http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2011/jul/24/corporate-funded-alec-has-strong-ties-kansas-legis/In recent days, ALEC’s influence, and its corporate backing, have been the focus of reports by several groups and news organizations. Its reach into state legislatures, including Kansas’, is deep. Each year, almost 1,000 bills, based at least in part on ALEC “model legislation,” are introduced in states. Of these, an average of 20 percent become law, according to ALEC.
But
the Center for Media and Democracy released a report that described ALEC, which enjoys tax-exempt status as a non-profit, as a public policy front for corporate interests, including Kansas-based Koch Industries, which helps fund ALEC.
In addition to the EPA measure, another ALEC-inspired piece of legislation, which was signed into law this year by Gov. Sam Brownback, is the Health Care Freedom Act, which prohibits the government from interfering “with a resident’s right to purchase health insurance or with a resident’s right to refuse to purchase health insurance.”
The law is aimed at blocking the new federal health reform law, which ALEC opposes.Thirteen House members and four state senators in 2010 went to ALEC’s annual meeting in Atlanta, according to state records. A group of state legislators is preparing to go to ALEC’s next annual meeting, which will be held next month in New Orleans.
The legislators who went to last year’s ALEC annual meeting were all Republicans and many chair powerful committees in the Kansas Legislature that deal with far-ranging policies.
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