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More ALEC News ACCE Wants Your Town to Subsidize ALEC-Style Corporate Lobbying by Jessica Mason As the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has reported previously, the American City County Exchange (ACCE) was formed in 2014 as a local government version of the state legislature-focused American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The new group's structure mimics its parent organization, with corporate lobbyists paying between $10,000 and $25,000 to sit side-by-side with city and county elected officials and vote on legislation that all too frequently benefits ALEC's corporate members. Early reports suggest that ACCE's agenda is a familiar one: introducing local "right-to-work" bills that undermine collective bargaining, blocking local minimum wage campaigns, and privatizing government services to benefit for-profit corporations. Read the rest of this item here. ALEC Helps Philip Morris Block Plain Packaging Tobacco Rules by Rebekah Wilce Brandie Davis, lobbyist and Director of Corporate Affairs at Philip Morris International, urged lawmakers to adopt a measure in opposition to "plain packaging" laws that ban trademark labels on cigarette packages, branding them as illegal advertising and replacing them with images like the diseased lung featured on Oliver's show that alert smokers to the danger of smoking cigarettes. ALEC's International Relations Task Force took up the issue at the 2010 annual meeting (p. 14), and with corporate lobbyists like Davis voting as equals with state lawmakers to make it part of ALEC’s legislative agenda, "The resolution passed unanimously and was subsequently approved by ALEC's Board of Directors." Reynolds American, another global tobacco company, was co-chair of the task force at the time. Read the rest of this item here. Republicans Call for Imposing ALEC Zones on Poorest Neighborhoods of Milwaukee by Brendan Fischer Two suburban Wisconsin lawmakers have unveiled an economic development plan for the lowest-income neighborhoods of Milwaukee, and their "solutions" for the Wisconsin communities hit hardest by deindustrialization come directly from a national right-wing playbook. Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield) and Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) represent two of the wealthiest districts in Wisconsin and have no background in economic development, yet have proposed a 23-page plan targeting the majority-minority communities with the highest unemployment rates in the state -- and have done so without consulting any of the elected officials who actually represent the area. Read the rest of this item here. eBay Becomes 100th Company to Cut Ties to "Controversial" ALEC by Rebekah Wilce "We are not renewing membership in ALEC," eBay tweeted on the afternoon of December 18. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) had joined the climate change awareness group Forecast the Facts, Credo Action, and others in asking eBay to leave what Reuters called the "controversial political group ALEC" in recent weeks. A Twitterstorm on December 17 was followed by the delivery of a petition containing nearly 100,000 petitions to eBay's headquarters in San Jose, California on December 18. eBay's announcement came shortly after. Read the rest of this item here. More Corporations Flee as ALEC Rolls Out Its Legislative Agenda Only nine funders of the American Legislative Exchange Council's annual winter meeting in Washington, DC, are listed on ALEC's conference brochure this year. The small number comes at a time when ALEC is crowing about the November 4 elections, which swept in more Republican legislators and potential recruits for ALEC's operations--where elected lawmakers vote as equals with corporations behind closed doors on "model' bills to change Americans' rights. Read the rest of this item here. An Embattled ALEC, Buoyed by Election Results, Lays Blueprint for 2015 The midterm elections may have given the embattled American Legislative Exchange Council a new lease on life. ALEC has been bleeding corporate members, but with Republicans now in control of 68 out of 98 state legislative bodies, there are fewer impediments to the enactment of the corporate-friendly legislation that ALEC peddles -- and in early December, ALEC and the corporations that still fund it will likely lay out the legislative blueprint for 2015 at the ALEC States & Nation Policy Summit in Washington, DC. Yet, the actual policy ideas that ALEC promotes are less popular than ever. Read the rest of this item here. ALEC Fueled Supreme Court Challenge to Obama Health Law by Brendan Fischer Healthcare for millions of Americans is at stake in the latest Affordable Care Act challenge to reach the U.S. Supreme Court -- and if the Court sides with the challengers, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and other Koch-funded groups will have laid the groundwork for the healthcare law's destruction. Read the rest of this item here.