Reply #164: DKos diarist MNDem999: "ALEC - Is Revolting to Me" + separate blog about ALEC [View All]

I didn’t know about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) until about 8 weeks ago. Since that time it has basically consumed my life. The fact that our State legislators are sitting at the table with companies such as Koch, WalMart and AT&T drafting, deliberating and approving “model legislation” for our states and our country - makes me sick. The fact that our legislators think this is okay, is revolting to me.

The fact that all the companies that belong to ALEC have the money to lobby our US government and in addition, have the ability to affect the legislation at the State level through ALEC state legislative members, makes me sick. The fact that our legislators at the state and federal government condone this, is revolting to me.

Based on my research I have come to the opinion that ALEC is subverting American democracy and the democratic (small d) process, at all levels of the government, in the name of free markets and federalism (which in this case is a truly horrible thing).

Over the course of the past two months I have spent my nights and weekends trying to find out as much as I could about ALEC. I wanted to know who their members were. I wanted to look at the legislation they were proposing. I wanted to know exactly which of their “model legislation” was passed as law. I wanted to know what their “real” philosophy was. I wanted to know what their “true” purpose was. So I started doing research. Doing research on ALEC is difficult as they “scrub of the web” quite often, now-a-days.

-snip-