SD state Sen. Deb Peters says ALEC "is extremely educational. ALEC staffers are our staff."

[highplainsdem]

From the Cincinnati weekly CityBeat:

http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/article-23235-alecrss-open-secrets.html

ALEC’s Open Secrets
Conservative think tank meets here, draws protest
By Stephen Carter-Novotni

-snip-

Although CityBeat was blocked from entering the ALEC event, this writer met with several members of the South Dakota State Senate outside the building. South Dakota State Sen. Deb Peters was irritated by suggestions of secrecy and said the protest had no effect on her.

“(ALEC) is extremely educational,” Peters says. “ALEC staffers are our staff. It’s nothing about ALEC telling us what to do … It’s public- and private-sector involvement. There are no secrets. You can just talk to a member and get the draft legislation.”

-snip-

This of course is exactly why ALEC is so dangerous. It provides model legislation advancing a conservative agenda across the nation to state legislators who are usually understaffed, often don't really understand the issues, and are grateful to have ALEC write the legislation for them.

The reporter apparently didn't see anything worrisome about the "ALEC staffers are our staff" comment. But that wasn't the only problem with this article, which covered the protest in a very superficial way and just glossed over the reasons ALEC is a threat.

Although Carter-Novotni is aware that ALEC has private-sector members and sponsors, he seems unaware that the private sector task forces can block any model legislation they don't like.

He also accepted without question the explanation from one Ohio state senator, Bill Seitz, that ALEC wasn't behind a photo ID bill designed to suppress voting by groups that usually favor Democrats:

One protester suggested that ALEC was behind a bill co-sponsored by Ohio State Rep. Bob Mecklenborg (R-Green Township) that would require voters to show a photo identification card at the polls. Seitz, however, says this makes no sense as Mecklenborg attended his first ALEC meeting just last week.

That bill was co-sponsored by Louis Blessing, who's been an ALEC member for years (and this is something Seitz would have been well aware of, so his comment was deliberately deceptive). I don't know why Carter-Novotni didn't check the co-sponsor as well when he was aware it was co-sponsored.

Seitz also claimed not to know who ALEC's private-sector sponsors are and added that he "couldn't care less" about them.

Again, this reply was completely dishonest. Seitz would be well aware of who they are, and of what power they have over the drafting of model legislation. All of ALEC's members are aware of their power, and former ALEC member John Boehner made it clear during a speech at an ALEC event that those private-sector members are the organization's most important members.

But the reporter unfortunately didn't know enough about ALEC to ask the right questions and realize when he was being lied to.

So he accepted the lies, apparently didn't give a second thought to the ramifications of state legislators viewing the ALEC staff as their staff, and wrote an article suggesting the protesters were "overly suspicious and not that well-informed."


See the long compilation topic on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for much more information on this organization.

[hootinholler]

1. Kicking this. It's not real a SD issue. n/t

[highplainsdem]

2. Thanks! And yes, it's an issue in all states, not just South Dakota.

[Snoutport]

3. chilling