ALEC in Wisconsin

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in wisconsin

ALEC

What is ALEC?

The American Legislative Exchange Council aka ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. We agree. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door.

ALEC Public Sector Representatives from Wisconsin

Follow the Money

More than 98% of ALEC's revenues come from sources other than legislative dues, such as corporations, corporate trade groups, and corporate foundations. Each corporate member pays an annual fee of between $7,000 and $25,000 a year, and if a corporation participates in any of the nine task forces, additional fees apply, from $2,500 to $10,000 each year. ALEC also receives direct grants from corporations, such as $1.4 million from ExxonMobil from 1998-2009. It has also received grants from some of the biggest foundations funded by corporate CEOs in the country, such as: the Koch family Charles G. Koch Foundation, the Koch-managed Claude R. Lambe Foundation, the Scaife family Allegheny Foundation, the Coors family Castle Rock Foundation, to name a few. Less than 2% of ALEC’s funding comes from “Membership Dues” of $50 per year paid by state legislators, a steeply discounted price that may run afoul of state gift bans.

WI State Chairman & Fiscal & Tax Policy Task Force Member

Robin Vos

Assembly District 63

Joint Finance Co-Chair

Health & Human Services

Task Force Chair

Leah Vukmir

Senate District 5

A complete list is not known because ALEC does not publish a list of legislator members.

The following is a list of Wisconsin legislators who listed their membership in Wisconsin Blue Books or stipulated membership payments on statements of economic interest:

Wisconsin Senate

Sen. Scott Fitzgerald

Sen. Dan Kapanke

Sen. Mary Lazich

Sen. Terry Moulton

Sen. Van Wanggaard

Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force

Sen. Rich Zipperer

Sen. Pam Galloway

Sen. Glenn Grothman

Sen. Frank Lasee

Sen. Alberta Darling

Sen. Mike Ellis

Sen. Neal Kedzie

Wisconsin Assembly

Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald

Rep. Dan Knodl

Rep. Patricia Strachota

Rep. Scott Suder

Public Safety & Elections Task Force

Rep. Michael Huebsch

Rep. Kitty Rhoades

Rep. Jeffery Stone

Past WI ALEC members

of note:

Scott Walker

Tommy Thompson

Bonnie Ladwig

What Does ALEC Do?

The organization boasts 2,000 legislative members and 300 or more corporate members. The unelected corporate representatives (often registered lobbyists) sit as equals with elected representatives on nine task forces where they have a “voice and a vote” on model legislation. Corporations on ALEC task forces VOTE on the "model" bills and resolutions, and sit as equals with legislators voting on the ALEC task forces and various working groups. Corporate and legislative governing boards also meet jointly each year. (ALEC says only the legislators have a final say on all model bills. ALEC has previously said that "The policies are debated and voted on by all members. Public and private members vote separately on policy. It is important to note that laws are not passed, debated or adopted during this process and therefor no lobbying takes place. That process is done at the state legislature.") The long-term representation of Koch Industries on the governing board means that Koch has had influence over an untold number of ALEC bills. Due to the questionable nature of this partnership with corporations, legislators rarely discuss the origins of the model legislation they bring home. Though thousands of ALEC-approved model bills have been publicly introduced across the country, ALEC’s role facilitating the language in the bills and the corporate vote for them is not well known.

(ALEC legislators sometimes compare the organization to the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL), yet the two organizations could not be more different. NCSL has zero corporate members. It is funded largely by state government appropriations and conference fees; it has a truly bipartisan governance structure, and there is a large role for nonpartisan professional staff; it does not vote on or promote model legislation; meetings are public and so are any agreed upon documents.)

Source: Center for Media and Democracy: ALEC Exposed

Lisa Graves & John Nichols expose ALEC on the Ed Schultz Show