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ALEC News

Scott Walker: The First ALEC President? Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will address the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in San Diego this July. Walker’s speech at ALEC will be a reunion of sorts. Walker was an ALEC member as a state legislator in the 1990s, and the agenda that Walker has championed throughout his long political career has closely tracked the policies promoted by ALEC and its corporate funders, despite public opposition to many of those measures. Read the rest of this item here. ALEC Wants to Educate High Schoolers on Balanced Budgets and Austerity File:Ihearalecausterity72dpi600w350h.jpg.png The right-wing push to amend the U.S. Constitution by requiring a balanced federal budget is gaining momentum. In January, GOP Governor John Kasich of Ohio went on a six-state tour to rally support, and so far this year, New Jersey, Utah and North Dakota have passed resolutions calling for a Constitutional Convention to propose a balanced budget amendment. By some counts, 27 states have passed such resolutions; 34 are needed to trigger a convention. Read the rest of this item here. So a Lobbyist and an ALEC Legislator Walk into a Bar...Caught on Tape by NBC A lobbyist and a legislator got caught on tape explaining how corporations subsidize lawmakers' resort trips through the American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC), the controversial corporate bill mill. In a new report aired on Atlanta's NBC TV Channel WXIA 11, Georgia investigative reporter Brendan Keefe went behind the scenes at ALEC's spring meeting in Savannah, Georgia, where he chatted with lobbyists and lawmakers--and was summarily ejected by uniformed off-duty deputies for trying to film public officials at the task force meetings where future state laws are written. Read the rest of this item here. Groups Add to Evidence in "Whistleblower" Tax Fraud Claim Against ALEC Common Cause and the Center for Media and Democracy sent federal authorities new evidence today that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is falsely passing itself off as a tax-exempt charity and effectively using taxpayer dollars to subsidize its lobbying on behalf of private interests. Common Cause filed a supplement to its three-year-old tax whistleblower complaint against ALEC, and the two groups sent a joint letter to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen demanding an investigation, collection of fines and back taxes, and the revocation of ALEC’s status as a tax-exempt charity. Read the rest of this item here. Wage Crushers' Prevailing Wage Claims Are Nonsense Now that the Wisconsin GOP and its allies have rammed though an American Legislative Exchange Council "right to work" (RTW) bill, the same cast of characters is back pushing another ALEC model: repeal of the state’s prevailing wage laws. These laws require public construction projects to support local wage standards instead of undercutting them. Who could be against repealing the laws when proponents, such as the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, tout mind-boggling savings of $300 million a year for school districts and taxpayers? But the claims are nonsense and the savings a "mirage," say experts. Read the rest of this item here. CREDO Rejects ALEC's Cease and Desist Letter on Municipal Broadband 270 The Center for Media and Democracy and CREDO Action are denouncing an effort by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to silence its critics. CREDO Action, the activism arm of San Francisco-based mobile phone company CREDO Mobile, has refused to honor a cease and desist letter that ALEC sent to CREDO. CMD and CREDO have flagged ALEC’s opposition to municipal broadband for consumers. Read the rest of this item here. Reporters Guide to ALEC’s "Rich States, Poor States" Report 270 The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) rolled out its annual "Rich States, Poor States" publication recently. The document, whose lead author is economist Arthur Laffer, is sold to the press as an objective, academic measure of state economic performance, but should instead be viewed as a lobbyist scorecard ranking states on the adoption of extreme ALEC policies that have little or nothing to do with good economic outcomes. ALEC is almost entirely funded by industry, including Koch Industries, which has long served on the ALEC board, Altria (the former Phillip Morris) and Exxon Mobil. Read the rest of this item here. Wisconsin Introduces Word-for-Word ALEC Right to Work Bill Wisconsin Republicans have called a special session to take up a "right to work" measure attacking private sector unions--and the text of the bill, the Center for Media and Democracy has discovered, is taken word-for-word from American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model legislation. See the side-by-side of the Wisconsin legislation and the ALEC bill here. Read the rest of this item here.