There's a great piece up at the Center for Media and Democracy about the work of ALEC or American Legislative Exchange Council. The group has been working at the state level to fundamentally change America, state by state. If there's an unpopular governor passing unpopular laws through an unpopular state legislature, ALEC is behind them. Voter ID laws, union-busting laws, laws shifting the tax burden away from the wealthy to the poor and middle class, cuts in state services, etc. -- all can be traced back to ALEC.In fact, many of these bills have the same language from state to state. Since ALEC describe themselves as the largest "membership association of state legislators," it would seem that these state officials were writing these bills with the help of legislators for other states. This would go a long way toward explaining why so many of their bills look cut-and-paste. But closer scrutinity proves this assumption wrong.
In April 2011, some of the biggest corporations in the U.S. met behind closed doors in Cincinnati about their wish lists for changing state laws. This exchange was part of a series of corporate meetings nurtured and fueled by the Koch Industries family fortune and other corporate funding...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
