Template:ALEC News

ALEC News

Election Losses Don’t Stop Corporate Efforts to Block Voter-Approved Minimum Wage Hikes Voters spoke very clearly on November 8 when they elected to raise the minimum wage in Arizona and Maine, along with Colorado and Washington State. But those wins, the democratic process, and the express will of the people are being defied and denied in Arizona and Maine, where corporate lobbyists and their legislative allies are working to block, delay, even rewrite the laws approved on Election Day. These efforts to flout voter-approved laws are part of ongoing conservative and corporate-backed strategies to keep wages low. Read the rest of this item here. ALEC's Little Brother, ACCE, Has Big Plans for 2017 By Steve Arnold, Mayor of Fitchburg, Wisconsin I recently returned from the American Legislative Exchange Council's 2016 States and Nation Policy Summit, in Washington, DC. As a Mayor, I was most interested in the corresponding meeting of the American City County Exchange (ACCE), an offshoot spawned by ALEC in 2014 to spread ALEC's ideas about "limited government, free markets, and federalism" down to the most local levels of government. I had attended the 2014 ACCE conference and was eager to see how the group had evolved in its formative years. What plans were its leaders developing in response to the surprising ascension of Donald Trump to President-elect, and the consolidation of republican power in the Congress and in statehouses nationwide? Read the rest of this item here. Rex Tillerson and Exxon Spent Big on Climate Change Denial while Misleading Public, Evidence Shows Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump's likely choice to be America's top diplomat as Secretary of State, has spent years funding climate change denial and underwriting efforts to block measures to address climate change while misleading the public, according to evidence compiled by the Center for Media and Democracy. As CMD detailed in a joint complaint filed with the IRS shortly before the election, Exxon has used the American Legislative Exchange Council "as a key asset in its explicit campaign to sow uncertainty about climate science, undermine international climate treaties and block legislation to reduce emissions." This includes attacks on the Clean Power Plan which sets out modest steps to try to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change being caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Read the rest of this item here.