American Legislative Exchange Council

Copy, paste, legislate; ALEC's Legislative Mill Factory

Via USA Today / The Arizona Republic / Center for Public Integrity -- April 2019

We looked for legislation that was written by special interests. We found it in all 50 states.

When legislators propose new laws, they don’t always write the bills themselves. Corporations, interest groups or their lobbyists often write fill-in-the-blank documents then shop them to state lawmakers.

These copy-and-paste bills are commonly known as model legislation. More than 2,100 of these bills have been signed into law in the last eight years.

Montana as One Example of Coordinated State-by-State Model Legislation by Special Interests and ALEC

ALEC is a nonprofit organization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives. Some have referred to it as a model bill factory...

“In recent years, ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group supporting industry and business, has been particularly controversial for the model legislative bills they are promoting in state Legislatures nationwide.”

ALEC

State-by-State Political Campaigns: Model/Template Legislation

ALEC's task forces and policy centers publish "model policies" for states to use when drafting legislation.

• https://ballotpedia.org/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council

Model policies, coordinated, concerted political efforts

• https://www.alec.org/model-policy/

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American Legislative Exchange Council

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council

ALEC provides a forum for state legislators and private sector members to collaborate on model bills—draft legislation that members may customize and introduce for debate in their own state legislatures. ALEC has produced model bills on a broad range of issues, such as reducing regulation and individual and corporate taxation, combating illegal immigration, loosening environmental regulations, tightening voter identification rules, weakening labor unions, and opposing gun control.

ALEC has nine "task forces" that generate model bills that members may customize and introduce for debate in their own state legislatures. Private sector members effectively have veto power over model bills drafted by the task forces.

Day-to-day operations are run from ALEC's Arlington, Virginia, office by an executive director and a staff of approximately 30. ALEC's bylaws specify that, "... full membership shall be open to persons dedicated to the preservation of individual liberty, basic American values and institutions, productive free enterprise, and limited representative government, who support the purposes of ALEC, and who serve, or formerly serve, as members of a state or territorial legislature, the United States Congress, or similar bodies outside the United States."

ALEC also has a "Board of Scholars" that advises staff and members. The board is composed of Arthur Laffer, an economist who served on Ronald Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board; Victor Schwartz, chair of Public Policy at Shook, Hardy & Bacon; Richard Vedder, economics professor emeritus at Ohio University and adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; and Bob Williams, founder of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation.

ALEC also has ties to the State Policy Network (SPN), a national association of conservative and libertarian think-tanks. SPN is a member of ALEC, and ALEC is an associate member of the SPN. SPN encourages its members to join ALEC, and many members of SPN are also members of ALEC. Some of the think tanks in the SPN write model legislation, which then is introduced at ALEC private meetings.

• https://www.alec.org/about/

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ALEC's website - https://www.alec.org/

ALEC on Google - https://plus.google.com/+ALECorg

ALEC on Twitter - https://twitter.com/ALEC_states

ALEC on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/AmericanLegislative

ALEC on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/alec.states/

ALEC on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4099726/profile

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ALEC and Politics

Google Search News and Updates on the American Legislative Exchange Council

ALEC's agenda, powerful lobbying and organizing, often attempting to push back a green agenda

• Clean Energy v ALEC

• ALEC and the Koch Connection

• ALEC Exposed

"Bill Moyers / Renewable Energy & ALEC"

• http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11603/publicopoly_exposed/

• http://www.thenation.com/article/161975/sabotaging-healthcare

• http://www.thenation.com/article/161973/koch-connection

• http://www.cows.org/pdf/BusinessDominationInc.pdf

• http://article.wn.com/view/2011/07/13/ALEC_Exposed/

• http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-epa-states-20110714%2C0%2C5030269.story

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• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-05-03/alecs-secrets-revealed-corporations-flee (2012)

• https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/alec-a-tax-exempt-group-mixes-legislators-and-lobbyists.html

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Note: The initial launch of GreenPolicy360 included references to the model initiatives of ALEC. Although the policy positions of the ALEC organization continues to oppose many of the positions and policies central to the work of GreenPolicy360, we acknowledge that the 'model best practices' process is an effective way to move policy ideas into wide use and adoption.

The green best practices gathered in GreenPolicy360's database and organized for easy search are offered as exemplary green successes and ideas worthy of being passed forward in the U.S. -- and globally, community-to-community.

GreenPolicy360 is a sharing network and the exchange of best practices can be effective -- and smart.

The tens of millions who have shared and networked with us in nations, states and communities globally are 'turning ripples into waves'.

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