Meet the Wonderful Wizard of ALEC

Randall Schumann: Pull back the curtain to expose the ‘wizard’ behind Walker. (Capital Times, 6/14/2011)

Excerpt:   The American Legislative Exchange Council was founded in the early 1970s and, like the wizard, operates “behind the curtain” and can boast of both drafting and helping pass hundreds of state laws. Its highest priorities are tax cuts for corporations, loosened environmental regulations, restrictions on union collective bargaining, and privatizing state-owned assets.

Some 300 of America’s biggest corporations are ALEC’s “sponsors” and more than a third of all state lawmakers in the country (totaling 2,400 legislators, most of whom are Republican) are “members.” If an ALEC-member legislator takes an ALEC proposal back to his or her home state and introduces it, the legislator can expect to receive in exchange generous campaign contributions from the big corporate sponsors or their political action committees.