Halloween Danger Comes Early: Smart A.L.E.C.’s Concept of a Nasty Trick or Treat

A.L.E.C. Cheating children with disabilities: How cheap and tawdry can it get?

We are all wary of tainted treats unwittingly collected by children at Halloween. Too often there are the cruel and dangerous concoctions hidden in what appears to be candy or other treats given out at Halloween by certain evil and deprived individuals who are criminally intent upon harming children.

The public has found amongst the "model" legislation and tricky lawmaking of the Koch Brothers backed AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL (ALEC) a terrible example of harm inflicted upon children. In the case in point, children with special needs.

How low and how dishonest/deceptive will the Corporatocracy behind A.L.E.C. go?

This summary comes from Ruth Conniff: "ALEC Exposed--How Corporations Are Taking Over Our Democracy":

"Republican lawmakers and corporations have a new target: kids in special ed. It sounds like a sick joke, but it's true."

Like cartoon schoolyard bullies, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-the powerful coalition of corporations and rightwing legislators-has worked out plans to trick special ed students and their families into giving up their federally protected educational benefits, in exchange for cheap vouchers that can be used in unregulated, fly-by-night academies.

Working off ALEC's proposed legislation--recently leaked by a whistleblower to the Center for Media and Democracy, and viewable on the web site ALEC Exposed--Republicans are pushing private-school voucher bills for kids with disabilities in states across the country."

The secretive pro-corporatist work of A.L.E.C. legislative members across the nation (and also in Michigan where over six dozen past or present members of the Michigan Legislature are A.L.E.C. lackeys (Toyna Schuitmaker-R, Lawton, Tom McMillin "R, Rochester) and/or active surrogates) MOVES THE REGRESSIVE AGENDA of the Koch Brothers/Betsy DeVos/the Mackinac Center.

In its most hideous form, it comes down to stark examples like this. Tricking parents of special needs children into surrendering their rights and access to federal support for the betterment and training of their precious children.

Take any issue that involves public education and twist it in a manner that extracts the best possible outcome for the for-profit predators in the rad-right's cabal of large corporations (A.L.E.C. sponsors) and make it work for their profitization, while exploiting the destruction of local community and the real lives of children. These predators and greed masters have no soul. They have no god, but profit. They thrive on power and skilled trickery.

Now after nearly 40 years of hiding in the open, the ugly side of A.L.E.C. is exposed, just in time to coincide with the American Legislative Exchange Council's attempt to accomplish a harsh and mind-boggling coup in America using their super majorities at the individual state legislative levels for their own ends.

It's an all out war on the middle class, community and local survival.

Wisconsin's became the symbol of this coup's agenda, but it's only one of many states, including Michigan, that has succumb to the power of A.L.E.C. REGRESSIVE LAWMAKING.

For special education children the "hidden poison pins" in the "gifted" apple have become a serious threat far earlier than Halloween.

A.L.E.C.: Cheating children with disabilities, how cheap and tawdry can it get?!

Beware the pernicious predators in the current TeaPublican putsch.

Michigan ALEC State Chair Sen. Tonya Schuitmaker: A CHEERY FACE & A FAKE DEFENSE, promoting corporatist direct access to Michigan lawmaking

Sen. Tonya Schuitmaker doesn't seem to know her facts on A.L.E.C., but she knows how to use A.L.E.C. boilerplate defense of its secret corporatist, state by state "model" Plug-and-Play legislation that is undercutting Middle America.

Sez Sen. Tonya, as reported by MIRS:

"(W)hile the business community is involved, it's only at the task force level when they're 'around the table.' "'It's just a time for legislators to gather to see what's working in other states in terms of model policy,' said Schuitmaker. 'I really think the attacks are unfounded.'"

Using the stock A.L.E.C defense State Chair Schuitmaker wants the public to believe that everything's out in the open, "the business community is involved, it's only at the task force level when they're 'around the table.'"

Ignorance concerning a powerful/secretive organization that is part and parcel of the Corporatist/ TeaPublican agenda (now labeled GOP State Solutions) is no excuse to defend its, corrupting influence, trouble making, usurpation of individual rights and/or and federal government's powers to promote health and well-being throughout our nation.

Either SCHUITMAKER IS VERY NAIVE OR SHE IS SHILLING FOR A.L.E.C. and attempting to give it much needed cover. Around the nation the public is focused now on the extreme measures the long-term, Rad-Right Council is pushing on the various states in a blitz of legislation undercutting rules and regs not favored by the Corporatocracy and attempting to hitchhike legislation into law during this time of extreme economic crisis in the states.

"'Our members join for the purpose of having a seat at the table,' said Dennis Bartlett of ALEC in 1997. 'That's just what we do, that's the service we offer. The organization is supported by money from the corporate sector, and, by paying to be members, corporations are allowed the opportunity to sit down at the table and discuss the issues that they have an interest in.'

"This is the heart of the Trojan horse. Power in ALEC does not come from political acumen, IT COMES FROM BRUTE FINANCIAL FORCE. CORPORATIONS BUY THEIR WAY ONTO ONE OF ALEC'S SPECIALIZED TASK FORCES. There, 'legislators welcome their private-sector counterparts to the table as equals,' according to one ALEC publication. ACTUALLY, THE CORPORATE COUNTERPARTS ARE MORE THAN EQUAL. THEY HAVE VETO POWER. NO BILL IS RELEASED FROM A TASK FORCE WITHOUT THEIR APPROVAL. THE RESULTS OF SUCH AN ARRANGEMENT ARE PREDICTABLE. The task force on criminal justice, for example, has been co-chaired by a representative of Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest operator of private prisons. In 1996, ALEC issued model legislation to deregulate utility markets: the legislation was pushed by Koch Industries and Enron.

"After corporate members use ALEC to draft dream legislation, the "model" bills go home with state legislators. The ALEC bills are introduced, debated and voted on by other lawmakers who think the proposals are democratic creations." 

(Emphasis added)

-- Source: WILL POTTER , ALEC Documents Reveal How Corporations Secretly Create New Law.

So what does Schuitmaker's group sitting "around the table" promote or accomplish?

The Michigan group 'WE ARE the People' has formed a partial list:

"The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a vehicle through which global corporations and state politicians collaborate and vote behind closed doors to design legislation to benefit the huge corporations funding ALEC. These so-called 'model bills' reach into almost every area of American life and include things like imposing voting restrictions, undermining environmental protections, scapegoating immigrants to profit the private prison industry and defunding public education." 

And this is only the tip of a nasty iceberg which is threatening the balance and sustainability of state governments.

Sen. Schuitmaker says that A.L.E.C. is bi-partisan. As in most cases, the group reaches that level by sticky via tokenism. The vast number of members are Republicans and now Koch/Rove style Tea Party members. The "work" it does is down and dirty:

"ALEC is a force. By the organization's own account, about 180 of its model bills are enacted in at least one state every year. ALEC scored some of its highest-profile victories during 2011 in Wisconsin and Ohio, where newly-elected Republican governors and legislators attacked budget shortfalls with legislation that sharply restricts the bargaining power of public worker unions. The bills were passed just a few months after companies in ALEC's leadership put more than $304,000 into the campaigns of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin state legislators, and spent more than $563,000 on Ohio Gov. John Kasich and lawmakers in the Buckeye State. Both Walker and Kasich are ALEC alumni."

snip

"In Wisconsin, the $304,607 leading ALEC companies put into 2010 campaigns was felt far beyond Gov. Walker's anti-union budget initiatives. State legislators also agreed this year to cap " along lines suggested by ALEC - the 'punitive' damages that can be assessed in personal injury lawsuits. The caps could save millions of dollars for ALEC's corporate members. And despite pleas from consumer groups, Wisconsin lawmakers voted to deregulate the telecommunications industry, also along lines promoted by ALEC.

"In Arizona, where firms on ALEC's private enterprise board have put nearly $16.6 million into state campaigns since 2001, the legislature attracted national attention and sparked a bitter partisan debate when it passed ALEC-backed legislation that gives state and local police new authority to detain suspected illegal immigrants. An investigation by National Public Radio found that one ALEC-member firm, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), was a key player in the ALEC task force that drafted the model bill that spawned Arizona's law. CCA, which builds or runs prisons in 21 states and reported 2010 revenues of $1.7 billion, has identified immigrant detention as an emerging market." 

-- These accounts are provided by Common Cause HERE.

The people of Minnesota are finding out about the work of Schiutmaker's A.L.E.C. which she describes: IT'S JUST A COFFEE KLATCH, we are just discussing our own state's problems and solutions amongst ourselves brushing aside. It's her feeble attempt to mitigate her misrepresentation of the heavy and controlling interest A.L.E.C.'s over 300 corporatist members have in their DIRECT PIPELINE lawmaking and resolution factories, set up over time in many states, and active for decades with LITTLE OR NO PUBLIC SCRUTINY OR KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT THEY ARE AND DO.THAT ERA IS OVER.

Here's what Minnesota Common Cause found in their state: "(A.L.E.C.) bills were revealed as Common Cause released a report on the influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is financially supported by corporations like Koch Industries and WalMart. At regular conferences, including one going on in New Orleans right now, these corporations draft corporate-friendly legislation that is approved by state legislators on legislative task forces and then introduced at state capitols across the country without disclosure that the business interests wrote them.

"'The work of ALEC shows how the Minnesota capitol is governed by corporate lobbyists instead of main street voters,' said Mike Dean, executive director of Common Cause Minnesota. 'Dozens of corporations are investing millions of dollars to write business-friendly legislation that is being passed into law without public knowledge and often at the expense of the public interest.'

"Common Cause Minnesota found a number of recent Minnesota bills that mirrored ALEC counterparts:

- Voter Restrictions: (HF 89, SF 479) Bill that critics say would suppress voter turnout. ALEC legislation.

- Taxation of Moist Snuff Tobacco: (HF 1079) This bill, created by tobacco companies, would create a tax break for moist tobacco. ALEC legislation.

- Cheeseburger Bill: (HF 264, SF 160) This bill partially shields large food companies from consumer lawsuits. ALEC connection from Inside ALEC magazine.

- End Greenhouse Gas Emission Goals (HF 509) This bill opposes efforts to restrict the emission of greenhouse gases. ALEC legislation.

"The ALEC conference in New Orleans this week includes workshops about pension reform, privatization of Medicaid and the benefits of C02 (in a global warming context)."
--Accounts from The Minnesota Independent & Minnesota Common Cause, Minnesota bills traced to controversial corporate group ALEC

What Tonya Schuitmaker wants you to never know is the true extent of the influenced and effectiveness of A.L.E.C.'s achievements and its many "gifts" delivered by state legislators, such as herself, to enhancing and abetting those contributing and controlling corporations in A.L.E.C.'s secret network:

Ms. Schuitmaker may give her time and loyalty to the American Legislative Exchange Council, enjoy its perks and privileges, go on its junkets, but back home she represents a very financially depressed district and many, many folks who live near "hand to mouth" - they deserve more and better from her than what her service to a corporatist front group is attempting to take from them and others in Michigan with Schuitmaker's facilitating- insider help-as a leading A.L.E.C. lawmaker.


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Smart A.L.E.C. in the Michigan: The secret is There is No Secret… But Oh Yes, There Is!

Smart A.L.E.C. - Current AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL NATIONAL CHAIRMAN (one Noble Ellington - a Louisiana Bourbon Republican) POURED SNAKE OIL ON THE SCANDAL THAT IS BREWING NATIONALLY OVER CORPORATIONS DICATATIONG AND WRITING LAW/RESOLUTIONS.

See Original INTERVIEWS in "National Chairman Of ALEC Responds To Report" in PART 2, also See PART 1 "Who's Really Writing States' Legislation?".

Beyond evasive and condescending, Noble Ellington misrepresented and dissimulated the clever lies A.L.E.C. uses as a blanket defense: There's nothing to hide, There is no secret, everything is ordinary and out-in-the-open, there nothing to raise concerns about A.L.E.C.'s operations.

Compliant ALEC MEMBERS (IN PLACES LIKE MICHIGAN) THEN SIMPLY XEROX ALEC's "MODELS" IN TO STATE LAW WITH LITTLE OR NO SUBSTANTIVE CHANGES - in some cases exact word-for-word verbiage.

Investigative writer Beau Hodai, DBA Press, outlines the A.L.E.C. method of operation and details on its rise to a bill writing factory-for the far-nutters who bow and scrape to serve the Corporatocracy now attempting a coup in America's heartland.

Reports Hodai:

"The group (A.L.E.C.) also claims more than 250 "private sector" member corporations and special interest groups. Though ALEC refuses to make its private (or public) sector membership lists available, known members include: ExxonMobil, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Corrections Corporation of America, AT&T, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, TimeWarner Cable, Wal-Mart, Phillip Morris International, the National Rifle Association and the Heritage Foundation (co-founded by ALEC founder Paul Weyrich)-to name a few.

"The functions of ALEC (a national organization, incorporated in Illinois and headquartered in Washington, D.C.) are subdivided into state leadership teams; in each state one lawmaker serves as ALEC's "public sector chairman," and one corporate representative serves as the "private sector chairman."

How does A.L.E.C. get its tentacles around Michigan Law?
In Michigan, a genteel young woman from an unsuspecting, bucolic southwest rural hamlet, Senator Tonya Schuitmaker-R, was the A.L.E.C. point person a year ago. And before Schuitmaker, a turn or two ago, it was former Rep. Mary Ann Middaugh-R long-time Lansing insider and legislator, also from this rural area, who also had a turn heading up the A.L.E.C. subversion of the state's legislative process. Others like another former legislator, Jason Allen, Traverse City was the state chair. (Allen and Schuitmaker in turn took political contributions from ATT & T - a major ALEC corporate member.)

JUST HOW DOES THE MASSIVE CORPORATE AGENDA & SPECIAL TREATMENT MAKE IT INTO LAW IN MICHIGAN?

Beau Hodai explains:

"ALEC is comprised of nine "task forces" on which both private and public sector members serve: 1.) Public Safety and Elections; 2.) Civil Justice; 3.) Education; 4.) Energy, Environment and Agriculture; 5.) Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development; 6.) Telecommunications and Information Technology; 7.) Health and Human Services; 8.) Tax and Fiscal Policy; and 9.) International Relations.

"These task forces form the core of ALEC's legislative operations. Each task force generates "model legislation" that is then passed on to ALEC member lawmakers for introduction in their respective state legislatures."

"ALEC does not make its model legislation available for public inspection."

"According to ALEC promotional material, every year member lawmakers typically introduce 1,000 pieces of task force-crafted legislation. About 17 percent of which become law. In 2009, for example, ALEC claimed a total of 826 pieces of introduced legislation nationwide, 115 of which were passed into law-slightly below the average at 14 percent."

A.L.E.C: A Corporatist Pipeline With Access & Control of Public Lawmaking
How important is this pipeline of bill preparation, direct presentation and passage to those hundreds of corporate CEO's who belong and support ALEC? From the best information we have, they calculate it is worth spending tens of millions to get a prescriptive or proscriptive bill passed into codified state law.

Investigator Lisa Graves, adds in:

"According to ALEC's IRS filings, over the past three years it has raised $21,615,465 from corporations, foundations, and other sources, and just over $250,000 in dues paid by state legislators, amounting to slightly more than 1 percent of its income."

Writer Hodai expands this number, over a "10-year period, ALEC REPORTED $54,504,702 IN 'GIFTS,' 'GRANTS' AND OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ITS CORPORATE AND SPECIAL INTEREST MEMBERS."

FOLKS WE ARE TALKING SERIOUS MONEY HERE

For one of the largest contributors and solid backers, THE INFAMOUS KOCH BROTHERS, this kind of ready and obedient bill writing and passage is an invaluable asset. Of course seen in light of their reported net worth of around $40 billion, this entire effort is chump change.

Hodai again:

"David Koch also currently chairs the AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY FOUNDATION (AFPF), formerly known as the Citizens for a Sound Economy Educational Foundation (another prominent ALEC-contributor), largely funded by CKF and Koch Industries. Joining him on that board is Koch Industries Executive Vice President Richard Fink, who is also the former executive vice president of the Mercatus Center, yet another Koch-funded, right-wing ALEC public policy member."

"In 2003, AFPF incarnated two more foundations: AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY AND FREEDOMWORKS. As noted in AFPF's 2003 tax records, the group paid U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) $429,583, via FreedomWorks, as a "consultant"--his first year salary as chairman of FreedomWorks."

"As Kate Zernike noted in our October 2010 cover story, "Tea Party Confidential," Armey and the group's president Matt Kibbe wrote an op-ed article in 2007 proposing the Boston Tea Party as a model for putting grassroots pressure on a central government. She writes, 'Presaging Tea Party tactics in the summer of 2009, they described how Samuel Adams packed town hall meetings with his supporters to drown out Tory voices and used each new British policy or tax as 'an excuse to rally new recruits to the cause of American independence.' They wrote, 'Adams was the first American to recognize that 'it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather, an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.' "

Beginning in 2009, FreedomWorks was instrumental in creating THE FAUX-POPULIST TEA PARTY. The mainstream media uncritically hyped the scores of Tea Party tax day protests orchestrated by FreedomWorks and the National Taxpayers Union (another Koch-funded ALEC group headed by former ALEC executive director Duane Parde), thus HELPING ENABLE UNPRECEDENTED REPUBLICAN LEGISLATIVE MAJORITIES IN STATES ACROSS THE NATION.

Bribe-like "gifts," junkets, western fishing trips, meet and greets, golf and other recreational outings, as well as a peck of "perks" are judiciously labeled as legislator's "scholarships" and festoon A.L.E.C.'s saprophytic methodology; all this using their tax-sheltered 501 (c) (3) as a cover for this kind of inspirational bonding. A.L.E.C.'S Senior Director of Public Affairs Raegan Weber firmly asserts that just as ALEC claims "scholarship funds" disbursed to lawmakers are not "gifts"" as 501(c)(3)s cannot give gifts to politicians" so too does the group deny any involvement in the formation of legislation or in lobbying activities.

On October 29, 2010 (following a wave of critical coverage spurred by 'In  These Times' reporting on the organization's role in disseminating model legislation closely resembling Arizona's SB 1070), in a memo addressed to its public sector chairmen, ALEC offered this explanation of how its role in creating "model legislation" does not violate the group's not-for-profit status reports Beau Hodai of DBA Press:

"Laws are not passed, debated or adopted during this process and therefore no lobbying takes place. That process is done at the state legislatures. ... Just like teachers, farmers and ranchers, senior citizens and other groups, businesses have the right to representation and to inform legislators about their industry." 

SAY WHAT?
A.L.E.C. spends tens of millions on "scholarships" for legislators and judges. Lavish entertainments and other entertainment"perks," but this (according to A.L.E.C. spokespeople) is not extraordinary. But, wait, it is very extraordinary; "(T)eachers, farmers and ranchers, senior citizens and other groups" do not have this great, decades-long inside track, slick mechanism to "meet and greet" in the extravagant, lavish manner A.L.E.C. (a taxpayer assisted, tax exempt 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, "not-for-profit" organization does and can.) The American Legislative Exchange Council has this clever, quiet system to subvert the stateside legislative process in many states, including Michigan.

No way do "teachers, farmers and ranchers, senior citizens and other groups" have the equal "privilege" of having favorable legislation funneled directly into bill language (fill-in-the-blanks models pre-crafted by A.L.E.C. lawyers and corporate wordsmiths), new law language and content introduced in the various legislatures with a friendly wink & nod, no (traditional) lobbying involved. And as of late in Wisconsin and Michigan, the A.L.E.C. generated "off the shelf" bill "drops" get fast-tracked into law when the moment is right.

A.L.E.C. CUTS THE CORNERS VERY CAREFULLY AS TO THE FEDERAL GUIDELINES FOR 501(C)(3)'s.

Again, Hodai, DBA Press:

"It is important to note, however, that these scholarship fund awards are not supposed to be used as campaign contributions, per ALEC's 501 (c) (3) status-even though, according to data compiled by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, this did not stop ALEC member lawmakers in Wisconsin, Kansas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Iowa, Mississippi, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri and Georgia from reporting ALEC funds as campaign contributions during the 2008 election cycle. These funds, distributed over 15 lawmakers in these 10 states totaled $17,113 in contributions ranging from $400 to $3,097."

SO WHAT GIVES?
According to election records for the most current cycles where they are available the following Michigan Legislators/representatives who got direct campaign funding from corporations members of and backing A.L.E.C.

For example - Let's look at who got money from A.L.E.C.'s member AT&T in Michigan:

1. Tonya Schuitmaker

2. Bill Huizenga

3. Jason Allen

4. Mike Rogers

As researchers continue to discover other recipients of A.L.E.C. largess, more money and influence connections in Michigan will come to light.

More on ALEC in Michigan can be found here and here.
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