Say NO to taxpayers funding ALEC

Rick Combs, director of the Legislative Counsel Bureau, has requested $775,000 to pay dues to such organizations as the National Conferences of State Legislatures, the Council of State Governments, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Nevada taxpayer money should not be used to fund "corporate lobbying" by ALEC organizations.

ALEC was the subject of the September 29, 2012 edition of Moyers & Company hosted by Bill Moyers. In the report, Moyers traced the progress of ALEC model legislation through several legislatures. He called it
"an organization hiding in plain sight, yet one of the most influential and powerful in American politics... They were smart and understood something very important: that they might more easily get what they wanted from state capitals than from Washington, DC. So they started putting their money in places like Raleigh, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Phoenix, Arizona; and Madison, Wisconsin."
"It sounds like lobbying. It looks like lobbying. It smells like lobbying. But ALEC says it’s not lobbying. In fact, ALEC operates not as a lobby group, but as a nonprofit … a charity. In its filing with the I.R.S. filing ALEC says its mission is "education." Which means it pays no taxes, and its corporate members get a tax write-off. Its legislators get a lot too."
"The ALEC member corporations help craft the bill, ALEC legislators introduce it and vote on it, and now there’s a state law on the books that enables one of those corporations to get state money. Game, set, match. But remember: this story isn’t about one company . . . and one law . . . It’s about hundreds of corporations in most every industry, influencing lawmakers in state after state using ALEC as a front."
As part of the report, Mark Pocan, a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly was identified as a legislator "trying to expose ALEC’s fingerprints". Pocan said
"ALEC is a corporate dating service for lonely legislators and corporate special interests that eventually the relationship culminates with some special interest legislation and hopefully that lives happily ever after as the ALEC model. Unfortunately what’s excluded from that equation is the public."
Arizona Assistant Minority Leader Steve Farley proposed an ALEC Accountability Act to force legislators to disclose their ALEC ties.
I just want to emphasize it’s fine for corporations to be involved in the process. Corporations have the right to present their arguments, but they don’t have the right to do it secretly. They don’t have the right to lobby people and not register as lobbyists. They don’t have the right to take people away on trips, convince them of it, send them back here, and then nobody has seen what’s gone on and how that legislator had gotten that idea and where is it coming from. All I’m asking... is to make sure that all of those expenses are reported as if they are lobbying expenses and all those gifts that legislators received are reported as if they’re receiving gifts from lobbyists. So the public can find out and make up their own minds about who is influencing what."
Moyers reported on the Common Cause effort to change ALEC's status.
Many legislators would then have to tell their constituents what they’ve mostly been able to hide up till now – that via ALEC they’ve been wined and dined by high-powered corporate lobbyists who took a hand in shaping laws in the state where you live. Here’s an example of what’s at stake. The American Chemistry Council – that’s the trade group for the chemical industry – has used ALEC to press for changes in health and safety rules on toxic chemicals. Earlier this fall the council poured nearly 650,000 dollars into supporting Wisconsin republican Tommy Thompson’s bid for the U.S. Senate this November. By now it won’t surprise you to learn that Wisconsin’s former governor has been a friend of ALEC going all the way back to his days as a state legislator, when he himself was an ALEC member. Take a listen to a speech Thompson made at an ALEC conference in 2002."
I always loved going to those meetings because I always found new ideas. Then I’d take them back to Wisconsin, disguise them a little bit, and declare that’s mine.
—Tommy Thompson
Arizona legislation on immigrants
According to a 2010 National Public Radio report, the Corrections Corporation of America was present at an ALEC meeting where Arizona State Senator Rusell Pearce was present, as well as several dozen others, and where model legislation concerning immigration was presented. According to NPR, the legislation requires police to arrest immigrants who are fail to show they are documented. Michael Bowman, ALEC’s senior director of policy, said in regard to model legislation in general: "Most of the bills are written by outside sources and companies, attorneys, [and legislative] counsels." NPR later stated: "This story did not mean to suggest that the Corrections Corporation of America was the catalyst behind the law or that it took ...