Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Top 10 Things That ALEC Wishes Never Happened

The corporate dating service for state lawmakers known as ALEC must be pretty upset with the attention it got this weekend. Here are 10 reasons why:
1. Local Newspapers Hold Their Local Legislators Accountable. The editorial boards ofThe Patriot News (Harrisburg, PA) and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch helps expose ALEC and its proposed oath for state lawmakers. 
· The Patriot News, Controversial ALEC is a group legislators should think twice about joining
· St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lawmakers should only take one loyalty oath, and it shouldn't be to ALEC 
2. ALEC Responds and Fails. Bill Meierling, ALEC’s director of public affairs, gives a laughable response to recent criticism with a Letter to the Editor in The Washington Post.  
3. The New York Times Calls Out ALEC’s Corporate Influence. Alex Hertel-Fernandez takes on ALEC in a New York Times blog: “ALEC has tremendous influence in state legislatures. Here’s why.” 
4. ALEC Makes It On TV. MSNBC covered the ALEC controversies over the weekend with Lee Fang of The Nation and Dana Milbank of The Washington Post. This was one of three stories MSNBC aired on ALEC in the last week.
· MSNBC: ALEC & ‘Stand Your Ground’ backlash
· MSNBC Maddow: Leak: Right-wing group loses big over gun law
· MSNBC: Is ALEC Falling on Hard Times? Interview w Dana Milbank (WaPo) & Lee Fang (The Nation) 
5. College Students Take On ALEC. The campus papers of the University of WI-Madison and the University of MN-Twin Cities help expose ALEC:
· The Badger Herald, One third Wisconsin legislators involved in ALEC
· Minnesota Daily, Tackling the ALEC problem 
6. Huffington Post Publishes New Exposé On ALEC and Health Care. Read the Center for Public Integrity’s Wendell Potter’s piece: “Big Corporations Abandoning Conservative Group That Pushes Changes in State Laws” 
7. ALEC’s Anti-Education Agenda Exposed. The Huffington Post helps exposes ALEC’s link to APSCU and attacks on public education: “For-profit College Group, Linked to ALEC, Keeps Working to Harm Students and Taxpayers” 
8. AFL-CIO: SPN’s Top 12 Ways To Kill Working Families in 2014. The AFL-CIO names the top 12 ways SPN “stink tanks” could assault the rights of working families in 2014. 
9. New Video Pokes Fun At ALEC Oath and Corporate Influence. Alliance for Better Utah released an animated video of an ALEC legislator taking an oath to ALEC. 
10. Documents Reveal ALEC Created SPN. Steve Horn of De Smog Blog publishes new research that shows ALEC was actually behind the creation of the State Policy Network (SPN).