ALEC: The Conservative Tax-Evading Organization Writing Laws for Legislators

Photo: Greenpeace

The American Legislative Exchange Council is a tax exempt body that brings together conservative state legislators and private sector representatives to draft and share model state-level legislation. The group is made up conservative lawmakers and corporate lobbyists in order to introduce laws that directly benefit the industries of the companies involved.

The corporations pay to join the group and they then have the ability to influence lawmakers to create tax breaks and laws that will directly benefit that corporation. These corporate lobbyists will then create model bills to send to the conservative lawmakers. These legislators can then just pass this off as their own bills and introduce them into their states. ALEC really does all of the work and the lawmakers barely have to do anything.

There have been many cases where lawmakers did not even take the ALEC logo off of the bill when introducing it, they just took the bill ALEC wrote for them and blindly introduced it to their states. ALEC basically provides fill in the blank legislation to conservative lawmakers; all they have to do is write in their state.

ALEC makes it so easy that Republican Florida state legislator, Rachel Burgin submitted a bill saying the federal government should cut corporate tax rates, but Burgin forgot to take the ALEC logo from the top. Some of these legislators do not even care to take off the logo from the group that clearly wrote the whole thing. There have been many cases just like this.

How ALEC works is corporate lobbyists and lawyers pay huge sums of money to join the group and they in turn, have a say in what bills are introduced by the legislators in the group. The lobbyists then have their interests protected ensuring they can profit off of any and all bills. The legislators in the group benefit because they are introduced to so many corporate partners that can then fund their campaigns. The more the legislators do in the group and the more model bills they introduce into their states, the more the corporate lobbyists will like them. They see that they are willing to pass bills that will benefit them so the corporations will do whatever they can to make sure they stay in office. ALEC also basically does their job for them, as they write the bills for the legislators.

Just to be clear, none of these bills being introduced are benefiting the American public. These laws are all catered to the corporate entities to ensure these massive companies continue to profit. Oil lobbyists join ALEC to ensure that bills are created to let them dispose of any hazardous waste. CCA, the largest for profit prison company, joined so that they can pass bills that create more prisoners. They support and create bills that make it easier for people to go to jail, whether it is the 3 strike law or immigration laws – anything to get more people in their prisons, hence making more money. None of these laws are helping the people, they are all created to create more profits for these corporations.

It is estimated that 1 in 4 state legislators are members of ALEC. This group is causing true harm to the people in America and their influence and power is far too strong. I encourage everyone to find out who your state legislators are and see if they are members of ALEC. Reach out to them and voice your disapproval of the group and demand bills that will benefit the people, not the corporations.

Open States is a resource to find your legislators. I encourage all of you to do more research on ALEC and how they may be affecting your state.

“ALEC Exposed.” Alecexposed.Org, 2019, www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed. Accessed 24 July 2020.

Gibson, Connor. “ALEC Doesn’t Care About #FreeMarkets – Explaining ALEC’s Shill Bills.” Greenpeace USA, 2 May 2014, www.greenpeace.org/usa/alec-doesnt-care-free-markets/. Accessed 24 July 2020.

LastWeekTonight. “State Legislatures and ALEC: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO).” YouTube, 2 Nov. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIMgfBZrrZ8. Accessed 24 July 2020.

Scola, Nancy. “None.” The Atlantic, The Atlantic, 14 Apr. 2012, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/exposing-alec-how-conservative-backed-state-laws-are-all-connected/255869/. Accessed 24 July 2020.

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, and Rob O’Dell. “What Is ALEC? ‘The Most Effective Organization’ for Conservatives, Says Newt Gingrich.” USA TODAY, USA TODAY, 4 Apr. 2019, www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/04/03/alec-american-legislative-exchange-council-model-bills-republican-conservative-devos-gingrich/3162357002/. Accessed 24 July 2020.