Reply #360: BLOOMBERG Wal-Mart Joins Amazon to Pitch State Law for Tax Benefit Plan Aug 5 [View All]

ALEC Critics
ALEC has become a target for some activist groups who contend that corporations, which finance most of ALEC’s operations and reimburse the travel costs for some elected officials who attend the meetings, shouldn’t have a seat at the table when lawmakers are writing bills.
“Legislators are voting behind closed doors alongside corporations to change our rights,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, a Washington- based group that tracks news sources, who traveled to New Orleans to provide a counterpoint to ALEC’s messages.
Niederhauser, whose home is in Sandy, Utah, said the criticism is overblown. “I get lobbied much harder in my own state,” he said. He and other elected officials attending this week’s gathering said they come to ALEC meetings to network with colleagues from other states.
Corporations are “definitely here, but I’ve not been lobbied at all,” said Kansas Representative Mike Burgess, a Republican who has served in the state legislature for nine years. “I’ve not been subjected to any arm twisting.”

Wal-Mart and BP
Companies definitely were there. Officials from Wal-Mart, oil giant BP Plc (BP/), and drug-maker Allergan Inc. were among the hundreds of private sector members at the New Orleans meeting. Three boards more than six-feet tall listed the event sponsors, which included United Healthcare Inc., cigarette-maker Altria and pharmaceutical-maker Johnson & Johnson.
When Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican, spoke at the opening day luncheon, the logo for PhRMA, the lobbying arm of the pharmaceutical industry, was displayed on a screen behind him. Shell Oil Co.’s yellow shell logo hovered over the head of economist Arthur Laffer when he spoke at a breakfast.
Corporate sponsors of organizations’ annual meetings aren’t unusual. It is ALEC’s task forces that are coming under most scrutiny.
The committees meet in sessions closed to reporters and the general public, during which they debate and vote on model bills. Legislators and private-sector task force members must vote to endorse any model legislation -- and each group must deliver a majority before it is officially adopted, said Raegan Weber, ALEC’s spokeswoman.