Reply #305: WI and Beyond Op-Ed - ALEC's role in setting legislative agenda deserves scrutiny (UW Prof ret.)

[Hector Solon]

Great piece with solid message and content.

ALEC's role in setting legislative agenda deserves scrutiny
By Jay Stampen
5/27/2011
http://www.wisopinion.com/index.iml?mdl=article.mdl&article=35276

CLIPS:

Several ALEC-influenced bills are on the fast track to passage in the Wisconsin Legislature and an ALEC-like voter ID bill was signed by Gov. Scott Walker this week. ALEC has model legislation for health care, environmental issues, collective bargaining, K-12 and higher education, prisons and just about every other major state policy issue. The presence of ALEC model legislation is so evident in deliberations over Governor Walker's budget bill, and other bills, that one wonders whether a political fox named ALEC has been left in charge of the legislative chicken coop.

ALEC's influence undermines cross-party collaboration aimed at resolving important problems in our state, and others. Sadly, through the past four Wisconsin state Legislatures there has been an almost perfect correlation between partisan voting patterns and lobby ratings by special interests. Republicans receive high rankings from special interests that rank Democrats very low, and vice versa. In other words, lobby ratings predict voting behavior. ALEC doesn't rate legislators, but its corporate members overwhelmingly favor Republicans over Democrats. However, ALEC's strong association with the Republican Party is not the issue. There is not a similar organization for Democrats, but if one did exist, it too would deserve serious scrutiny.

Overarching themes in ALEC-facilitated legislation call for deregulating private enterprises, privatizing public enterprises and lowering taxes. This does not add up to a credible research-supported plan for dealing with Wisconsin's most pressing problems: unemployment and the budget deficit. Also, the council distributes its model legislation to every state, not just Wisconsin. This cookie-cutter approach often addresses issues that hardly exist in the states in which they are enacted. The odds of creating jobs and reducing budget deficits are slim if the parties involved assign too high a priority to meeting the needs of special interests.

It's puzzling that ALEC has received so little scrutiny when its influence is obviously so great. Just Google ALEC plus an issue topic, such as concealed carry, voter ID, prisoner release, unions, telephone industry, windmills or many others and compare what comes up with news stories about related bills under consideration in the Legislature.

{Dr. Jay} Stampen is professor emeritus in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a former policy analyst at the National Center for Higher Education in Washington, D.C.

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