Mapping Device of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC )

Until they became public, and under scrutiny, no one really knew the integral depths ALEC has become at almost every level! Local, state and federal legislatures have been corrupted. From ALEC Exposed.org "These bills and resolutions reach into almost every area of American life: worker and consumer rights, education, the rights of Americans injured or killed by corporations, taxes, health care, immigration, and the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink. Only by seeing the depth and breadth and language of the bills can one fully understand the power and sweep of corporate influence behind the scenes on bills affecting the rights and future of every American in every single state." I have been working with a friend from Southern Arizona, Lisa Hoffman, and she has compiled an interactive map, it will take your breath away how deep the inner workings have gone. Follow the mapping device, click on the names, see how deep this collusion has been. One masterful Machiavellian scheme by the conservatives is the only way to describe it! Who said there wasn't a "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" going on? We know that it was no conspiracy, it was the complete truth!

Exposing ALEC's Corporate Influence On State Government

From yesterday's press conference in Phoenix, AZ at the Capitol.

ALEC in Arizona

Phoenix protesters pepper-sprayed at Westin Kierland Resort "...Some 900 predominantly Republican lawmakers from around the country are taking part in the three-day ALEC conference, which is sponsored by ExxonMobil, AT&T, SRP, Altria, Novartis, Aetna and Freeport-McMoran, among other corporations. Lawmakers were aware of the protests but dismissed the protesters' concerns of undue influence. "They presume that my vote can be bought, and it can't," said Amanda Grosserode, a Republican lawmaker from Lenexa, Kans. Robin Vos, a Wisconsin Republican legislator, said, "there are no examples in Wisconsin of corporations having undue influence." At at much more subdued gathering at the state Capitol on Wednesday morning, a group of about 40 professionals and activist leaders spoke about how legislation that has come out of ALEC affects Arizonans. Former Arizona Democratic legislative leader John Loredo said the groups are focused on "exposing the corporate influence of ALEC." "ALEC is the mechanism companies use to control public policy," Loredo said. "This is policy designed to enrich the richest corporations in the country at the expense of the middle class and the voters." He and other speakers mentioned Arizona's Senate Bill 1070 immigration law, laws supporting the use of private prisons, efforts to curb union activities and laws that privatize education. "Long ago, ALEC's corporate members figured out they could make big bucks by locking people up," said Caroline Isaacs, program director for the Arizona branch of the Quaker-based social justice group American Friends Service Committee. "Immigrant detention is the new growth industry.""

I'm sorry, any rebpuli-con legislator who says their vote cannot be bought by ALEC would not be attending the ALEC conference!

From a friend who was at the protest this morning... "The irony of it all was that here we had this overabundance of police in riot gear poised to pounce on the protesters protesting ALEC. While inside the Westin, ALEC was writing legislation to privatize every function of government. Which legislators throughout the country would bring back to their state legislatures...legislation that would potentially destroy the jobs of these same publicly employed policemen and decimate their pensions!" - Fred B.