Conservative group (ALEC) denies it masterminded drive to restrict public employee unions

[highplainsdem]

The American Legislative Exchange Council is really on the defensive after all the recent criticism.

I've already posted about the press release they put out.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x777851

Today there's an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in which ALEC members try to distance themselves from Ohio's Senate Bill 5 and other anti-union measures around the country, and also try to convince people that corporations aren't behind ALEC's model legislation.

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2011/04/conservative_group_denies_it_m.html

Conservative group denies it masterminded drive to restrict public employee unions
Published: Sunday, April 03, 2011, 5:54 AM
By Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer

-snip-

Despite claims from labor leaders like AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and bloggers that the 2,000-member American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is behind Ohio's Senate Bill 5 and similar efforts in other states, the group says it has nothing to do with the measures.

-snip-

Cronon's story generated a tenfold increase in traffic to ALEC's website that caused it to crash, leading to false accusations that ALEC shut it down "to hide what we're doing," says Weber. She said the group bolstered its internet capacity to handle the extra interest, "but we're running a little slow, so patience would be appreciated."

-snip-

Weber says the group is funded through membership dues and by foundations. She denied that corporations set the group's agenda, and said that only its legislative members get to vote on the group's policies.

-snip-

The only Ohio legislator on ALEC's board of directors, GOP Sen. Bill Seitz of suburban Cincinnati, vocally opposed SB 5. To keep Seitz from blocking the bill's passage, Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus removed Seitz from the Senate Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee, which then approved it. Seitz says the bill goes too far to "rig the process so the union always loses." He also denies any involvement in the bill by ALEC.

-snip-

Re the ALEC website being inaccessible for a while -- when we were discussing that here, some DUers wondered if it was in fact just a problem with the website not being able to cope with so much traffic.

Weber's claim that "only its legislative members get to vote on the group's policies" is simply untrue. Approval of ALEC's model legislation is a two-step process. The final approval comes from the public sector board, but every single piece of model legislation has been approved by private sector members -- the corporate representatives funding ALEC for access to state legislators and input in writing legislation -- BEFORE it reaches them. From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council

ALEC model bills are introduced in task force meetings and voted on by ALEC members at each of three national meetings. Public sector (state legislators) and private sector (companies, foundations and nonprofits) members vote on each model bill separately within each task force. Finally, the public sector board must approve a bill for it to become model legislation.

See this reply in my compilation topic on ALEC, too

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230#611825

which quotes this ThinkProgress article:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/05/bcbs-alec-health

But while the study certainly damages BCBS’ credibility, BCBS is involved in another anti-health reform ploy that they do not bother to promote on the BCBS website. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), founded in 1973 by conservative activist Paul Weyrich, is a DC-based front group which helps state lawmakers craft corporate-friendly legislation. As the Atlantic has noted, ALEC developed template health care “states’ rights,” legislation to declare aspects of health reform unconstitutional. ALEC has promoted this “tenther” legislation using its network of mostly far right Republican state lawmakers. The bills, which have been adopted in some form in 24 states so far, aim to invalidate federal regulations of health insurance, the public option and the individual mandate using the Tenther Amendment.

According to the ALEC website, the resolution was developed by a three member task force of industry representatives. One of the of the members is Joan Gardner, who is executive director of state services with the BCBS Association’s Office of Policy and Representation. In an interview with ThinkProgress, Christie Herrera, the director of ALEC’s health task force, confirmed that Gardner played a pivotal role in crafting this anti-health reform states’ rights initiative. Herrera told us that Gardner’s unique position at the BCBS Association brought “great knowledge” to the issue, and that Gardner voted to press forward with the campaign.

I don't think Seitz's opposition to the bill proves it doesn't fit with ALEC's agenda. You wouldn't expect entirely unanimous support for bills in an organization with thousands of conservative legislator-members.

According to the article, the author of SB 5, Shannon Jones, says she drafted the bill herself and is "unaware of any coordinated effort by ALEC or anyone else to pass similar legislation elsewhere."

But that differs from what the president of the Buckeye Institute -- which is backed by many of the same donors as ALEC, and which refers to ALEC's publications on its website -- told Politico:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50307_Page4.html

In Ohio, where newly elected Republican Gov. John Kasich is backing a Senate bill that includes collective bargaining reforms, the Buckeye Institute has been encouraging such moves partly by recommending policy changes, but also by building a web-based interface that allows users to lookup the salaries of individual local, state and federal government employees.

“We know our stuff was hugely influential in the decision on this issue because the governor cited our work and Sen. (Shannon) Jones, who sponsored the bill, cited our work,” said Matt Mayer, president of the Buckeye Institute.

-snip-

Tax filings also show, though, that the group has been the beneficiary of big contributions from some of the leading funders of fiscally conservative causes, including the major donor-advised fund Donors Capital Fund, which gave Buckeye $426,000 in 2008, and the Charles G. Koch Foundation, which gave $21,000 in 2009. Those years represent the most recent for which there were electronically available tax filings for the two institutional donors.

And those donor outfits, combined with DonorsTrust (a donor advised fund liked to Donors Capital Fund), the Bradley Foundation, the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation and the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation (which is also a Koch family charity) in their most recent detailed tax filings reported giving a combined $295,000 to Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Foundation, $165,000 to Wisconsin’s to MacIver Institute, $3.1 million to Americans for Prosperity, $175,000 to ALEC and $1.5 million to the State Policy Network, a group that assists the state-based conservative think tanks.

Kasich, a member of ALEC for many years, now wants people to believe it has no effect on him.

Kasich also claims his discussions with Scott Walker have been limited to sports. I don't think anyone here believes that, and Walker himself undercut that claim with what he said during the phone call when he thought he was talking to David Koch.

It's true that none of the ALEC literature and model legislation I've seen comes out directly against collective bargaining.

But the organization's legislative objectives can't be achieved without cripping unions and depriving them of collective-bargaining rights. That's the only way to force through radical pension reform the unions are opposed to.

And ALEC members know that.

But they also know they have a gigantic public relations problem right now. So they're spinning as fast as they can.

And they'll probably cut back a little on their press releases bragging about ALEC's cookie-cutter bills, and will be less likely to identify specific members.

And they still won't provide a list of their state-legislator members, so there's no way to check ALEC's claims to be nonpartisan by finding out just how many Democrats are members. I still haven't run across information online about any Democrat who belongs to ALEC. All their bills that I've read about are being sponsored and passed by Republicans.

[highplainsdem]

1. Thanks for the recs!

:hi:

[Donnachaidh]

2. thank you for all your hard work! k&r!

:kick:

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Oh, sure. Now that they're losing this battle they deny responsibility.

[fascisthunter]

4. Lying Cowards and their Meritless Ideology they follow

[Hector Solon]

5. Best "Regional Newpaper" Article AWARD - OMG made some calls...

... in this new "post-Cronon" phase of this story(ies), and she did some background. Buy that report a drink next time you're in DC.

No Joy on our searches on verifying ALEC membership on State Sen. Shannon Jones though, but there are enough ALEC folks in OH to do the trick. Don't buy that "I worked on the bill for a year" thing.

There is enough addition to build out this article, but too much other stuff to handle.

[gratuitous]

6. Turn on the light, and they scurry

Like Koch-roaches.

[gratuitous]

7. Minor little kick

For this startling example of mass-legislative phenomenon in which Koch-connected state legislators all over the country totally coincidentally write the exact same bill. Sure the odds on that happening are pretty long, but you don't want to call a Republican office-holder a liar, do you?