Talk about falling on your sword for a cause! WI Democratic State Representative Mark Pocan attended the ALEC annual convention and is writing about it at
The Progressive.
He describes an intense level of paranoia at the event and the blocking of people from groups like the Center for Media & Democracy. They went as far as circulating pictures of the....OMG....people trying to stand up for our democracy!! Horrors!
When two people from the Center for American Progress were kicked out, they even had altercations with them. Outside of one of the secret evening events, they were physically accosted and one person left bleeding by the end.
No video cameras were allowed. They nervously paced the hallways at all levels looking for suspicious characters. When you went to one of the Task Force meetings where they actually approve the corporate model legislation, only task force members can even get a copy of what is presented. And since members are selected by their state delegation leaders, no one like me would ever get on a task force.
At night, there were multiple additional more secretive events and parties not listed on the agenda, all sponsored by corporations and conservative special interests. But unless you were “invited” (supposedly an ALEC membership would suffice), you wouldn’t even know about them. I received only one such invite that must have mistakenly got to me, because when I showed up and entered I was kicked out by an ALEC staff member. Of note, I am an ALEC member and paid to go to the convention. Also, of note, the event was a corporate sponsored event, but clearly the line between corporations and ALEC are non-existent.
I understand why they have such intense secrecy. They should. They are nothing more than a front for passing on corporate and special interest wish lists to conservative legislators, really a matchmaking service as I have described before. Call it corporate match.com I guess. But it is clear what goes on.
In a
separate posting he goes into a little sickening detail:
Every issue task force (ie Tax and Fiscal Policy, Health and Human Services, etc.) is made up of two equal parts. Half is the public sector part (state legislators), and half is the private sector part (corporations). In order for model legislation to move forward, each task force must garner a majority of votes from each HALF. For example, if the legislator half likes an idea, but the corporate half doesn’t, the bill does NOT move forward. I saw that happen today.
<snip>
One only need look at the convention booklet to see the “Who’s Who” of corporate partners. British Petroleum, Reynolds American, Takeda, UnitedHealthcare, Walmart, the Walton Family Foundation, Chevron, ExxonMobil, American Electric Power, Allergan, PhRMA, Bayer, VISA, Shell, Koch Industries, Inc. and State Farm Insurance for starters. And there are dozens more.
For your partnership in ALEC, you get to write legislation, promote it, vote for it, and all too often, watch it become law. Not bad for a few days work.
The corporate partners even lead discussions in task force meetings about legislation, providing no cover for who is actually promoting certain policies.
Thank for sacrificing yourself for us, Mark! All sunlight shown on this dark and shady group is bound to eventually harm it...these types of vermin like the dark and cringe from the light.
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