Junkets

"Buying Influence," a Special Report Released; ALEC Corporate Slush Fund Pays for State Lawmakers' Junkets

Corporate backers of the ALEC have funneled an estimated $4 million in gifts to state legislators for travel, hotel rooms, and meals at posh resorts with corporate lobbyists since 2006.

View the main report here.* View the ALEC "scholarships" by state here.

Ask corporations to cut ties with ALEC and ask lawmakers to take a stand against ALEC's influence peddling.

A combined version of this report is available as one PDF viewable with Adobe Reader here.

• Note: Due to a technical glitch in the production of this report a sentence on page 14 about ALEC's education privatization boot camp was altered in a way that was not consistent with the original version that CMD wrote. The fourth paragraph on that page should read: "ALEC's major meetings and task force 'boot camps' occur at posh hotels — like the one held last January at a Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island, Fla., to discuss privatizing public education, which was closed to the press and public." This sentence will be substituted in a revised version of the report, which is under production. ALEC does allow some press to attend some parts of ALEC meetings, but has excluded some press from its plenary sessions and excludes all press from the sessions where corporate lobbyists vote alongside elected officials on templates to change the law, as CMD has written repeatedly. See generally Lisa Graves, "ALEC Politician Claims ALEC Meetings Are 'Open to Public.' Really?," PRWatch.org (01-12-12), http://www.prwatch.org/node/11237