Reply #409: Bangor Daily News: American Legislative Exchange Council ’s long arm reaching into Maine policy [View All]

Eric Russell’s story on the American Legislative Exchange Council (BDN, Sept. 14) leaves open more questions than it answers. Are our laws outsourced? Does it matter? Are our legislators taking their direction from deep-pocketed corporate interests? Does it matter that legislators’ travel and hotel costs are typically funded (all-expense-paid vacations) by ALEC to their national meetings? Yes, yes, yes and yes.

Thanks to the investigations of the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy, alecexposed.org, we know of several Maine legislators with ALEC task-force assignments: Sen. Brian Langley (education), Rep. James Hamper and Sen. Mike Thibodeau (telecommunications and information technology), Sen. Deb Plowman (civil justice), Sen. Doug Thomas (energy, environment and agriculture), Sen. Chris Rector (international relations) and Rep. Ryan Harmon (tax and fiscal policy).

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Although legislators typically do accept stipends from ALEC to attend their national gatherings, we are told by the director of Maine’s Legislative Council that Rep. Andre Cushing went to New Orleans last month on the taxpayer’s dime. Why?

I hope we can count on the BDN to dig deeper into this evolving story.