A movement to stop ALEC. Who is in?

[mick063]

Called out specifically by their name. A grass roots movement. I'm calling for it.

It starts with DU types spreading the word. Learn about them. Expose them. Publicize them. Who are the members? Can we fight with consumer activism? Can we negate their marketing with bad press? Can we expose their puppet politicians that can't deviate a single word from "model" legislation? Can we attach the ALEC label and make it stick as a political negative?

Not to be confused with just the labor movement to stop the erosion of our standard of living. ALEC, after all, is responsible for much, much more. For example, the "stand your ground" gun laws or the removal of our ability to litigate financial fraud through the state Attorney General. Their list of extremely damaging legislation goes on and on.


I'm not talking about the GOP or FOX news or the Tea Party. I'm talking about ALEC.

We have to specifically pinpoint this group and start a movement. A big movement.

Let's get this thing started!

[Downwinder]

1. My Legislator is a member.

[HiPointDem]

2. There are 2000 alec legislators. they are burrowed in at the state level. when states & localities

start failing financially, they are ready to pull a michigan.

i will be happy to contribute research to any effort you wish to lead.

[lonestarnot]

3. Hit it!

Wait'n on me you're wasting time!

[freshwest]

4. ALICE is a group organized to stop ALEC. We've had threads with the names of all legislators who

ALEC has on their rosters. I posted the names in my state on my state board. This can be done in all of the state groups. Hedgehog posted a very good thread on the people involved.

PIRG may be of help:

Public Interest Research Group

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIRG

The League of Women Voters still operate and here are some of the range of activities they do:

League of Women Voters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Women_Voters

There also is Common Cause:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Cause

You can contact members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Progressive_Caucus

Here is a story about ALICE, out of Wisconsin, perhaps all states can set up groups.

On the Capitol: First there was ALEC, now there's progressive-focused ALICE
September 29, 2012 7:00 am

There exists a four-letter acronym that for many Democrats brings to mind the forces of darkness; a shadowy cadre of puppet masters that spread pro-business, conservative gospel to every state legislature in the land.

ALEC. The American Legislative Exchange Council.

Around since the mid-70s, ALEC has in the past decade established itself as one of the main laboratories for conservative ideas, shared in conferences and taken back to states where they are promptly introduced into legislatures.

Republicans like it. Democrats hate it. But until now, the progressive party has not really had an answer for it.

This month, Joel Rogers and his Center on Wisconsin Strategy launched the cleverly named ALICE, the American Legislative and Issue Campaign Exchange, as a one-stop, web-based, public library of progressive ideas on a wide range of issues in state and local policy.

This comes at the same time as a group of progressives formed the new statewide business group known as the Wisconsin Business Alliance, an alternative to Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the influential conservative business lobbying group.

The WBA describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization for business owners who support "broad-based prosperity and a modern economy that's built to last." But it is pretty clearly designed to combat the influence of WMC.

But Rogers, the ALICE founder, said it is wrong to think of his group as an "exact" answer to the influence of ALEC, the Washington, D.C.-based group that promotes limited government, free markets and federalism.

For one thing, ALEC focuses on state laws; ALICE focuses on state and local. And while ALEC has some 2,000 members, holds conferences and has corporate financial backing, ALICE sees itself as a smaller, less well-funded part of a group of organizations that could one day get progressive ideas the same exposure as ALEC manages to do with conservative ideas.

"I am doing this thing on chewing gum and string," Rogers said. "It is only meant to be a partial antidote to ALEC. The goal is to one day have a fair fight, so hopefully this will help us get our ideas out there."

Unlike ALEC, ALICE is run out of a university-based think tank, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, also known by its own acronym, COWS.

COWS is a liberal "think-and-do tank" based at UW-Madison. It is nonpartisan and focuses on jobs and the economy, energy and transportation, and making government work.

http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/on-the-capitol-first-there-was-alec-now-there-s/article_deef484e-09a8-11e2-a8ab-0019bb2963f4.html?print=true&cid=print

Keep at it, hope that DU can help organize more.

[Zorra]

5. Welcome to Occupy, mick063!

I'm the person on the left...or is it the center....or the back...maybe the front...

I dunno, somewhere...but I am definitely there...on the other side of the barrier from the cops.

Occupy Takes Aim at ALEC Today in 70 US Cities
http://truth-out.org/news/item/6980-occupy-takes-aim-at-alec-today-in-70-us-cities

The Occupy movement, since its inception in September 2011, has been against corporate greed. And in 70 cities across the country, it's found one target that best shows the rampant corporate control of our judicial system that Occupiers see as a central grievance: the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

ALEC brings legislators and corporations together in a "public-private partnership" to draft model legislation that Occupy groups say serves the interests of the 1 percent.

"The public is never informed that a group representing the most privileged people in America are drafting the legislation that disempowers the most vulnerable," said David Osborn with Occupy Portland. "The decisions affecting our communities should be made democratically, not through a corrupt system that hides the influence of the very corporations that benefit at our expense. ALEC is representative of a failed system in which profit and greed are dominant over everything else."

The protest was called by Occupy Portland and is expected to be the Occupy movement's biggest coordinated action this year.

[bfealk]

6. A group already exists

Please go visit www.vltp.net, Voters Legislative Transparency Project. There are several individuals in that organization whose goal is to take down ALEC.

There is also a Facebook page for VLTP. Also, the Center for Media and Democracy and Color of Change are involved in reporting on and getting ALEC's corporate sponsors to drop their memberships in ALEC, with over 40 major corporations having done so in the last year or so.

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but ALEC is on lots of people's radar across the country.

[HiPointDem]

7. yeah, leave it to the pros, relax, they got this.

[Ford_Prefect]

8. An investigation leading to RICO indictments of Koch et al would be my hope. But I see we have

a president and attorney general who have no balls when it comes to dealing with this kind of thing. Funny though that congress does not "get it " either, don't you think?

[DishNinja]

9. ALEC is a legislative front group for corporation control of government

I may be wrong, but I think the technical name for a government that has lost any distinction between its responsibilities as a bureacracy tasked with governing its citizens, and the corporations which inhabit its soil, is defined as a 'fascist' government. Can anyone confirm that?

Anyway, a very useful site for information on ALEC is alecexposed.org (a project of the Center for Media and Democracy).

Good luck - ALEC is like the Death Star. Piss 'em off, and they'll blow up your planet, or something. Good news is that the bigger they are, the harder they'll fall...eventually.

DN