April 25, 2012

ALEC Official Admits Group’s Promises To Reform Are Bulls***

ALEC Official Admits Group's Promises To Reform Are Bulls***The American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate front group better known as ALEC, is under fire. Thanks to consumer and activist pressure, dozens of corporations and politicians have publicly ended their membership in the organization, which helps write and promote destructive state laws benefiting special interests at the expense of the public good.

Last week, ALEC announced in a press release that it was eliminating the task force that created voter suppression and “Stand  Your Ground” laws:

We are eliminating the ALEC Public Safety and Elections task force that dealt with non-economic issues, and reinvesting these resources in the task forces that focus on the economy. The remaining budgetary and economic issues will be reassigned.

Some suspected this was just PR spin designed to quell protests and keep the organization’s remaining donors happy. But who would have thought ALEC would be dumb enough to publicly admit that?

Yesterday, in the Christian Post, Republican State Rep. Jerry Madden (Texas), who chaired the Public Safety task force did just that:

[Madden] is disappointed the committee is disbanding, he said many of the issues will be transferred to other committees.

“ALEC’s decision won’t impact the important issues we’ve worked on,” Madden told The Christian Post. “But I will say this, these groups are targeting ALEC because when conservatives get together, we influence state and federal policy in a major way and these groups are scared of us – and should be.”

ALEC is scary because it provides a hidden venue for corporate interests to push their harmful agenda in statehouses across the country. But lately, it looks like ALEC is the group that’s really scared.