ALEC: Government for the wealthy

Senator Bill Raggio stopped me one day during my freshman session in the 1999 Legislature to ask me to consider joining the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). He warned me that others would say ALEC was a Republican organization, but he felt it was as non-partisan as the other two national organizations the Legislature paid dues to, the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) and the Council of State Governments (CSG).

When I mentioned Raggio’s remarks to my Democratic colleagues, they howled with laughter, explaining that NCSL and CSG really were non-partisan organizations while ALEC was controlled by corporations who basically wrote legislation for themselves and handed these “model laws” to Republicans to introduce in state legislatures. They marveled at Raggio’s ability to muscle ALEC in as an equal to NCSL and CSG in Nevada and allocate taxpayer money to support it.

The recession took care of the dues issue as budget cuts eliminated state-funding to all three organizations long ago. But ALEC has continued to thrive, as its secret corporate donors certainly value its efforts.

ALEC’s website claims more than 2,000 legislative members and boasts it is “the nation’s largest, non-partisan, individual public-private membership association of state legislators.” Maybe. There’s no public list of members.

Common Cause, a public interest organization we don’t hear nearly enough from, is currently promoting an online petition to urge Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto to investigate ALEC’s tax-exempt status, saying it “has discovered compelling evidence that ALEC is a corporate lobby masquerading as a charity.” Common Cause claims the $7 million ALEC annual budget is used to lobby “for laws that will boost the profits of its member corporations” yet its tax-exempt status allows corporations to deduct their contributions from annual tax returns.

Perhaps the best analysis of ALEC’s structure and purpose is found at the Center for Media and Democracy’s website devoted to the topic at ALECexposed.org. The Center calls ALEC “a corporate bill mill” and links corporate “wish lists” to the model bills its member legislators are so fond of introducing.

So who are Nevada’s ALEC legislators? Hard to say. After Raggio’s resignation, there was initially a power struggle for the position of ALEC state chairman with Raggio pushing his protégé, newly elected Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, for the post while long-time ALEC supporter, Sen. Barbara Cegavske, insisted on claiming the title. Cegavske prevailed and is now listed on the ALEC website as a member of the board of directors and the Nevada state chairman.

No other current Nevada legislator appears on public ALEC lists. Corporate members are also not identified although their contribution levels are suggested, ranging from $7,000 for the Washington Club to $25,000 for the Jefferson Club.

Corporate lobbyists who presumably pay the right fee are appointed as “Private Chairs” of key ALEC committees and vote alongside elected officials on model bills. Their investment produces nationwide returns as ALEC legislators adopt the models as their own bill drafts.

How dangerous is ALEC? Last week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments about whether Arizona can impose restrictions on voter registration that conflict with federal law. The Arizona law, Proposition 200, was sponsored by ALEC member and State Sen. Russell Pierce and then adopted by ALEC as model legislation.

Did Arizona really have a problem with voter registration? Out of 2.7 million registered voters, there were 19 examples of noncitizens registering to vote, but Arizona rejected 30,000 voter registrations under the new law, including nearly 6,000 Latinos.

ALEC gave the Arizona law a catchy new title to go with its promotion to model status: the Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act.

They should have called it the Voter Suppression Act instead.