American Legislative Exchange Council
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The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, is a nonpartisan, ideologically conservative, non-profit 501(c)(3) membership association of state legislators whose membership is primarily composed of Republicans. Among other activites, the group develops "model laws" for state legislatures. Approximately 2,400 legislators (⅓ of the state legislators in the United States) are members of ALEC.
The council was founded in 1973 by conservative political activist Paul Weyrich, who served as its treasurer from 1981 through 1992, Henry Hyde, Lou Barnett and others as a national network of state legislators working on issues such as opposition to abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment. By the 1990's ALEC became an influential lobbying organization underwritten by donations from various corporate interests.
ALEC claims that its primary mission is to advance the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty, through a non-partisan, public-private partnership between America’s state legislators and concerned members of the private sector, the federal government and the general public.
There are currently nine task forces, addressing a wide variety of public policy issues: Civil Justice; Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development; Criminal Justice; Education; Health and Human Services; Homeland Security; Natural Resources; Tax and Fiscal Policy; Telecommunications and Information Technology.
ALEC has over three hundred corporate sponsors. Some corporations and trade groups that have supported ALEC include: American Nuclear Energy Council, American Petroleum Institute, Coors Brewing Company, Texaco, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, Phillip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, the Church of Scientology, Exxon Mobil, the National Rifle Association, Amway, and others. It has been claimed by others that the group, which is funded primarily by large corporations, is controlled by those corporations, promotes their agendas and goals, and attempts to advance legislation which favors the interests of its corporate donors. (See the external link to ALECWatch below.)
Critics, such as Joan Bokaer, describe ALEC as "a blend of traditional values conservatives with corporate money" where "social conservatives have the ability to get legislators elected by mobilizing through the megachurches, and corporations supply big funding and gain the ability to actually draft the bills presented in state assemblies."[1] People for the American Way describes ALEC as "a right-wing public policy organization with strong ties to major corporations, trade associations and right-wing politicians" with an agenda of "agenda includes rolling back civil rights, challenging government restrictions on corporate pollution, limiting government regulations of commerce, privatizing public services, and representing the interests of the corporations that make up its supporters."[2]
[edit] Global warming
ALEC is a member organization of the Cooler Heads Coalition which asserts that the theory of global warming is a myth. It has been alleged that ALEC's assertions denying the generally accepted theory of climate change are due to extensive sponsorship by ExxonMobil.
