Democrats create an ALEC-killer

[Triana]

Chastened by the conservative movement’s startling success at using national money to dominate state legislatures, liberal activists this week will ask top donors to support a plan to reverse the precipitous Democratic decline in state governments, where the party was trounced yet again on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama’s former liaison to the states will launch a major new state-focused organization called the State Innovation Exchange – or SiX for short – before donors on Friday at the annual winter meeting of the Democracy Alliance liberal funding club.

SiX’s goal is an ambitious one: to compete with a well-financed network of conservative groups – including the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC – that for years have dominated state policy battles, advancing pro-business, anti-regulation bills in state after state.

I hope that their goal includes the city and county level of ALEC’s ACCE and the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity.

SiX ultimately plans to raise as much as $10 million a year to boost progressive state lawmakers and their causes — partly by drafting model legislation in state capitols to increase environmental protections, expand voting rights, and raise the minimum wage – while also using bare-knuckle tactics like opposition research and video tracking to derail Republicans and their initiatives.


Nick Rathod is a career Democratic operative who started and will run SiX. | AP Photo

THE REST:

http://respriv.org/new-group-forms-help-fight-alec-dominance-states/

[Politicalboi]

1. How about following the LAW

To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.

So their solution is more money.

How about NO money but "brains" required. No Joni Ernst, Sarah Palin, GW Bush. So at least if our party does lose, we aren't left with nuts and idiots.

[Triana]

4. . . .

At the end....

Like ALEC, SiX is not be required to disclose its donors, but Rathod said it plans to do so voluntarily, partly to differentiate it from ALEC.

SiX’s lawyers plan to file paperwork this week with the Internal Revenue Service to officially create the group as a two-pronged outfit by changing the names of two of the groups it annexed to the State Innovation Exchange. Since the groups were registered under different sections of the tax code – ALICE under 501(c)3 and Progressive States Action under 501(c)4 – SiX will be able to engage in both policy and political advocacy.

While SiX initially does not intend to play directly in state legislative elections, Rathod said that, if all goes well, his group will do so in subsequent year by forming a political action committee called — cleverly — SiX PAC.

[Turn CO Blue]

5. It's not about helping campaigns or candidates. SiX will hopefully

be about policy - drafting legislation to take on issues at the state legislature level. Hopefully it will be bills that will COUNTER all the thousands and thousands of crap bills that ALEC hands over to Republican state legislators. Many bills put into state legislations are WORD FOR WORD from the original ALEC drafts, even.

Every single idea they put forth, we need to be putting our own opposite version of the bill. And our state legislators don't have the time or resources to draft all those bills. And frankly, they don't often think of these issues.

For example: ALEC is writing bills in every state to make trouble for homeowners who install solar roofs, saying they must be charged extra fees, must have a certain license, making it illegal to sell back extra electricity, making it illegal to "go off-grid", etc. IF we had our OWN version of ALEC, we would already have bills and hopefully (in states that allow it) constitutional amendment proposals that would protect homeowner rights to solar, make it illegal for Homeowner's Associations to bar solar panels, make it illegal to charge extra fees, license fees, etc.

And there are about five million more examples of legislation we need written in every single state.

[bravenak]

2. Finally!!nt

[RiverLover]

3. Thank God.

Truly. Can only fight the money with money until we can change things & eventually get $$$ OUT OF POLITICS.

[Turn CO Blue]

6. Every single bill that ALEC drafts and hands over to a Republican, needs to be countered

with an OPPOSITE version that takes it even further if necessary. And then we need to get out in front and put our protections and policy out there before ALEC and the chamber of commerce have time to email their newest bills over to the republibots.

I have been saying for at least six years - where the hell is our version of ALEC? We have needed a thinktank policy counter to ALEC for forever. And why the hell didn't the progressive leadership mention our need for this a long time ago?

I could write up a list of at least 100 ideas for legislation to pass on to Democrats in my state chamber in less than an hour - but I don't know the legalese, verbiage, etc. We need a group of brainiacs, idea-people to do this.

[Triana]

7. +1. Maybe you should contact them? Seriously! n/t

[Qutzupalotl]

8. This will make being a congressional Democrat easier.

To have a body crafting model legislation is a big time-saver for legislators, who now have to spend their time at fundraisers. I don't like that, but that's the system as it stands post-Citizens. To not follow ALEC and the Republicans' lead on this would place our representatives at a disadvantage. So this is encouraging.

[rickford66]

9. A dozen years too late. GOP controls most state legislatures.

Dems were asleep at the wheel for way too long. Some say on purpose, but it happened.

[kairos12]

10. And school boards.

[calimary]

11. Well how 'bout that.

Finally waking up, are they? Only took about THIRTY-PLUS fucking years!!!!!!!!

Now, though, we have to try to think ahead of the game. ALEC has faced a bit of a challenge and a few exposures here and there. In one case they have even changed their name. But do NOT for one single nanosecond fool yourself into thinking that the threat is over. Anymore than the menace of Blackwater is over. Think that one's busted, dead, and buried? Not on your life. It's had several name changes by now. Some idiot concept called Xe was the first facelift. Then they further changed it to something else yet again.

But the organization itself still lives. The overriding objectives still live. The agenda still lives and thrives. It's now dead and gone, not by a long shot. It just submerges for a little while. Then quietly rises again under a new banner, and carries on. Hoping you won't notice and haven't been watching it, and haven't been paying attention.

And for the most part, unfortunately, they'd be correct.

[sammy750]

12. Why is ALEC tax exempt.

And why are all the big corporations supporting the ALEC bills to suppress the American people. It is time we stand up to ALEC and stamp them out. They are the enemy of the nation and people.

[eridani]

13. They should hook up with the Progressive States Network.

http://www.progressivestates.org/

[Triana]

15. Evidently, PSN was rolled into SIX via ALICE...

... a succession of liberal groups and academic think tanks have failed to mount a unified push across states, struggling to gain traction in the states or raise the funds necessary to sustain organizations of any heft, and often cannibalizing one another.

AFSCME’s Booth was involved in one of the last major efforts, a group called the Progressive States Network. It seemed like it might make a go of it back in 2011, when it raised $1.3 million – not peanuts, but a far cry from ALEC’s $9.2-million budget that year. The Network’s funding plummeted to $344,000 in 2012, however, and it found itself in competition with a group started in 2011 called American Legislative and Issue Campaign Exchange (or ALICE – a play on ALEC’s name).

Neither organization caught hold, and when Rathod was hired in April to run ALICE, he moved quickly to consolidate the liberal forces. He got the Progressive States Network and its sister political group Progressive States Action, as well as a more academic group that worked with governors’ offices called the Center for State Innovation, to agree to merge with ALICE...

. . .

SiX’s lawyers plan to file paperwork this week with the Internal Revenue Service to officially create the group as a two-pronged outfit by changing the names of two of the groups it annexed to the State Innovation Exchange. Since the groups were registered under different sections of the tax code – ALICE under 501(c)3 and Progressive States Action under 501(c)4 – SiX will be able to engage in both policy and political advocacy.

[eridani]

17. That's good. Sure beats everyone doing their own thing and not talking to each other. n/t

[mountain grammy]

14. It's about time. This gives me hope.

[tkmorris]

16. $10 million a year eh? Woohoo...

They need to multiply that about 10 times if they want to have any real effect. Further, they need massive amounts of funds to finance the campaigns of lawmakers they hope to influence. Why do they think anyone lets ALEC dictate the bills that get presented? Because they are promised major campaign dollars if they do, and the same support for their primary opponent if they don't. It really is all about the money and 10 million isn't gonna make much of a dent.

[BrotherIvan]

18. Interesting

Though their first order of business should be to get the money OUT of politics. Show towns and states how to pass anti Citizens United legislation. Get the money out, neuter the Kochs & Addelson, and then let ideas win. Do something about Fox too. Don't fight on their ground because that is just a waste (and they're better at it than you).