Leaked Docs: How a Secret FreedomWorks Donor Sought a Return on Its "Investments" For five years, FreedomWorks has proclaimed itself a leading tea party group fueling the conservative grassroots and fighting establishment Republicans.
The organization touts its small-dollar donations from everyday activists, but it also has received substantial funding from corporate donors and one-percenters, most notably Richard Stephenson, a FreedomWorks board member who founded the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Documents obtained by Mother Jones—including emails, financial records, and fundraising pitches—show that CTCA, in addition to Stephenson, gave money to FreedomWorks, and that Stephenson's son, Shawn, a Switzerland-based businessman, had a central role in overseeing the Stephenson family's support of FreedomWorks. The goal, Shawn Stephenson noted in a September 2010 email, was "creating a tsunami of change directed at DC that is and will be historic. " A spokeswoman for CTCA declined to comment for this story.
Terry Kibbe did not respond to a request for comment. ALEC Agenda: Gutting Medicaid, Privatizing Schools, Exports. Amid Protests, ALEC Launches New Spinoff to Influence Local Governments. This post originally appeared at Truthout.
Two grassroots activists from North Texas locked themselves inside the lobby of the Hilton Anatole in Dallas on Thursday morning, as another two dropped a banner from the upper stories of the hotel to greet lawmakers and corporate officials gathered for the 41st annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Protesters Whytney Blythe and Joshua Carmona were removed by hotel security, within about an hour after they chained themselves inside, and released without charges. State legislators and corporate lobbyist members from across the country will sit on task forces designed to review and vote on conservative “model” legislation that will likely travel from the Dallas Hilton Anatole’s luxury conference rooms to official state house chambers, as lawmakers often pass off ALEC model bills as their own. ALEC’s Climate Agenda Protesters Greet ALEC in Dallas. ALEC, The Tea Party, And Their Dangerous Plan To Privatize Our Government.
Scheme to bypass Electoral College quietly advances. Text smaller Text bigger With little fanfare and nearly no national media attention, the National Popular Vote effort is now 61 percent of the way toward its goal of legally bypassing the Electoral College established in the U.S.
Constitution. ALEC Resurfaces With Local Florida Angle. Wednesday, 12 March 2014 New city and county focus by bill mill raises more questions about corporate influence in Orange County government “AS A GROUP THAT FOCUSES ON LIMITED GOVERNMENT, FREE MARKETS AND FEDERALISM, WE BELIEVE OUR MESSAGE RINGS TRUE AT THE MUNICIPAL LEVEL JUST AS IT DOES IN STATE LEGISLATURES.” – ALEC SPOKESMAN WILHELM MEIERLING Source: The Guardian Given the past few years of municipal sweater-unraveling and general opaqueness in both policy and attitude in Orange County – OMG, text messages make government happen, you guys!
– it should come as no surprise that we don’t throw too much weight behind the notion of political coincidences locally. Difference between revisions of "Legislators Who Have Cut Ties to ALEC" ALEC Trayvon Martin Case - The ALEC Documents Exposed. And Found an Alternative Universe. The post originally appeared at The Progressive.
Last week I traveled to Missouri to attend my second American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) conference. As a state legislator from Wisconsin, I joined ALEC last year. That was the beginning of my journey into a parallel world. In the ALEC otherworld, the three branches of government are: 1) Multinational corporations, including Anheuser-Busch and Koch Industries, 2) Right-wing think tanks networked together through the State Policy Network, and 3) State legislators like me — although, as a progressive Democrat, I don’t fit the mold.
Most of my colleagues who belong to ALEC are Republicans and many are tea partiers. The three branches work together to construct and advance model bills in state legislatures throughout the country to further ALEC’s agenda of corporate dominance. When I asked one of my fellow attendees to take my picture, an ALEC employee forbade it. Strict conference rules applied. Secrecy reigned supreme. What ALEC Wants Next. ALEC Model Bills Undermine Clean Energy. Friday, 02 May 2014 Today in Kansas City, Missouri, the American Legislative Exchange Council is bringing your state legislators to a closed-door meeting with corporate lobbyists to ghostwrite “model” laws to bring to your state.
As usual, ALEC’s latest conference will be painted with patriotic rhetoric and all of the typical buzzwords: “free markets,” “liberty,” “Jeffersonian,” “Prosperity,”…you get the gist. But in typical political & public relations fashion, these words are a feeble shell obscuring an anti-populist, Big Business lobbying campaign. The American Legislative Exchange Council doesn’t care about free markets. I know it says it does, and I know they’re Tweeting with the #FreeMarkets hashtag today, but ALEC doesn’t honor the concept by any means. A simple glance through ALEC’s catalog of dirty energy bills reveals a limited range of work serving the corporations and billionaires bankrolling its operations–not exactly a genuine libertarian utopia. Zero. None. Preemptive laws against municipal minimum wages: ALEC idea. By Bob Plain on June 5, 2014 House Finance Committee Chairman Ray Gallison’s new bill to remove local control of minimum wage laws is akin to a corporate-funded effort across the country to suppress living wage protections.
The tactic is known as passing “preemption laws” and it’s been tied back to the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, the right wing bill mill that drafts corporate-friendly legislation for state legislators. “Business-backed groups that oppose living wages and paid leave have a serious problem on their hands: polls show that they’re popular,” according to (Bill) Moyers and Company in a report on Oklahoma’s new living wage restrictions. “So-called preemption laws provide them with a solution.” ALEC-sponsored “preemptive laws” are often cited when it comes to paid leave bills (see here, here and here). “In many states, big cities are more progressive than the state as a whole. Share. Who Is Behind the National Right to Work Committee and Its Anti-Union Crusade? National Right to Work Committee has deep connections within the national right-wing network led by the Koch brothers.
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)As the U.S. Supreme Court's 2014 session comes to a close, one of the major cases left for a decision is Harris vs. Quinn,which could effect millions of public sector workers in the United States. The case originates in Illinois, where home health care workers have been successfully organized by public sector unions. Now, a small group of these workers, represented by lawyers from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, have sued and their lawyers contend that the agency fees, or the fair share dues that even non-union members of a bargaining unit are required to pay to unions that bargain for higher wages on their behalf, violate the First Amendment. Joel Rogers, a professor of law and sociology at the University of Wisconsin, calls it "the most important labor law case the court has considered in decades.
" The Inside Story on ALEC I recently traveled to Missouri to attend my second American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) conference.
ALEC to Kick-Off ACCE (American City and County Exchange) at Dallas Meeting. It’s a smart step for ALEC.
(Its formal name is the American Legislative Exchange Council.) There’s been an explosion of conservative think-tankery in states over the past decade, with many capitals and big cities now hosting groups that float ideas, which are then promoted heavily by corporate interests. But, perhaps because there are so many thousands of localities, there’s nothing equivalent at the city or county level. “As a conservative, as somebody who believes in more of a limited government and free-market solutions to some of the problems that exist in government, I found myself frustrated in my council experience because there weren’t resources available to me,” says Jon Russell, a former local official in Washington state who is leading the initiative, known as the American City County Exchange. The organizations that do represent local governments don’t typically get into those sorts of ideological policy issues. ALEC Prepares Bills For Their Lackeys.
While Republicans lie their way through another campaign, their owners are meeting in Dallas,Texas to prepare the marching orders for the upcoming state legislative sessions. Voting for a Republican legislative candidate is about the same as a vote for Charles and David Koch. The Kochs are the major funder for ALEC. They and their corporate buddies have a major say, in actuality probably the only say, in so-called proposed “model” legislation. Protests Greet Lawmakers, Corporate Officials Gathering in Dallas as New Arm of ALEC Is Announced. Protesters dropped a banner from the upper stories of the Hilton Anatole hotel early Thursday, July 31, 2014, to greet legislators and corporate officials attending ALEC's 41st annual meeting in Dallas, Texas.
(Photo: Candice Bernd) Two grassroots activists from North Texas locked themselves inside the lobby of the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Thursday morning, as another two dropped a banner from the upper stories of the hotel to greet lawmakers and corporate officials gathered for the 41st annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Joshua Carmona from Dallas locked himself to a tree inside the lobby of the Hilton Anatole as hotel security arrives on the scene.
He was removed and released without charges Thursday, July 31, 2014. Conservative group Alec devises offshoot ACCE to lobby at local levels. The corporate lobbying network American Legislative Exchange Council, commonly known as Alec, is seeking to extend its brand of aggressive privatization and tax cuts to the local level, with the launch on Wednesday of a new offshoot focused on America’s cities and counties.
The new network, the American City County Exchange (ACCE), will hold its first public meeting in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday. It is timed to sit alongside Alec’s annual meeting at which the parent body will debate its usual menu of conservative priorities – pushing back government regulation, fighting moves to curb climate change, reducing trade union powers and cutting taxes. A similar emphasis is evident in the first agenda set for the new offshoot, with the distinction that ACCE hopes to influence elected officials in city and county councils while Alec has its sights largely set on state legislatures.
Alec has been described variously as a “corporate bill mill” and as a “corporate dating service”.