Reply #28: Part of the problem lies in the limitations of state legislators [View All]

It's been a few years since I read the explanation of this, and I may be fuzzy on the details -- but the short version is that for the most part, state legislators are not up to the job of actually writing legislation.

They don't have the time, the funding, the staff, the legal background or whatever it takes. So they're really happy when somebody slips them a ready-written piece of legislation with all the fine details already taken care of.

Some of the people promoting the ALEC stuff are raving right-wing nutjobs, of course. But a lot of them are just run-of-the-mill state legislators who are thanking for having somebody else do the heavy lifting for them.

This is also a reason lobbyists have so much influence -- it's not all just bribes and flattery.

There's no easy solution, because the left will never have the deep pockets of the right. ALEC is part of the Heritage Foundation nexus, which has always been the leading recipient of funding from right-wing foundations. (Notably Coors, Scaife, and now Koch.)

But raising awareness of ALEC's priorities and what kind of legislation they're shipping around -- and then getting the word out so that ordinary citizens are aware of what's in the pipeline and can get the message across to their own representatives -- might at least provide some balance.