ALEC Exposed

A Republican-dominated committee voted Thursday to recommend a half-million-dollar grant for promoting hunting and fishing to a group with no record in outdoors training, but with plenty of lobbying experience and close ties to outgoing Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder. The group, United Sportsmen of Wisconsin, will spend most of the $500,000 in taxpayer dollars on salaries for Tea Party leaders who have long railed against government spending.

"The task is not done, the journey is not complete," said Martin Luther King III on Saturday's 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington.

"The vision preached by my father a half-century ago was that his four little children would no longer live in a nation where they would judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character," he said.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) had its 40th anniversary meeting in Chicago, Illinois, at the posh Palmer House (a Hilton Hotel) from August 7-9. ALEC claims that 1,200 people attended its meeting this year; the conventioneers included state legislators, corporate lobbyists, and right-wing operatives. ALEC was greeted by more than twice as many protestors, who came out to speak out against ALEC's regressive policies.

For First Time, ALEC Is Formally Requesting Open Records Immunity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 15, 2013
CONTACT: Harriet_Rowan@prwatch.org

The Center for Media and Democracy filed a letter with the Texas Attorney General on Thursday refuting efforts by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to declare itself immune from the state's open records law. Texas is the first known state where ALEC has formally asked an Attorney General for an exemption from sunshine-in-government laws, and it marks a new low in the organization's attempts to advance its legislative agenda in secret and avoid public accountability for facilitating special interest influence.