Efforts to limit democratic participation, facilitate big money in politics, and override the federal government.
This page shows how ALEC bills or resolutions would disenfranchise Americans and give corporations great powers to influence elections in our democracy. These "model bills" include the infamous "Voter ID" bills pushed through this year by new governors, many of whom have ties to ALEC. Through ALEC, corporations have both a VOICE and a VOTE on specific state laws affecting your voting rights and elections. Do you?
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Learn MORE about the "Model Bills" ALEC Corporations Are Backing to Rewrite YOUR Rights
The Center for Media and Democracy analyzed the bills ALEC politicians and corporations voted for. More analysis is available below and also at ALEC Exposed's sister sites, PRWatch and SourceWatch.
How do these bills limit democratic participation?
These bills limit the democratic influence of average Americans in favor of corporations by:
Opposing public financing of elections designed to reduce the influence of moneyed interests, and justifying their position with the plainly untrue assertion that "campaign contributions have no effect upon legislative behavior."
Anticipating unlimited secret spending in the 2010 midterm elections and releasing a resolution opposing the disclosure of donors, before many others recognized how corporations, CEOs, and corporate front groups would hide behind non-disclosure rules and funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2010 elections, with more to come in 2012.
Opposing the use of statistical sampling to get an accurate count of urban people of color and immigrants in the U.S. Census, although many modern countries use such cost-effective and accurate tools to conduct their census. Some politicians have expressed concern that this would increase the number of electoral votes and districts to favor Democrats.
Some of this Corporate Agenda Has Already Become Law
Taking a page from the ALEC corporate playbook, in May 2011 Wisconsin Governor and ALEC alumni Scott Walker signed into law one of the most restrictive Voter ID restrictions in the country. Wisconsin's bill would allow a narrow list of IDs for voting, including driver's licenses and state-issued ID cards. According to a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study, about 177,000 Wisconsinites aged 65 and older do not have state-issued IDs. Statewide, only 45 percent of African American males and 51 percent of females have a valid drivers license. The bill makes it particularly burdensome for college students to vote, a group who overwhelmingly supported Obama in 2008. The Wisconsin bill is a more detailed version of ALEC's Voter ID Act of 2009. To pay for the Voter ID bill, the Wisconsin Joint Finance committee raided the money set aside for the public financing of campaigns, ending a 34-year tradition of public financing for elections in Wisconsin -- in conformity with ALEC's Resolution Opposing Taxpayer Financing of Political Campaigns. Learn more here [(LINK coming soon)].
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).
