Capital Times reporter now tracking which WI GOP health care bills mirror ALEC's model legislation

[highplainsdem]

I hope more journalists around the country will start doing this:

http://host.madison.com/news/local/health_med_fit/vital_signs/article_30e0cb12-5719-11e0-970f-001cc4c002e0.html

Vital Signs: State GOP health bills mirror model ALEC legislation
SHAWN DOHERTY | The Capital Times
Posted: Sunday, March 27, 2011 7:15 am


All the fuss this week over ALEC, a right-wing organization said to be the mastermind behind a nationwide wave of conservative proposals and laws, inspired me to look into whether the group has anything to do with a spate of recent health legislation from Gov. Scott Walker and Republican lawmakers.

My first step was to consult an online "study guide" about the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council written by UW-Madison history professor William Cronon. (When I first wrote this post I had a working link to ALEC but the organization seems to have blocked access in the last 24 hours.) The state GOP has filed an open records request seeking access to Cronon's e-mails, and I was curious to see what they were upset about.

A bunch of links and some digging later, I tracked down ALEC's The State Legislators Guide to Repealing ObamaCare, and it looks like our governor and Republican legislators could indeed be following this handy manual. Several health bills the Republicans have proposed and passed this year, or are about to propose (and probably pass, given their majority,) mirror ALEC's "model legislation."

But so what, asks Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, when I call him about my discovery. Fitzgerald says he has been a proud member of ALEC since he first became a legislator in 1994, and is currently the Wisconsin State Chairman. State lawmakers have always turned to such national organizations for help brainstorming ideas and crafting legislation, Fitzgerald says. "These groups are about exchanging ideas between different state legislators from around the country to be sure we're not isolating ourselves in Wisconsin," he tells me.

-snip-

Doherty goes on to mention the corporations behind ALEC, but doesn't mention that the corporations are directly involved in writing the model legislation -- that they pay to be included in "Task Forces" from which model legislation doesn't emerge unless the corporate representatives also approve of it, according to what I've read. This isn't just legislators hammering out these bills.

See this reply in my compilation topic about ALEC for a ThinkProgress article on the role Blue Cross/Blue Shield had in writing some of this legislation:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230#611825

If you follow the links in the ThinkProgress article I linked to there, you'll see that the BC/BS representative is no longer on the task force, and now it's people working for Johnson & Johnson and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). The names change. The corporate influence on this legislation stays the same. And although the official number of members of these task forces is limited, corporations can pay extra to get more people into these meeetings, as my general topic explains in the OP, in a quote from a Campus Progress article.

As for the ALEC publication Doherty looked at -- it's also being followed by Michigan lawmakers, as I explained here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230#746530

[SpiralHawk]

1. Wow - a reporter doing his job

The so-called press corps (R) has so miserably failed America over the last 20 years. Let's hope this is a sign of change...

[Ninga]

2. Ohio's Kasich was involved in the early days of ALEC - as evidenced by Kasich gutting

Ohio like a butcher.

[highplainsdem]

7. Yes. Hit, loot, and run...

Did you see The Ed Show where Ed talked about the privatization of the state liquor stores and how Kasich will profit from that?

[iwishiwas]

3. YES, I was so glad to see that and I

posted it in another forum but this is big enough to be cross posted.
Thanks--your post was more informative.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x594787

[highplainsdem]

4. Thanks for the link! It helps to have this information in more than one forum here.

[warrior1]

5. follow the money

I just wonder how many of the people involved in these org. are criminals.

[highplainsdem]

6. Kicking this. She's expanded the article quite a bit from the original version, now has more

about ALEC's corporate members, and more information on the bills being introduced in Wisconsin.

There are a lot more comments now, too.

[Armstead]

8. You outa send those links andf info to Rachael Maddow and her staff

[democracy1st]

9. K & R