Reply #16: ALEC getting attention from Unions

[Hector Solon]

Thanks for staying on this American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) trail, the Environmental community is starting to get hot on it (they were into ALEC in 2002-2003, but back to it now), but still a look of pushing to do to get more national attention.

RECENT DEVELOPMENT - UNIONS Getting MSG on ALEC
http://ilcaonline.org/content/unions-build-coalition-co...

CLIP START:
That anti-union anti-worker nationwide drive, state by state, is fueled by millions of dollars in Right Wing money, AFL-CIO staffer Naomi Walker, who tracks state and local developments, told the Fire Fighters Legislative Conference on March 14.

The Right Wing funders, she said, include the wealthy Koch brothers, a pair of Right Wing anti-union oil men from Kansas City who set up a front group called Americans for Prosperity. They also include Right-Wing foundations, the Chamber of Commerce, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the new fund-raising machine established by chief GOP Bush political operative Karl Rove, she added.

The Right Wing coalition’s first shot, though not the one that caught the nation’s eye in Wisconsin, came in Alabama in December, Schaitberger said. The legislature, at the behest of retiring GOP Gov. Bob Riley, jammed through a law in the waning days of the year banning unions of public workers from collecting dues by paycheck deductions.

A GOP-run Florida senate committee approved a similar bill March 14, 5-4.

END CLIP

Very good job here on connecting the DOTS back to Karl Rove and GOP National Strategy.

Our team's original post on ALEC on Kos:
http://tinyurl.com/4pztle5

Thank goodness DU folks are picking this up! (going to have to spend more time on DU).

Keep plugging.