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The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) published an expose of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) this week. ALEC is an organization that brings together corporations and conservative state lawmakers with the stated purpose “to conduct a policy making program.” In order to move their national agenda forward, ALEC pushes legislation state by state. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is an alumnus of ALEC, where he participated in developing model bills as a state legislator. Many of Walker’s political lieutenants are actively involved with ALEC, and have pushed a slew of bills through the Wisconsin legislature. CMD has done a detailed analysis of ALEC model bills in Wisconsin. The organization also released to the public, over 800 of ALEC’s model bills which span all aspects of government. Some of ALEC’s handywork can be seen in the recent spate of nearly identical bills introduced in several states that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating carbon. ALEC is also one of the leading agencies in the privatization of education through their support of charter school legislation. The American Legislative Exchange Council which is mostly funded by corporations, gives those same corporations access to state legislators in order to craft legislation. The relationship that ALEC fosters between state legislators and corporations is now the subject of public scrutiny.

GUEST: Mary Bottari, Director of the Center for Media and Democracy’s Real Economy Project and the editor of BanksterUSA.org

Visit www.alecexposed.org.