

Wed, 2011-07-13 12:09Farron Cousins
Farron Cousins's picture






Before getting into the nuts and bolts of ALEC, it’s important to understand where they came from. ALEC was founded by conservative operative Paul Weyrich. After receiving a healthy dose of cash from conservative Joseph Coors to create the Heritage Foundation, Weyrich decided that a normal think tank like Heritage wasn’t enough to turn congress into a pro-business, anti-consumer organization. Heritage served as Weyrich’s machine to help develop and pass out talking points, but Heritage could only provide words – words that could easily be ignored. Weyrich knew that in order to make these words become actions, he would need the money to be able to convince Congress to vote how he and his corporate allies wanted them to. To do this, he would have to merge business and politics, literally. This merging gave birth to ALEC.

Through his connections at the Heritage Foundation, and the burgeoning “Moral Majority” he was in the process of creating, Weyrich pulled together politicians from around the country along with some of the wealthiest businessmen in America to form ALEC. Their purpose was simple – promote their view of what a “free market” should look like, while at the same time diminishing the role of government in corporate America’s business. To give his new organization an air of exclusivity, he decided that it should be a “members only” club, where those who wanted to be a part of the group would have to pay a nominal fee. Businesses have to pay a minimum of $5,000, but elected officials are able to buy themselves a two year membership for no more than $50. In addition to a few handfuls of state legislators, ALEC immediately attracted the attention of all sorts of businesses, and quickly added to its member roster Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, VISA, Exxon, Texaco, Coors, and the American Petroleum Institute.

A report by People for The American Way exposed some of ALEC’s main funders:


Members of ALEC’s board represent major corporations such as Altria, AT&T, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Koch Industries, Kraft, PhRMA, Wal-Mart, Peabody Energy, and State Farm. Such corporations represent just a fraction of ALEC’s approximately three hundred corporate partners. According to the American Association for Justice, over eighty percent of ALEC’s finances come from corporate contributions.”

They were now armed with money, members, and talking points. ALEC was ready to make its voice heard.

And when ALEC speaks, Congress listens. The American Association for Justice (AAJ) has compiled a great report on how ALEC has succeeded in helping corporate America fulfill their laundry list of requests from the federal government for their members. To assist their members in the oil industry, ALEC has successfully fought to role back environmental protections. For the pharmaceutical industry, they successfully fought to ban the importation of drugs from other countries. And they’ve helped push broad deregulation, which has benefited every one of their members.

But the AAJ report says that the activities of ALEC go far beyond lobbying – they say that the group is essentially ghost writing favorable laws for corporate America. For example, on behalf of Exxon, ALEC has written legislation that would prevent schools from teaching children about what they deem “non-verified” science theories. Thanks to groups like Weyrich’s own Heritage Foundation, the Right has successfully managed to convince Americans that the science on climate change is still in question, which would mean that schools will no longer be able to teach students about the impacts, or even the causes, of climate change.  

CMD’s new site,, has gone far beyond what other reports have detailed in the past, and actually provides copies of the legislation, along with summaries, that ALEC has helped draft.

A major ALEC project over the years has been their assault on the environment. lays out the numerous ways in which ALEC has worked to undo environmental progress as follows:

Limiting the ability of people to use their local governmental power to protect their towns and neighborhoods from pollution and other hazards.

Undermining environmental regulations through novel, aggressive legal theories that claim regulations limiting pollution, for example, constitute a "taking" of the right to pollute and thus require compensation under the Constitution.

Protecting polluting corporations from civil and criminal liability by making a company’s internal audit or assessments of its pollution "privileged" and thus inadmissible in legal proceedings.

Hindering state-level regulation of groundwater contaminants by establishing EPA standards as a ceiling, rather than a floor, giving an agribusiness-dominated agency a regulatory veto, and adding other burdens.

Giving states the power to appropriate national parks and other federal public land, possibly to allow greater oil, gas, and coal extraction.

Additionally, the "Limited Immunity for Persons Responding to Oil Spills Act" is available through the Heartland Institute website; it would free corporations from liability when they cause injury using toxic chemical dispersants to clean oil spills (as happened with the BP-funded cleanup after the Deepwater Horizon spill).

This assault on the environment comes as no surprise when you take a look at the organization’s funders mentioned above. But it is the Koch brothers who have received the lion’s share of benefits from ALEC’s anti-environment efforts. From Lisa Graves, CMD's Executive Director, writing in The Nation:


ALEC has managed to operate for decades in the dark. It wasn’t until this year that news stories about the group began making headlines, and groups like PFAW and the AAJ began looking into their activities. The resources that CMD's provides are among the most extensive and valuable of any information that has come out about the group. With a fierce 2012 presidential election battle looming in the United States, stories about ALEC and their activities are going to become more important as voters prepare to vote in 15 months.


Fantastic site & good job by the guys at CMD. Hopefully the press use it & expose the underhanded under the table lobbying that goes on that benefits no one but the businesses in question.

I will add that link to my arsenal of sources.

Who would have thought ALEC would be founded by conservatives?!

Its pretty much a money for policy exchange centre. The politicians accept the brown paper bags full of money & the policies are created.

Um, youre not suggesting thre are bribes going on here right? If this is so, press charges. If not, then all we are looking at is the same old thing we alway see, inuendo and some poor optics. If there is something illegal going on, press charges. If this is legal lobbying, then tough luck. If this kind of lobbying should stop, change the legislation.

The Republic is dead and the Founding Fathers rolling in their graves.

Democracy, what democracy?

Only a sea change in public thinking can bring the world back from the brink caused by these selfish, manipulative and mendacious socio-paths.

And that sea change can only start with an overhaul of the media, a media largely controlled by those evil forces.

And no I am neither a communist nor a socialist, I am a humanitarian with tenets discussed here:

Now as for the media being cleaned up it needs to start with them having the honesty to call things as they are and not continue such half truths as brought out here:

more skulduggery here:

and here:

and remember who the lukewarm (low sensitivity) scientists are being supported by.

A good first step would be a worldwide investigation or preferably an erradication of the Murdoch press.

The Murdoch press is a fine example of news being dictated nearly entirely by the political interests, share holder interests & advertiser interests. Once it passes through all of those filters, it no longer resembles the raw information the initial story was about.

The only thing you could trust from Murdoch press would be the weather & sports results.

Its funny, in nearly all Murdoch press worldwide, there is little mention of the "news of the world" controversy. Where as in every other news medium, its front page & a major story.


This goes way beyond lobbying. ALEC is actually writing legislative bills. Okay, call them rough drafts.

"CMD has obtained more than 800 model bills that were crafted by ALEC for state governments across the country."

The commerce clause of the Constitution authorizes the federal government to regulate commerce. I dont think there was anything about commerce regulating government.

The founding fathers' most highly respected trait for leaders in government was "dis-interestedness". They disliked self promotion, conflicts with economic interests, etc. That kind of thinking is why George Washington stepped down immediately after the Revolution, and likewise after his term as President. Many of his contemporaries assumed he'd be President for life. But to be seen as acting in his own interest or wanting power was unthinkable to him.

Another thing they wouldn't have approved of is the revolving door between govt. regulators and corporations.

Way to go Guys....

Lets bring down those evil industries.....

Shame on them for providing jobs to the American people.

They need to be destroyed.

The people should be allowed to live free of the bonds of a living standard.

LOL.... You Guys are just hilarrious.

The other day, I signed a petition, online, that calls for public funding of elections. This would be an important step in the right direction, IMO.

@ anonymous

Were not against industry, just its pernicious stranglehold on govt policy making, control of the media that is supposed to inform us, and their funding of deceitful anti environmental propaganda.
Why do two men, the Kochs, for instance, get to influence elections all over the country, at state, federal and local levels, including ballot Propositions like Californias Prop 23, Cape Wind project, etc?

The whole idea of the House of Representatives is representation of the people, not one mogul or industry.
Many in the GOP would eliminate the EPA, even though 83% of people support it, and 75% support them regulating CO2 emissions.
How is that representing the people?

I'll add one more thing, then shut up.

Suggested reading:

Teddy Roosevelt's 1910 New Nationalism Speech

Available online: