Is the Shadowy World of ALEC & the Koch Brothers Leading the GOP Charge to Suppress the Youth Vote?

[highplainsdem]

This is the latest from Bill Berkowitz about ALEC, posted at BuzzFlash:

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12565

Is the Shadowy World of ALEC and the Koch Brothers Leading the GOP's Charge to Suppress the Youth Vote?
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 11:55am
BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
BuzzFlash at Truthout suggests you read the well-received first column on ALEC, "Smart ALEC: Dragging the Secretive Conservative Organization Out of the Shadows."



Nearly forty years after a Constitutional Amendment giving 18-21 year-olds the right to vote, Republican legislators across the country are trying to disenfranchise youth under the subterfuge of combatting "voter fraud." However, as Christina Francisco-McGuire recently pointed out at progressivestates.org, instances of *voter fraud "are so rare that one is more likely to be struck by lightening." Amongst the legislation being pushed in various states are photo id requirements, the abandonment of election-day registration, and the redefining of student residency requirements.

"The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative organization linked to corporate and right-wing donors, including the billionaire Koch Brothers, http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12551> has drafted and distributed model legislation, obtained by Campus Progress, that appears to be the inspiration for bills proposed by state legislators this year and promoted by Tea Party activists, bills that would limit access of young people to vote," Tobin Van Ostern reported in Campus Progress in early March ("Conservative Corporate Advocacy Group ALEC Behind Voter Disenfranchisement Efforts" --http://campusprogress.org/articles/conservative_corporate_advocacy_group_alec_behind_voter_disenfranchise).

-snip-

It doesn't take a political scientist to recognize that if young voters were to turn out in great numbers - for any election - it is highly likely there will be a favorable outcome for Democratic Party candidates. Hindman pointed out that, "if younger voters continue to turn out at this rate, it is terrible news for the Republican Party. The youngest voters are markedly more left-leaning than the Generation Xers who preceded them. They are certainly more liberal than their own parents."

-snip-

In 1971, after years of young people maintaining, that if they were old enough to die for their country in Vietnam, they were old enough to vote, a Constitutional Amendment was passed that lowered the voting age. Can anyone imagine the Republican Party supporting that Constitutional Amendment today?

That Campus Progress article cited by Berkowitz, which I found via an article in Forbes, was what first alerted me to ALEC's role in this blitz of right-wing legislation at the state level.

Link to my compilation topic on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has nearly 200 replies, most with links to more information about what ALEC is doing.

[Democat]

1. Framed as "The Koch Brothers War on The Youth of America"?

That could hurt!

[highplainsdem]

3. It isn't just the Koch brothers, though. It's ALEC, and the Kochs are among ALEC's many donors.

But focusing only on the Kochs would be as much of a mistake as focusing only on Richard Mellon Scaife during the 1990s when he was getting most of the attention -- and when he was more correctly singled out because he directly funded The American Spectator's stories about Clinton:

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

As that Wikipedia article points out, Scaife is also behind NewsMax and WorldNetDaily.

As Hillary Clinton pointed out very correctly then, it's a vast right-wing conspiracy.

And ALEC is the part of that conspiracy that turns the wishes of the rich and corporations into state laws (including state laws designed to block federal laws that the rich and corporations don't like) via cozy tax-deductible access to state legislators and model legislation for them to introduce.

It would be a huge mistake to overlook the Kochs. But it would also be a mistake to overlook the other key players.

The state laws that have increased incarceration rates, privatized prisons, and created a goldmine for the bail bond industry, for instance, are largely there because of ALEC's private sector members from the private prison industry and bail bond industry.

[Old and In the Way]

2. Their crusade against ____________ is strarting to pay diminishing returns.

Their whole schtick is being anti-___(fill in the blanks)___. They can read the polling. Instead of enacting legislation that does the most good for the most people, their policies and agenda are catering to a smaller and smaller demographic. So the know the writing is on the wall, unless they start legislating to limit and obstruct people's right to vote. The American people better wake up and understand what the anti-party has in store for this country. They are fully committed and "all in" now - their anti-democratic plan is to permanently install themselves as the only political party of this country.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

4. Wisconsin's GOP Atty. General, J.B. Van Hollen did this in 2008

Gee--wonder if the Kock bros. had anything to do with it?

"One Wisconsin Now called for a formal investigation by Van Hollen, as well as the U.S. Attorney's office and the Government Accountability Board, after it obtained an audio recording, documents and strategy memos between the RPW, the Americans for Prosperity and the Tea Party leader detailing plans for a coordinated voter suppression effort to challenge voter eligibility in targeted wards representing student and minority voters on Election Day this November 2."
http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/press/1500-petitions-call-for-van-hollen-investigation-of-rpw-americans-for-prosperity-tea-party-vote-cagi.html


There were many calls for Van Hollen to step down - of course he didn't and he lives on to fight against Democracy through the thugs that currently occupy the Wisconsin Capitol ...

[eowyn_of_rohan]

5. Tea Party, WISGOP, Americans for Prosperity, & Grandsons of Liberty

The Tea Party, WIS GOP, Americans for Prosperity, and Grandsons of Liberty all were involved in voter caging plans to disenfranchise tens or hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters in 2008 - focusing on students and people in the lower income bracket.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

"To the casual political observer, Reince Priebus, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, seemed to come out of nowhere. But to Wisconsin progressives, Priebus is known as the state Republican Party operative who allegedly tried to suppress the votes of minorities and students in both the recent midterm congressional elections and the 2008 presidential election -- in apparent coordination with David Koch's Americans For Prosperity.

...On the eve of the election for RNC chair, Mark Block, who just stepped down from his post as state director for the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity, lauded Priebus in a Daily Caller op-ed for having supplied AFP with bus transportation and GOP staff support "for the movement of an enormous number of Tea Party activists from the outskirts of Madison to the rally site on the steps of the State Capitol, where over 8,000 people gathered" for a 2009 AFP rally.

But the collegiality of the two involves logistical planning of another kind. Priebus was allegedly involved in an alleged voter suppression scheme launched by a Wisconsin Tea Party group, GrandSons of Liberty, with the assistance of Americans for Prosperity.

[hifiguy]

6. If something nefarious is afoot

the Kochtopus has its tentacles in play.