I'm AFRAID of ALEC ... I'm Very Afraid!

No, not Alec Baldwin!  He may make the headlines pretty often with his outbursts, but I kind of like him.  In fact, my wife and I usually spend New Year's Eve with him (more on that later).  No, this ALEC doesn't make headlines often enough, but it's a group you should know more about ... and learn to fear.  ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, describes itself as a "nonpartisan individual membership organization of state legislators."  

Individual membership organization?  The individual membership dues of $50 per year paid by state legislators who are ALEC members accounts for less than 2% of ALEC's funding.  The rest comes from corporations, corporate trade groups, corporate foundations, and the like.  Corporate members pay between $7000 and $25,000 per year, plus additional fees for participating in ALEC's task forces.  ALEC also accepts direct grants from corporate sources, such as the $1.4 kicked in by Exxon-Mobil.

Nonpartisan?  Of the 104 legislators in leadership positions, you would need exactly one finger to count the number of Democrats in the mix.  Past ALEC members and honorees include Eric Cantor, Rick Perry, Joe "You Lie" Wilson, Tom DeLay, Scott Walker, and the Koch brothers, also big-time ALEC contributors.

On ALEC's task forces, corporations debate and vote on "model" bills alongside the legislator members.  Model bills?  ALEC is pressing for bills such as Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law that has garnered so much media attention lately.  They are champions of privatizing education, ending public schools as we know them.  They are responsible for many of the new voter ID laws around the country, which have had the effect of disenfranchising minority voters.  In fact, as some of these voter ID laws are in the process of being struck down, Pennsylvania just passed one.  Care to guess how many cases of voter fraud Pennsylvania has had?  Hint:  you won't even need one finger to count them.

Let me get back to Alec Baldwin.  No, we're not personal friends, but we do get to share New Year's Eve every year.  Baldwin serves as the PBS host for the annual New York Philharmonic gala concert every December 31st.  During the performance, he takes a seat in the box next to the one we sit in - and I've never seen him have a temper tantrum or play Words With Friends during a concert.  So I'm not afraid of that Alec.  The other ALEC - I'm very afraid.  How about you?

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