Smart ALEC

Editors note: If you want to know why we are getting some of the ridiculous bills pushed through the Indiana General Assembly that we are, read this article by Karen Francisco of the Journal Gazette.

Boycott threats pressured dozens of corporations to cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council after Trayvon Martin was shot to death in Florida and “stand-your-ground” gun laws were exposed as the shadowy organization’s handiwork.

But the multinational corporations supporting and framing ALEC’s work are just the overseers of a sophisticated network responsible for a raft of corporate-friendly bills across the nation. State politicians are the workhorses. They are sent forth from corporate-funded meetings at resort settings to sponsor and pass cookie-cutter laws, and then are rewarded with campaign contributions from the same business partners.

Indiana has an impressive army of ALEC soldiers, concealed by an undeserved exemption in the state’s lobbying law and successful in pushing through voter ID, anti-regulation, education, health care and more laws championed by the organization. Then there are ALEC’s Hoosier supply troops: Gov. Mitch Daniels, state Superintendent Tony Bennett, Rep. Todd Rokita and more. They champion the goals supported by ALEC to help spread its influence.

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Comments

[Ryan]

Don't forget Jim Banks, Proven $hill.

God, someone needs to flush twice to get rid of him.

Thanks to Republican gerrymandering, they only got 54% of the total votes for Indiana's state House, but they hold 69% of the seats. They've managed to do even worse things to our US congressional districts.

It's not even worth bothering to vote in Huntington unless there's an open US Senate seat or a Presidential election.

The Republicans can't monkey around with those as far as gerrymandering, because any vote from any voter in the state is equal.

What they *can* do is stuff that ALEC promotes, such as restrictive voter ID laws that effectively disenfranchise large segments of the poor, the elderly, minorities, and younger voters.

It mentions in the article that ALEC's co-founder didn't want "those people" voting. (And we know who "those people" are....)

We got rid of Tony Bennett, but it was uncomfortably close. There are too many people, low information voters, that just go in there and slap Republican or Democrat without looking at affiliations.

An affiliation with ALEC would be criminal if the Republicans hadn't specifically exempted them from the so-called Ethics law.

It still is public corruption, but who is going to pursue that? Our "leaders"?

The voters need to be informed about ALEC, and they need to go through and purge every last "representative" that is affiliated with them.

And it's only a shame that nobody will put Jim Banks and the rest of them in prison, where they belong.

[bill]

Ryan; Once again I agree with you.

[Ryan]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/mar/06/alec-minimum-wage-report

ALEC is pushing state laws to lower minimum wage.

It can't attack the poor in Indiana like this, because the only reason we still have a minimum wage is because of the federal government, which ALEC has tried tampering with via the Tea Party and their "model bills" for election laws, but hasn't quite succeeded with yet.

I support the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, which would make the federal minimum wage $10.10 per hour and index it to inflation. The CEO of Costco agrees with it too. I wonder when, exactly, the far right will be accusing this multi-multi-millionaire of being a communist. Knowing the Tea Party, it will be soon. *yawn*

http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/fair-minimum-wage-act-of-2013

The best way to stop ALEC (for now) is to make the federal law stronger so that the states don't even have a choice and so that states like Indiana can't use the higher minimum wage laws in Ohio and Illinois to its advantage in the Republican "Inter-state Job Piracy" schemes it has been up to lately.