Democracy is under attack, not only in D.C., but in the state capitols.
To understand just how serious this attack is, how insidious it is, how well-funded it is, please open the link.
This new USA Today/Arizona Republic/Center for Public Integrity in-depth investigation is a bombshell report on the thousands of “copy-and-paste bills” introduced and passed in state legislatures which purport to represent local interests but instead further a corporate or industry agenda. Among the goals: passing ESA Vouchers that siphon public funds from public education and redirect them to private, religious and home schooling.
ALEC and corporate America are churning out legislation that is introduced in your state under false pretenses as “reform.” Every one of these bills is meant to protect corporations and profiteers, whether in health care or any other industry.
You may have noticed a sudden mushrooming of voucher legislation in state after state. It was not written by your legislators. It was written by the rightwing corporate funded American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC.
Not only is ALEC funded by corporations, it is funded by the DeVos family and the Koch brothers.
Arizona SOS beat them last fall by fighting for a referendum on vouchers. ALEC and the Koch brothers lost 65-35. The corporate mobsters hate refunds. They prefer to buy legislators, which is easier and cheaper.
There is quite a lot of fascinating material about the hoaxing of the public.
Here is the education piece:
“For Susan Edwards, it seemed like a godsend when Arizona lawmakers introduced a bill to create a new kind of school voucher for students with disabilities.
“With the money – funded by dollars taken from a recipient’s local district school – the mother of two children on the autism spectrum could send her kids to a private school where they would receive specialized attention they wouldn’t get elsewhere.
“With a sympathetic group of students as the face of the legislation, Democrats and Republicans rallied behind the 2011 bill which borrowed language from the Goldwater Institute, ALEC, and American Federation for Children, the pro-school choice group founded by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
“Edwards’ opinion of the program, however, changed drastically as legislators later introduced bill after bill to give vouchers to more students, culminating in lawmakers approving them for all students.
“None of those bills, however, guaranteed Edwards’ sons and others with disabilities could keep their vouchers as more students were added. She didn’t know it at the time, but lawmakers were drawing their ideas from model legislation.
“Edwards said she realized in retrospect that students with disabilities were used as a Trojan horse to put on the legislative agenda a fringe idea that was part of a much bigger campaign. In the years that followed, 19 other states debated 93 nearly identical proposals based on model legislation. They became law in Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina and Tennessee.
“Every single, little expansion, if you look at who’s behind it, it is the people that want to get that door kicked open for private religious education,” Edwards said. ”All we (families with disabled students) are was the way for them to crack open the door.”
“Riches, Goldwater’s CEO, said starting the Empowerment Scholarship Account voucher program with a small group of students and expanding it was the best approach.
“When you are talking about a big idea, a new idea, usually the best way of approaching it is to wade into it and demonstrate it can work on a smaller level and then grow it from there,” Riches said.
“The groups behind Arizona’s move toward universal vouchers, however, were shown in indisputable terms that the public opposed their ideas.
“On Election Day 2018, Arizona voters rejected universal vouchers by a 65-35 margin.
“It was only the most recent example of model legislation that didn’t reflect the will of voters, USA TODAY/Arizona Republic found.
“Model-legislation factories have increasingly proposed what are known as “preemption” bills. These laws, in effect, allow state legislators to dictate to city councils and county governing boards what they can and cannot do within their jurisdiction—including preventing them from raising the minimum wage, banning plastic grocery bags, and destroying guns.
“USA TODAY’s algorithm found more than 100 such bills had been introduced on an expanding array of topics.
“Kansas stopped local efforts to require restaurants to list calories on their menus.
“Arizona and New Hampshire prevented local regulations on home rentals. Airbnb has lobbied against home-sharing restrictions, often with the Goldwater Institute’s assistance.
“One model pushed by ALEC and the Goldwater Institute prohibits local jurisdictions from creating occupational licensing requirements. It reflects conservatives’ and libertarians’ belief that job licensing stifles competition and hurts the economy, and should only be required when it involves health and safety.”
At least 20 states have enacted voucher legislation, most using the ALEC model. Only Arizona held a referendum, which SOS Arizona fought for and handily defeated despite being outspent by the Koch and DeVos forces.
Many of us have known about ALEC for years, but the general public has been in the dark about it. I can’t say how many people have argued with me that ALEC doesn’t do any harm and saying it does is nothing more than a conspiracy theory. We need more credible journalism exposing them.
That said, my state teacher association lobbies for legislation as well. It isn’t against the law for ALEC to do what it is they do. It’s just that they are on the wrong side of history when it comes to preserving the institutions that serve the public. We need to set the record straight on whose side ALEC is on.
ALEC is classified by the IRS as a C(3) charity instead of a political action committee. That means that the donations by corporations, the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, etc are tax-deductible.
That’s just plain wrong.
ALEC exists to write and promote legislation in the states.
For more, read Gordon Lafer’s book “The OnePercent Solution,” which explains how ALEC has gone from state to state to wipe out rights and legislation that benefit the many, not the few.
strategically taking over governorship after governorship as many on the left kept their eyes only on the Presidential office
Thank you for linking to this. I mentioned it in a post here a few days ago and then when I went to USA Today to find it again, it was missing from the front page. ALEC is truly awful, but the lowest of the low was the research on Cancer Centers of America. I have always thought that the disclaimers on the commercials were odd, but now that I know that ALEC is involved, I understand. ALEC has reached a new low when they prey upon the dying. I hope every American reads this investigative article and decides to whip out the torches and the pitchforks. These people deserve a hot place in hell for eternity….and a fine jail cell in one of their privatized prisons for their last remaining days on earth.
ALEC achieved a feat- America is the most incarcerated population in the world. There’s no bottom to the Koch’s destruction of the U.S.
ALEC was behind the “Stand Your Ground” legislation.
The Koch brothers want to leave their right wing libertarian imprint on every aspect of common good. As far as cancer treatment goes, I recommend that if you have insurance that covers a nationally designated cancer center of excellence, one of these centers is where a patient can find the most up to date treatment. These are generally teaching hospitals in large metropolitan areas.
It was pretty remarkable to see this expose on the front page and with two additional pages inside. The report includes ALEC but also goes beyond that distribution. Not many are aware of “baby ALEC” the producer and shaper of look-alike ordinances and legislation for cities, counties, and municipal levels of governance, with perks for the local elected officials willing to be “guided” by a member of ALEC on ALEC’s preferred legislation.
ACCE is the baby ALEC.
Any person picking up a public paycheck while promoting the no tax Koch agenda should be terminated with cause.
” These people deserve a hot place in hell for eternity….and a fine jail cell in one of their privatized prisons for their last remaining days on earth.”
I expect Lloyd or SDP respond to this in a much more satisfying fashion. Here I just remark, that I think a simple jail sentence wouldn’t do the job. We do need a way to make sure, these behated people’s minds would lose all hope, hence in prison Betsy DeVoucher would start doubting the existence of God, where the Kochs would start praying for the existence of God. My understanding of the matter is that not allowing the prisoner to ever sit down and sleep would do wonders to accomplish this complex goal in a simple, efficient way.
CPI should take a look at SETDA’s “Digital Instructional Materials Map”, which compares states by criteria, for example, “state statute requires implementation of digital instructional materials”. The template would fit into an ALEC style model.
Anyone who thinks a Bill Gates’ ALEC for education, where public employees front for the ed tech industry, is far-fetched should broaden their scope.
The attacks come from both sides of the aisle. They come from ideologues and those seeking to monetize public education.
This has become the standard operating procedure of both state and national politicians: passing legislation that was largely (and sometimes entirely) written by corporations and billionaires. Why let a member of Congress write it when they will just mess it up, right?
And it is not just the SOP of the Republicans.
It happened under Obama with Common Core, Race to the top, Obamacare TARP and quantitative easing.
And as Senator Dick Durbin noted about the banks when so called reforms wee being proposed, Frankly, they own the place*, referring to the fact that the banks own the government.
The irony of public support for much of the ALEC legislation is that it comes from liberitarian parts of American conservatism, a decidedly anti-religious group. Ayn Rand, the literary hero of these folks, was also one who rejected religion. That these points of view would make common cause with a strong base of fundamentalist Christian support amazes me.
Interesting point.
I wonder if there is a liberal ALEC.
There is no liberal ALEC.
ALEC has two sources of power: it is supported by most every major American corporation (the list is in Gordon Lafer’s excellent book “The One Percent Solution.” The last I heard, each paid $25,000 to be listed as a sponsor.
The other is that its members are 2,000 state legislators, who are wined and dined at annual meetings in posh resorts where they get access to important policymakers like DeVos, Jeb, and rightwing governors and senators.
ALEC gives them model legislation which they can take to their own legislature, write in the name, and call it their own.
There was talk about the creation of a liberal ALEC competitor a few months ago. But, the problem- the wining and dining has to be paid for by someone and the campaigns of politicians require money.
Republicans have the consumer profits to fund their “influence”.
Non-partisanship has no meaning when both parties are owned by the rich.
The difference should be the party of oligarchy vs. the party of democracy.
Betsy DeVos is the ultimate contradiction. A libertarian and an evangelical zealot.
Conan, the liberitarian
Betsy both sounds and looks entirely confused. I think what connects all these billionaires is that they strongly believe, they are chosen.
The only one I know of who explicitly stated that believed he has been chosen is Soros.
Ayn Rand was the epitome of everything she decried: a parasite on society, providing nothing of any real value.
That libertarians hold her up as some sort of prophet is very ironic
And her acolyte Alan I have discovered a flaw in my thinking Greenspan is also a fraud and parasite.
There is an amusement park that is meant to be an education experience for children in Tennessee that has a statue to her honor, right next to Reagan’s. The Discovery Center, as it is called, is a wonderful museum containing everything from natural history, technological history, and cultural history to collections of artifacts like old cars, old tractors, and even some Egyptian relic so. I suspect the Park received a donation from a wealthy businessman who liked Rand. My daughter ignored her pretty much the way we ignore statues on the Tennessee state capital grounds honoring Sam Davis and Edward W Carmack.
The other great irony about Ayn Rand is her disregard for science and evolutionary biology in particular.
Her philodophy emphasizes the selfishness of the individual and indeed considers altruistic behavior not only unnatural but evil (with obvious religious overtones)
But Darwin himself understood that survival of the fittest individual based on competition between individuals was only part of the evolutionary puzzle.
At the individual level, altruism serves no useful purpose and is actually a losing strategy from a reproductive and survival standpojnt.
But biologists have understood for a long time (long before Rand) that selection also operates on higher levels (eg, the level of kin) and that altruism and cooperation are not only prevalent in the biological world but key elements that were missing from the very crude picture of how evloution worked.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/
Of course, Rand was not herself a scientist and in fact, adopted a very uninformed view in her writings and in particular in her pseudo-philosophy Objectivism — which is actually a misnomer because it is NOT based on science but on Rands fancyiful imagination.
There is a very good reason that she is not taken seriously by most philosophers and certainly not by biologists who recognize her writing as little more than ignorant rambling.
So Roy, this statue and park are in Nashville?
ALEC tho huge and tentacle-y, is just one of these critters. Pull up the rock & there are corporate creepy-crawlies of every description. Jill Zack published an article in In These Times this week describing the “tax lobby” dedicated to keeping tax law unintelligible, tax returns onerous & expensive for John Q, & making sure the little guy doesn’t benefit too much from tax breaks.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/21781/irs-tax-return-filing-difficult-lobbyists-intuit-turbotax-hr-block
InTheseTimes is one of the finest magazines America has.
“Not only is ALEC funded by corporations, it is funded by the DeVos family and the Koch brothers.”
Hence by the extremely religious right and the atheist libertarians. I’d like to know what they talk about when they get together. Because they do get together, They may even marry each other.
Their ideologies are a sham to preserve entitlement.
Yeah, they together in the Americans For Preserving American Aristocracy. But I think Aristocracy is a very weak word to describe people who are vastly more powerful and wealthier than Darius or Genghis Khan ever was.
In any case, I give them at most 10 years, after which it won’t be legal for them to exist.
Does Gates care about his kids?
He’s created a situation where they are loathed for their concentrated wealth that denies economic opportunities to the people who created the wealth. He’s turned a blind eye to the climate changes that will impact their lives.
Being a Gates’ kid is to be unloved?
Steve Jobs’ widow reported he cared little about his kids’ lives.