Let's Meet ALEC

[ace's n 8's]

Originally Posted by stumbler

I didn't think you could get anymore hysterical Big Sobbing but I see I was wrong.

And you bet President Obama and the Democrats could loose. But even if that happens you see me getting all hysterical about it or suddenly claim I'm no longer willing to live under majority rule because my side lost an election.

But either way ALEC is never going to be the same again because they've been exposed.

I believe that ALEC will recover, it may take a few years,,but I'm very confident that ALEC WILL recover, and be able to get commonsense/smaller federal government laws passed again, all for the liberties and freedoms of the people.

[stumbler]

Originally Posted by ace's n 8's

I believe that ALEC will recover, it may take a few years,,but I'm very confident that ALEC WILL recover, and be able to get commonsense/smaller federal government laws passed again, all for the liberties and freedoms of the people.

The group that invented the for profit private prison industry and then passed a host of drug laws to fill those prisons and make those profits could give a fuck less about the liberties and freedoms of the people Ace.

That's just dumb.

[ace's n 8's]

Originally Posted by stumbler

The group that invented the for profit private prison industry and then passed a host of drug laws to fill those prisons and make those profits could give a fuck less about the liberties and freedoms of the people Ace.

That's just dumb.

The privatization movement can be traced to the contracting out of confinement and care of prisoners after the American Revolution, I'm pretty sure ALEC had nothing to do with it, or the drug laws.

[stumbler]

Originally Posted by ace's n 8's

The privatization movement can be traced to the contracting out of confinement and care of prisoners after the American Revolution, I'm pretty sure ALEC had nothing to do with it, or the drug laws.

Bills that benefit long-time ALEC members of the global for-profit prison industry, like the Corrections Corporation of America, by:

• Increasing time served for drug offenses through mandatory minimum sentencing,

• Creating barriers to alternatives to prison such as community-based corrections programs, which will increase prison populations (see another example (here), and

• Treating juveniles like adults. See also here.

• Not in the zip file, but on The Heartland Institute website, is the "Private Correctional Facilities Act" from 1995, which opens a state to for-profit incarceration.

http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Guns...nd_Immigration

[ace's n 8's]

Originally Posted by stumbler

[/I][/LIST]http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Guns...nd_Immigration

This is what you said;

Originally Posted by stumbler

The group that invented the for profit private prison industry and then passed a host of drug laws to fill those prisons and make those profits could give a fuck less about the liberties and freedoms of the people Ace.

That's just dumb.

I pointed out to you that Alec and the laws that they help get passed had nothing to do with the for profit private prison industry.
Now the laws that ALEC assists ingetting passed, nowthat a different story and so far as a private citizen that I am,,,I dont have a problem with many of the laws that ALEC assists in getting passed,,you leftists dont like ALEC because they stand for everything that you leftists are against.

[stumbler]

Originally Posted by ace's n 8's

This is what you said;I pointed out to you that Alec and the laws that they help get passed had nothing to do with the for profit private prison industry.
Now the laws that ALEC assists ingetting passed, nowthat a different story and so far as a private citizen that I am,,,I dont have a problem with many of the laws that ALEC assists in getting passed,,you leftists dont like ALEC because they stand for everything that you leftists are against.

This started to change in 1993, when Texas State Representative and ALEC member Ray Allen crafted the Texas Prison Industries Act, which aimed to expand the PIE program. After it passed in Texas, Allen advocated that it be duplicated across the country. In 1995, ALEC’s Prison Industries Act was born.


This Prison Industries Act as printed in ALEC’s 1995 state legislation sourcebook, “provides for the employment of inmate labor in state correctional institutions and in the private manufacturing of certain products under specific conditions.” These conditions, defined by the PIE program, are supposed to include requirements that “inmates must be paid at the prevailing wage rate” and that the “any room and board deductions…are reasonable and are used to defray the costs of inmate incarceration.” (Some states charge prisoners for room and board, ostensibly to offset the cost of prisons for taxpayers. In Florida, for example, prisoners are paid minimum wage for PIE-certified labor, but 40 percent is taken out of their accounts for this purpose.)



The Prison Industries Act sought to change this, inventing the “private sector prison industry expansion account,” to absorb such deductions, and stipulating that the money should be used to, among other things: “construct work facilities, recruit corporations to participate as private sector industries programs, and pay costs of the authority and department in implementing [these programs].” Thus, money that was taken from inmate wages to offset the costs of incarceration would increasingly go to expanding prison industries. In 2000, Florida passed a law that mirrored the Prison Industries Act and created the Prison Industries Trust Fund, its own version of the private sector prison industry expansion account, deliberately designed to help expand prison labor for private industries.

http://www.thenation.com/article/162...-prison-labor#

[ace's n 8's]

Originally Posted by stumbler

http://www.thenation.com/article/162...-prison-labor#

This started to change in 1993, when Texas State Representative and ALEC member Ray Allen crafted the Texas Prison Industries Act, which aimed to expand the PIE program. After it passed in Texas, Allen advocated that it be duplicated across the country. In 1995, ALEC’s Prison Industries Act was born.


This Prison Industries Act as printed in ALEC’s 1995 state legislation sourcebook, “provides for the employment of inmate labor in state correctional institutions and in the private manufacturing of certain products under specific conditions.” These conditions, defined by the PIE program, are supposed to include requirements that “inmates must be paid at the prevailing wage rate” and that the “any room and board deductions…are reasonable and are used to defray the costs of inmate incarceration.” (Some states charge prisoners for room and board, ostensibly to offset the cost of prisons for taxpayers. In Florida, for example, prisoners are paid minimum wage for PIE-certified labor, but 40 percent is taken out of their accounts for this purpose.)



The Prison Industries Act sought to change this, inventing the “private sector prison industry expansion account,” to absorb such deductions, and stipulating that the money should be used to, among other things: “construct work facilities, recruit corporations to participate as private sector industries programs, and pay costs of the authority and department in implementing [these programs].” Thus, money that was taken from inmate wages to offset the costs of incarceration would increasingly go to expanding prison industries. In 2000, Florida passed a law that mirrored the Prison Industries Act and created the Prison Industries Trust Fund, its own version of the private sector prison industry expansion account, deliberately designed to help expand prison labor for private industries.

AND stumbler other countries are doing the exact same thing, even before ALEC started to get involved.

[Druidoak]

Alec is a law for profit group. Every law they auther puts money in someones pocket, plain and simple. They authered the three strike law, guess what violent crime went up.

Way to go Alec!

[stumbler]

Originally Posted by ace's n 8's

AND stumbler other countries are doing the exact same thing, even before ALEC started to get involved.

Oh so that's what's important? What other countries are doing? But those other countries don't have the largest prison population in the world do they Ace.

No thanks to ALEC the private prison industry that distinction belongs to us.

ALEC has also worked to pass state laws to create private for-profit prisons, a boon to two of its major corporate sponsors: Corrections Corporation of America and Geo Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections), the largest private prison firms in the country.

An In These Times investigation last summer revealed that ALEC arranged secret meetings between Arizona’s state legislators and CCA to draft what became SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law, to keep CCA prisons flush with immigrant detainees. ALEC has proven expertly capable of devising endless ways to help private corporations benefit from the country’s massive prison population.

http://www.thenation.com/article/162...-prison-labor#

Originally Posted by Druidoak

Alec is a law for profit group. Every law they auther puts money in someones pocket, plain and simple. They authered the three strike law, guess what violent crime went up.

Way to go Alec!

Man have you got this right. Just like using prison labor to manufacture cheap goods while the unemployment rate outside of prison is above 8%.

ALEC is also behind all the voter suppression laws we're seeing.

[ace's n 8's]

[QUOTE=stumbler;5258814]

Oh so that's what's important? What other countries are doing? But those other countries don't have the largest prison population in the world do they Ace.

No thanks to ALEC the private prison industry that distinction belongs to us.

Prison is not too fun in other countries now is it,, hell here, you can get a college education, eat better food,take a shower, get visitors, get on a work release program, receive parole hearings so on and so on,,fuck it's almost a vacation to be in prison here in the U.S.,,,,with all the rights of those that are not in prison, AND the tax payers pay for ALL of those rights.

Why dont you check and see what type of rights a prisoner has in the country Turkey or Saudi Arabia..Dont give me that horseshit buddy.

[stumbler]

Originally Posted by ace's n 8's

Prison is not too fun in other countries now is it,, hell here, you can get a college education, eat better food,take a shower, get visitors, get on a work release program, receive parole hearings so on and so on,,fuck it's almost a vacation to be in prison here in the U.S.,,,,with all the rights of those that are not in prison, AND the tax payers pay for ALL of those rights.

Why dont you check and see what type of rights a prisoner has in the country Turkey or Saudi Arabia..Dont give me that horseshit buddy.

So your point is we need to be like Turkey and Saudi Arabia?

And this is proof positive that you neither know nor care about the United States constitution. All really care about is trying to advance the lie of conservatism as it is preached and practiced in this nation constitution and constitutional rights be damned.

[stumbler]

Biotechnology Firm Amgen Becomes The 31st Company To Dump ALEC

Amgen, a biotechnology firm with approximately 17,000 employees, joined 30 other companies today that have broken ties with the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC provides “model” legislation, often drafted by industry lobbyists, to state lawmakers with the intention of having those model bills be enacted into law. Although ALEC recently eliminated a task force that pushed voter suppression laws and the so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws that played a significant role in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting, the conservative group remains committed to other priorities such as repealing minimum wage laws, eliminating capital gains and estate taxes, and blocking safeguards that protect children from eating rat poison.



Other companies that have broken ties with ALEC in the wake of a progressive campaign exposing its connection to Stand Your Ground and voter suppression laws include Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, McDonalds, Wendy’s, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Procter & Gamble, Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, Johnson & Johnson, Dell Computers, Best Buy, General Motors and Walgreens.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...-to-dump-alec/

[stumbler]

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie Adopted ALEC Bills ‘Nearly Word For Word’

In the past year, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has lost over 40 member companies because of its role in crafting voter suppression laws, anti-immigration laws like Arizona’s SB 1070, and other conservative causes. Still, the group continues to be popular among lawmakers in Republican-controlled states. According to a report released Monday, ALEC has even made inroads in Democratic-leaning New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie (R) and other New Jersey lawmakers have apparently introduced 22 bills since 2010 based on ALEC model legislation. Christie denied the connection in April, when another report found many similarities between his legislation and ALEC bills. However, records found Christie’s advisers and conservative lawmakers in New Jersey consulted ALEC on key legislation, including:

The New Jersey Jobs Protection Act (S240) and a similar bill (S164), which would require all employers to verify whether their workers are legally qualified to work in the United States. The report said they were “taken nearly word for word from ALEC’s Fair and Legal Employment Act, which is also incorporated in ALEC’s longer and more thorough No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act — the infamous model legislation that was introduced in Arizona … and led to protests across the country and a showdown at the Supreme Court.”


ACR103, which would allow a two-thirds majority in the state Legislature to nullify any federal law or regulation. It’s sponsored by Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-Monmouth) and Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris), co-chairman of ALEC’s state chapter. Handlin, who has said she is not an ALEC member, and Webber declined to comment.


The New Jersey Parental Rights Program Act (S504), which would create a publicly funded scholarship program for students attending certain types of private or religious schools.

None of the bills passed in the Democrat-controlled Legislature, and Christie’s office continues to deny any coordination on the bills in spite of the nearly identical language. His attempts to distance himself from the group is no surprise; ALEC has become notorious since their involvement in pushing right-wing legislation was exposed earlier this year. The bad publicity led corporations including Amazon, General Electric, Coca-Cola, and Walmart to drop their financial support of the group.


ALEC is funded by Koch Industries and has proven to be a good investment for the powerful brothers. The group wrote models for many of the most radical state bills, including “Stand Your Ground” laws, SB 1070, union-busting bills, anti-minimum wage laws, voter ID requirements, and efforts to block clean energy while promoting “the benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment.” In spite of their heavy reliance on the group, lawmakers are not required to disclose the powerful group’s influence as it is technically a non-profit and refuses to comply with lobbying laws.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...word-for-word/

[stumbler]

Study: ALEC Is Bad for the Economy

The American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate-funded group that generates nearly a thousand pro-business model bills per year and feeds them to state legislatures nationwide, is holding its annual policy summit in the nation's capital this week to meet with new state lawmakers and "prepare the next generation of political leadership." This coincides with the release of a report showing that ALEC's economic prescriptions are not good for the economy.


Each year, ALEC ranks the states on how tightly they adhere to the group's policy recommendations—from personal and corporate tax rates, to public sector employment levels, to right-to-work laws—as a predictor of their economic growth. The study released Wednesday, by the Iowa Policy Project and Good Jobs First, two policy groups that promote economic growth at the state level, introduces those rankings to reality. It concludes: "A hard look at the actual data finds that the ALEC…recommendations not only fail to predict positive results for state economies—the policies they endorse actually forecast worse state outcomes for job creation and paychecks." (Though the report is careful to maintain that though ALEC policies are correlated with less prosperous state economies, that doesn't necessarily mean the policies caused economic decline.)


Let's take a look. In six key measures of economic growth, ALEC's "Economic Outlook Rankings" fail to coincide with the actual economic outlook of a state over time. On the horizontal axis we have all 50 states' ALEC economic grades from 2007, when ALEC started its ranking system. The vertical axis shows the percent change in actual economic performance from 2007 until last year. If ALEC's fortune-telling were correct , the plotted points would form an upward, rightward line, with a better score corresponding with a better economy. But what happens is pretty much the opposite:


Note the downward slope:


Whoa, downward slope:


A better economy means higher incomes, means more tax revenue, right?




Aaaaand upward slope:




Instead of boosting states' fortunes, the report finds that ALEC's preferred policies seem to provide "a recipe for economic inequality, wage suppression, and stagnant incomes, and for depriving state and local governments of the revenue needed to maintain the public infrastructure and education systems that are the true foundations of long term economic growth and shared prosperity."

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012...ouncil-economy

[stumbler]

Major Ohio Newspapers Rely On AP To Point Out ALEC's Role In Bill Curbing Asbestos Victims Rights

Top Ohio newspapers failed to adequately highlight the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) influence on recent asbestos legislation in the state.


On December 4, the Ohio Senate passed an ALEC-inspired bill that curbs the ability of asbestos victims to file lawsuits for damages. From Legal Newsline:

A bill meant to stop the duplication of asbestos lawsuits has passed the Ohio state Senate.


The bill, which passed the Senate by a 19-14 vote, would require anyone to reveal all asbestos claims filed by them or for them. If they don't do so, the person could face perjury charges. The bill made it through Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. It passed the House in January.
[...]


Critics, however, say the measure would slow legitimate claims. And they say the bill would make Ohio the first state with such claim restrictions even though Ohio is among the states with the biggest backlog of asbestos claims.

The Dayton Daily News and Cincinnati Enquirer both failed to link the harmful asbestos bill to ALEC in their original reporting, despite it being covered in other states and nationally. Only the Columbus Dispatch ran an original story that noted the piece of legislation was an ALEC model bill, while the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Dayton Daily News published AP versions of the story that briefly mentioned ALEC. None of the stories highlighted the several legislators who supported the bill who are also known members of ALEC.


Ohio has the 8th highest rate of death in the nation from mesothelioma and asbestosis with 1,328 total mesothelioma and asbestosis deaths from 1999 to 2008. Ohio is one of several states to pass an ALEC inspired bill attempting to limit the damages victims of asbestos exposure can seek. This year alone, legislation attempting to curtail victims' rights has been passed in Michigan, Arizona, Idaho, and Utah. The Minnesota legislature also passed an ALEC inspired bill, however it was vetoed by Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton (D).


In 2001, ALEC and manufacturing company Crown Holdings, Inc. jointly crafted model legislation which attempted to limit the amount in compensation victims of asbestos-related diseases received from companies who exposed their workers to asbestos. Coverage of the model bill in Minnesota from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune revealed that this "national effort" was being undertaken by the "$8 billion can manufacturer to shield itself from costly asbestos lawsuits." Even the general counsel to Crown Holdings, William Gallagher, announced in testimony before the Michigan House Judiciary Committee that the laws passed in other states were based on ALEC model legislation and urged Michigan to enact a similar law.


Unsurprisingly, several legislators involved in the crafting of the Ohio asbestos bill are or were members of ALEC. A Cincinnati Enquirer article -- while completely omitting any ALEC mentions -- cited several legislators who sponsored and voted for the bill including the bill's originator Rep. Louis Blessing Jr., Senate President Tom Niehaus, Sen. Bill Seitz and Sen. Bill Coley. All four have known ties to ALEC according to the Center for Media and Democracy's project, ALEC Exposed.


Despite the many news reports and facts linking this bill to ALEC, Ohio newspapers generally failed to produce original content which makes the link. The Cincinnati Enquirer published a piece of original content that made no mention of ALEC. The Dayton Daily News published one original news story which did not mention ALEC. In addition, the Daily News published two AP stories on the bill, but only one of which made the ALEC connection. The only paper to run an original story mentioning ALEC was the Columbus Dispatch which, buried at the bottom of a story on legislative action banning Internet cafes, wrote a short blurb on other lame-duck legislative action:

Following a spirited debate, the Senate approved House Bill 380, which is aimed at victims of on-the-job asbestos exposure who try to pursue two avenues for damages. It would require workers to disclose all asbestos claims they have filed. Critics say it would block legitimate claims. The bill is based on model legislation from the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council. The bill passed 19-14, with four Republicans, including Sen. Jim Hughes, R-Columbus, joining all Democrats in opposition.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Dayton Daily News both ran an AP version of the story that referenced ALEC at the end of the story:

The bill stems from model legislation developed by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, which has drawn attention for the entree it's recently gained at statehouses through efforts including opulent, corporate-backed conferences not always subject to normal disclosure rules.

None of this coverage -- the original content as well as the AP article -- mentioned the direct and extensive links between the bill's sponsors and ALEC, even when mentioning those legislators in their reporting.
Ohio papers are not alone, however. When the ALEC asbestos bill was passed in Michigan neither of the state's two biggest newspapers covered the connection.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/12...t-out-a/191717