An elected representative sneaks away to a clandestine meeting with wealthy corporations and megadonors. Behind closed doors, this official is given language for a bill that will give those very same corporations a major tax break at the expense of those who put the representative in power.
This representative then goes to work like normal, and proposes a new bill they claim to have written on their own – but it’s exactly the same as the one given to them by the special interests they just met with. And no one's the wiser.
John, this cloak and dagger scenario might sound like the start of a dystopian novel. But the fact is, this is happening right now in our country. And it’s all organized by a group you might not have even heard of – ALEC.
ALEC is the acronym for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of corporate lobbyists, funded by big corporations and a handful of wealthy families working to ram far-right legislation through state legislatures.
The organization’s member corporations pay top dollar for direct access to state lawmakers – who allow lobbyists to write corporate dream legislation into ALEC “model bills.” Then, these ALEC-backed legislators rush those bills through their state houses, pretending they wrote the bills themselves and churning out laws that enrich corporations and hurt the rest of us.
ALEC is responsible for some of the most extreme ultra-conservative laws passed in the last decade – including Stand Your Ground gun laws, racially discriminatory voter ID laws, rollbacks of environmental protection, and so much more.
And since ALEC conducts its business behind closed doors, your legislator could be a member, and you would never know.
Let’s call this what it is: corruption, plain and simple. And I won’t stand for it.
I’m fighting back and taking away ALEC’s greatest strength – it’s secrecy. With the support of members like you, we’ve already exposed 125 of ALEC’s corporate members and forced them to cut ties with the organization.
You see, being involved with ALEC is bad for business. So once we put companies like Google, Coca-Cola, and AT&T on blast for their involvement with ALEC, they were forced to cancel their membership.
But John, it takes a lot of resources to uncover ALEC’s funders and partners. Everything the organization does is under wraps, and none of its members are public. So we’re going to have to ramp up our work to reach our goal of getting every single one of ALEC’s corporate members to cut ties with the organization.
ALEC is coming up on its 50th anniversary this year, and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than shutting this corrupt organization down for good. But I can’t do it without your help.
Will you chip in $3 or more today and EXPOSE ALEC?
With your help, we can dismantle ALEC by turning up the pressure on its corporate funders.
Please let me know I can count on you today.
Thank you,
Viki Harrison, Director of Constitutional Convention & Protect Dissent Program
and the team at Common Cause
P.S. I joined the “Be Bold America!” podcast to talk more about the dangers of ALEC. Check it out here!
