduced in 9 States)
- The initiative outlines the lack of benefits of reducing carbon emissions in a state and provides interested states with ample legal cover in the event they wish to withdraw from a regional green-earth initiative.
Castle Doctrine Act (Introduced in 9 States)
- More commonly known as the “Stand Your Ground” law, the Castle Doctrine Act authorizes the use of deadly force by an individual against intruders when in their residence or vehicle, reinforces the right of deadly force when an individual feels there is a reasonable fear of “great bodily harm,” and reduces the ability of law enforcement to investigate deadly force incidents when prior conditions are met.
Consistency of Firearm Regulation (Introduced in 9 States)
- The regulation prohibits local governing bodies from independently drafting restrictions on firearm sale and possession and blocks them from being able to engage in civil actions against arms retailers, firearms/ammunition manufacturers, or relevant trade associations.
The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act (Introduced in 10 States)
- The act simultaneously requires the disclosure of fluids being used in the production of natural gas via “fracking” while allowing operations the ability to not disclose materials considered to be present incidentally in the hydraulic fluid or to be “trade secrets.” The act furthermore bolsters the operator’s ability to declare a wide range of materials “trade secrets” and protects them from individual challenges.
Living Wage Mandate Preemption Act (Introduced in ? States)
- The model legislation prevents local governments from deciding how they spend their own taxpayer money and draft their own wage laws by declaring that contracts with government contractors must pay living wages.
Sixteenth U.S. President Abraham Lincoln famously stated in his Gettysburg Address, “…we here resolve…that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” but after a quick examination of its relationship with ALEC, the governments in the United States seem to be exhibiting anything but the mentioned populist format. While legal, ALEC’s production of model bills on a broad range of issues including the deregulating of individual/corporate taxation, combating illegal immigration, loosening environment regulations, tightening voter ID regulations, weakening labor rights, and opposing gun controls endangers the lives of everyday Americans and the maintenance of American populist nature itself. In America’s political landscape, a Republican president and his party’s lawmakers that ran for office on a populist platform continue to exhibit behaviors of a plutocracy-governed nation, where “#DrainTheSwamp” becomes tax breaks for big corporations, the well-connected, and the president’s family — where big corporations that preach “Black Lives Matters” and “LGBTQ+ Pride” do so with American blood on their hands.
The United States has long been known on the global front as the gleaming beacon of democracy. As millions of people worldwide suffered at the hands of leaders they didn’t elect and laws they didn’t have any say in, the United States supposedly symbolized a release from such oppressive principles. Formerly the nation of populism, where every step of the government was dictated by the people themselves, the United States has come to become a plutocratic nation today. If party leaders, big business, and a handpicked batch of constituents that politicians need to please are placing these men and women into their seats of awesome power, it’s time to ask: does the United States and its federalist government systems remain of the people, by the people, and for the people?
