Truthout: Big Business Woos ALEC Legislators in the Big Easy

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On August 3, the American Legislative Exchange Council kicks off its annual meeting in the Big Easy. State legislators from across the country will arrive in New Orleans to be wined and dined by corporate lobbyists. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, for example, has invited legislators to a big smoke at its cigar reception on Bourbon Street.

But the meeting is not all fun and games. Legislators will be sitting down with some of the biggest corporations in the world
-- Koch Industries, Bayer, Kraft, Coca-Cola, State Farm, AT&T, WalMart, Philip Morris and more -- behind closed doors. There, they approve one-size-fits-all changes to the law that ALEC legislators take home and introduce as their own brilliant policy innovations.

ALEC is little more than a bill factory for corporate-friendly legislation that often repeals people’s rights or fattens the corporate bottom line. We think citizens have a right to know that these Fortune 100 firms “have a voice and a vote” through ALEC on bills before they are introduced in state houses, cleansed of the fact that corporations already voted on them. ALEC’s hot bills lately have sought to require voter ID, promote tobacco products flavored to appeal to kids, privatize Medicare and Medicaid, privatize prisons and public schools, and legalize the harassment of immigrants.

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More than 98% of ALEC's revenues come from sources other than legislative dues, such as corporations, corporate trade groups, and CEO-funded foundations. Legislators will undoubtedly enjoy lavish accommodations at the lovely Marriott in the French Quarter. Many will have their flights and hotel for their family vacation to the convention reimbursed by ALEC “scholarships” funded by corporations. But this year, demonstrators will be joining the events to protest ALEC’s facilitation of corporate meddling in state democratic processes that are supposed to be of, by, and for the people, not the richest companies in the world.

http://www.truth-out.org/big-business-woos-alec-legislators-big-easy/1312401770