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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBehind Enemy Lines at ALEC's Right-Wing Policy Conference
Activists say the American Legislative Exchange Council backs corporate interests over peopleThe 15-foot-tall fat cat clutches his money bag in one paw and the working man's throat in the other. (Photo by John Anderson)
"Hey hey, ho ho, corporate lobbyists have got to go!" chanted around 100 labor, immigrant, environmental, disability, and social justice advocates outside the JW Marriott Hotel Downtown on Wed., Aug. 14. "Hey, ALEC, you can't hide, we can see your greedy side!" they later continued. The protesters stood alongside a 15-foot, cigar-chomping, inflatable cat wearing a pinstriped suit with one paw he held a construction worker by the throat; with the other, he grasped a bag of cash. The "unwelcome reception," organized by Progress Texas and joined by a coalition of advocacy groups, rallied against what was gathering inside the high-end hotel: the 46th annual American Legislative Exchange Council conference.
Better known as ALEC, the group markets itself as "America's largest nonpartisan, voluntary membership organization of state legislators dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism." Gaining public notoriety in the past decade, the group has been around since 1973. According to investigations into the shadowy organization, ALEC is a corporate-backed group with ties to the right-wing Koch Brothers network that drafts "model policy" for member legislators to use as their own at their statehouses.
While keeping members' identities secret, ALEC claims "one-quarter of the country's state legislators" participate in its efforts. The "corporate bill mill," as described by watchdog groups, is behind controversial "Stand Your Ground" gun laws and measures that limit workers' rights and health care access. With Reaganomics icon Arthur Laffer as a celebrated ALEC scholar, the group supports corporate tax breaks, the privatization of public services (from education to prisons), and voter suppression policies.
Activists laid out the charges against ALEC at the Downtown protest. "Hijacking the legislative process to serve corporate interests and right-wing billionaires is not welcome in Texas," said Texas AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Montserrat Garibay. "ALEC has promoted far-right agendas on the environment, health care, disability rights, voting rights, immigration, and on other issues that we address every day in a quest to build a better Texas. They are a secretive, partisan shadow group. And this week, ALEC is in Austin working behind closed doors to hatch more bad bills."
Read more: https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2019-08-30/behind-enemy-lines-at-alecs-right-wing-policy-conference/
underpants
(182,279 posts)- the guy Trump wanted to appoint to the Federal Reserve Board, but who was too clownish even for Senate Republicans shares his finely honed insights with the ALEC crowd.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)is like saying the House of Sawd backs royal interests over journalists'. These people are profoundly inimical to democracy and to all interests but their own. They organized to corrupt the political process to serve them, to institutionalize their corruption in our systems, to pull the entire nation farther right/libertarian in thinking and action, and have been at for over four decades. They've done enormous harm to our nation and played a big part in bringing us to this dangerous point.
harumph
(1,871 posts)Although, it's more like it backs the wealthy over the non-wealthy. I've gotten to point when I see
wealth - I wonder exactly how it was made. I tend to think much of it is through schemes that while
legal on paper (maybe) are laughably inequitable when scrutinized. IMO, there are few people getting
rich off of actual innovation. Pump and dump.