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[[File:Quick summary.png|270px|left|alt=Quick Summary]]<big>'''In April 2011, some of the biggest corporations in the U.S. met behind closed doors in Cincinnati about their wish lists for changing state laws.''' This exchange was part of a series of corporate meetings nurtured and fueled by the Koch Industries family fortune and other corporate funding.</big> 
[[File:Quick summary.png|270px|left|alt=Quick Summary]]
=Welcome to the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org!=


At an extravagant hotel gilded just before the Great Depression, corporate executives from the tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, State Farm Insurance, and other corporations were joined by their "task force" co-chairs -- all Republican state legislators -- to approve “model” legislation. They jointly head “task forces” of what is called the “American Legislative Exchange Council” (ALEC).  
<big>On July 13, 2011, [https://www.prwatch.org/cmd the Center for Media and Democracy] (CMD) unveiled this trove of over 800 "model" bills and resolutions secretly voted on by corporations and politicians through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). These bills reveal the corporate collaboration reshaping our democracy, state by state.


There, as the Center for Media and Democracy has learned, these corporate-politician committees secretly voted on bills to rewrite numerous state laws. According to the newly-revealed ALEC documents, corporations vote as “equals” with elected politicians on these bills.  These task forces target legal rules that reach into almost every area of American life: worker and consumer rights, education, the rights of Americans injured or killed by corporations, taxes, health care, immigration, and the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink.  
ALEC bills, which largely benefit the organization’s corporate members, have been introduced in legislatures in every state—but without disclosing to the public that corporations previously drafted or voted on them through ALEC.  


The Center obtained copies of more than 800 model bills approved by companies through ALEC meetings, after one of the thousands of people with access shared them, and a whistleblower provided a copy to the Center.  
Before our publication of this trove of bills, it has been difficult to trace the numerous controversial and extreme provisions popping up in legislatures across the country directly to ALEC and its corporate underwriters.


The bills that ALEC corporate leaders, companies and politicians voted on this spring now head to a luxury hotel in New Orleans' French Quarter for ALEC’s national retreat on August 3rd. In New Orleans, Koch Industries -- through its chief lobbyist -- and lobbyists of other global companies are slated for a “joint board meeting” to approve the bills with a rookery of Republican legislators who are on ALEC's public board.  Before the bills are publicly introduced in state legislatures by ALEC politicians or alumni in the governor’s offices, they will be cleansed of any reference to the secret corporate voting or who really wrote them.  
The Center obtained copies of the bills after one of the thousands of people with access shared them, and a whistleblower provided a copy to the Center.  


With CMD’s publication of the bills, the public can now pierce through some of the subterfuge about ALEC, and see beyond the names of the bills to what the bills really do, alongside the names of corporations that lead or have helped lead ALEC's agenda and accompanied by analysis to help decode the bills.    
We have analyzed and marked up the bills and resolutions to help readers understand what the bills do, beyond the PR in the names of bills.  We share them to help the public identify the legislation in their state and the wide extent of the agenda to rewrite our rights by the corporations that bankroll ALEC.


Many of the bills have obvious financial benefits for corporations but little or no direct benefit to the constituents that a particular legislator was elected to represent. Still, it may be tempting to dismiss ALEC as merely institutionalizing business as usual for lobbyists, except that ALEC’s tax-free donations are linked to it not spending a substantial amount of time on lobbying to change the law.  ALEC has publicly claimed its “unparalleled” success in terms of the number of model bills introduced and enacted. But seeing the text of the bills helps reveal the actual language of legal changes ALEC corporations desire, beyond what can be known by the PR in their titles. ALEC says it has created a “unique” partnership between corporations and politicians.  And it has.
These bills and resolutions reach into almost every area of American life:  worker and consumer rights, education, the rights of Americans injured or killed by corporations, taxes, health care, immigration, and the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink. Only by seeing the depth and breadth and language of the bills can one fully understand the power and sweep of corporate influence behind the scenes on bills affecting the rights and future of every American in every single state.


It is a worrisome marriage of corporations and politicians, which seems to normalize a kind of corruption of the legislative process -- of the democratic process--in a nation of free people where the government is supposed to be of, by, and for the people, not the corporations.  
Since the launch of this website in July 2011, CMD has been honored with three investigative journalism awards for our ALEC Exposed project: the "[https://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/09/11023/cmd-and-nation-magazine-win-sidney-award-investigative-journalism Sidney Award]" for Investigative Journalism, along with [https://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/7/73/Nation20110801.pdf ''The Nation'' magazine], in September 2011; the "[https://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/03/11327/cmd-receives-izzy-award-alec-exposed Izzy Award]" for outstanding achievement in independent media, along with ''Democracy Now!'' correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who covered the uprising in Egypt from the ground; and most recently, the "[http://aejmc.net/ccs/CCSSpring2012.pdf Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award]" from Cultural and Critical Studies Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication -- an honor shared with previous award-winners Molly Ivins, I.F. "Izzy" Stone, Noam Chomsky, Studs Terkel, and Bill Moyers.


The full sweep of the bills and their implications for America’s future, the corporate voting, and the extent of the corporate subsidy of ALEC's legislation laundering all raise substantial questions. These questions should concern all Americans.  They go to the heart of the health of our democracy and the direction of our country. When politicians -- no matter their party -- put corporate profits above the real needs of the people who elected them, something has gone very awry.  
Please join us in helping to expose ALEC, its corporations and politicians, and how money has corrupted the democratic process.  You can read the bills without signing up to be a contributing editor of this site.  But, we hope readers will team up with reporters to dig through the cache of documents and share the truth with others. ([[Help:Contents|Here's how]].)


As President Teddy Roosevelt observed in response to corporate money corrupting the democratic process a century ago, "The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth . . . . The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being."
To learn more about ALEC and this project, [https://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10883/about-alec-exposed click here for an open letter from Lisa Graves], the executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of ALEC Exposed.</big>


--Lisa Graves, Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy
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P.S. ALEC anointed the billionaire Koch Brothers as two of the first few recipients of its “Adam Smith Free Enterprise Award.” Smith argued that self-interest promoted more good in society than those who intend to do good. "Greed is good!" is how Oliver Stone translated this concept to fiction on screen.
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On that score, perhaps, the award was apt, except that ALEC apparently ignores Smith’s caution that bills and regulations from business must be viewed with the deepest skepticism. In his book, ''Wealth of Nations'', Smith urged that any law proposed by businessmen “ought always to be listened to with great precaution . . . .  It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it." 
<div style="float:right;"><player title="Lisa Graves Discusses ALEC">Lisa Graves FINAL AUDIO.mp3</player></div>Listen to [[Lisa Graves Discusses ALEC|Lisa Graves]] discuss ALEC.
 
Watch other ALEC Exposed experts [[ALEC Exposed Audio & Video|here]].<br>
One need not look far in the ALEC bills to find reasons to be deeply concerned and skeptical. Take a look for yourself.
Read Lisa Graves' article in ''The Nation'' [http://www.thenation.com/article/161973/koch-connection here].
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Latest revision as of 17:27, 13 October 2017

Quick Summary

Welcome to the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org!

On July 13, 2011, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) unveiled this trove of over 800 "model" bills and resolutions secretly voted on by corporations and politicians through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). These bills reveal the corporate collaboration reshaping our democracy, state by state.

ALEC bills, which largely benefit the organization’s corporate members, have been introduced in legislatures in every state—but without disclosing to the public that corporations previously drafted or voted on them through ALEC.

Before our publication of this trove of bills, it has been difficult to trace the numerous controversial and extreme provisions popping up in legislatures across the country directly to ALEC and its corporate underwriters.

The Center obtained copies of the bills after one of the thousands of people with access shared them, and a whistleblower provided a copy to the Center.

We have analyzed and marked up the bills and resolutions to help readers understand what the bills do, beyond the PR in the names of bills. We share them to help the public identify the legislation in their state and the wide extent of the agenda to rewrite our rights by the corporations that bankroll ALEC.

These bills and resolutions reach into almost every area of American life: worker and consumer rights, education, the rights of Americans injured or killed by corporations, taxes, health care, immigration, and the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink. Only by seeing the depth and breadth and language of the bills can one fully understand the power and sweep of corporate influence behind the scenes on bills affecting the rights and future of every American in every single state.

Since the launch of this website in July 2011, CMD has been honored with three investigative journalism awards for our ALEC Exposed project: the "Sidney Award" for Investigative Journalism, along with The Nation magazine, in September 2011; the "Izzy Award" for outstanding achievement in independent media, along with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who covered the uprising in Egypt from the ground; and most recently, the "Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award" from Cultural and Critical Studies Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication -- an honor shared with previous award-winners Molly Ivins, I.F. "Izzy" Stone, Noam Chomsky, Studs Terkel, and Bill Moyers.

Please join us in helping to expose ALEC, its corporations and politicians, and how money has corrupted the democratic process. You can read the bills without signing up to be a contributing editor of this site. But, we hope readers will team up with reporters to dig through the cache of documents and share the truth with others. (Here's how.)

To learn more about ALEC and this project, click here for an open letter from Lisa Graves, the executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of ALEC Exposed.

Lisa Graves on ALEC & Koch

<player title="Lisa Graves Discusses ALEC">Lisa Graves FINAL AUDIO.mp3</player>
Listen to Lisa Graves discuss ALEC.

Watch other ALEC Exposed experts here.
Read Lisa Graves' article in The Nation here.

ALEC Exposed is a project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). CMD does NOT accept donations from for-profit corporations or government agencies. More information about CMD is available here. You can reach CMD's Executive Director, Arn Pearson, via editor AT ALECexposed.org. Privacy policy: Other than material you post to this wiki in your name, our privacy policy is that we will not disclose private personally identifiable information or data about you, such as your name, email address, or other information, unless required by law. On copyright: ALEC Exposed considers contributions to this wiki to be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License or in accordance with law. Information on how to provide us with notice regarding copyright is available at this link. Notices regarding copyright or other matters should be sent to our designated agent, Arn Pearson, via email (editor AT ALECexposed.org).
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