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http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/04/05/alec-climate-denial-lawsuit-against-critics

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) [1] has threatened public interest group Common Cause with a lawsuit [2] for pointing out what the public record has made clear: ALEC denies the scientific consensus on climate change [3].

As first reported by The Washington Post [4], ALEC's lawyers Alan Dye and Heidi Abegg wrote a cease-and-desist letter to Common Cause president Miles Rapoport. Dye and Abegg demanded that Common Cause stop calling ALEC a cog in the climate denial machine.

“We demand that you cease making inaccurate statements regarding ALEC, and immediately remove all false or misleading material from the Common Cause, and related, websites within five business days,” they wrote[2]. “Should you not do so, and/or continue to publish any defamatory statements, we will consider any and all necessary legal action to protect ALEC.”

ALEC critics call the organization a “corporate bill mill [5].” 

Dye and Abegg also demanded an immediate and public retraction of statements the Common Cause has made about ALEC with regards to climate denial.

 [2]

Image Credit: Common Cause [2]

Further, Dye and Abegg argued that ALEC — contrary to the vast amount of evidence [6] collected by those who research the organization — does not deny climate change.

Common Cause Fires Back

Common Cause, through its legal counsel at the firm Wilmerhale, have hit back and stands by its initial claims.

“Common Cause rejects ALEC's allegations and stands by the fairness and accuracy of its statements and reporting,” wrote Wilmerhale attorney Vinita Ferrera in a March 25 letter [7]. “Common Cause's statements are legitimate assertions of opinion based on the public record and entirely consistent with how ALEC had discussed, characterized, and approached the issue of climate change.”

The organization also said it will not retract its statements, nor will it offer any public corrections, as requested by ALEC.

Image Credit: Common Cause [7]

“Strong-Armed into Silence”

In a press release [8], Common Cause called ALEC's legal maneuvering “meritless.”

“ALEC’s demands and legal threats are an effort to shut down debate about its policies and matters of national importance. They seek to chill our right to advocate for the public interest,” said Rapoport, “We stand by our opinion, will continue to participate in these important national debates and will not be strong-armed into silence.”

As The Washington Post reported, the legal threat by ALEC comes as the group feels the heat after numerous companies have dropped their ALEC memberships [9] due to its climate change stance.

DeSmogBlog, the Center for Media and Democracy, Common Cause and many other organizations have launched the website ALECClimateChangeDenial.org [10], which documents ALEC's long history of climate denial.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock [11] |*zimmytws* [12]

Tags:

Common Cause [13]

Vinita Ferrera [14]

Heidi Abegg [15]

Miles Rapoport [16]

Alan Dye [17]

Corporate Bill Mill [18]

ALEC Climate Denial [19]

ALEC Climate Change Denial [20]

Law [21]

Legal [22]

lawsuits [23]

litigation [24]

Cease-and-Desist Letter [25]

Cease-and-Desist [26]

climate skepticism [27]

ALEC [28]

american legislative exchange council [1]

climate change [29]

climate denial [30]

WilmerHale [31]

ALECClimateChangeDenial.org [32]

The Washington Post [33]

Read more: American Legislative Exchange Council Threatens Lawsuit Against Critics Who Point Out ALEC's Climate Denial [34]

Source URL: http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/04/05/alec-climate-denial-lawsuit-against-critics

Links:

[1] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/6907

[2] http://www.commoncause.org/issues/more-democracy-reforms/alec/alec-cease-and-desist-letter.pdf

[3] http://alecclimatechangedenial.org/

[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/04/05/this-conservative-group-is-tired-of-being-accused-of-climate-denial-and-is-fighting-back/

[5] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Corporations

[6] http://www.commoncause.org/issues/more-democracy-reforms/alec/fact-sheet-on-alec-and-climate-change.pdf

[7] http://www.commoncause.org/issues/more-democracy-reforms/alec/wilmerhale-common-cause-response-to-alec.pdf

[8] http://www.commoncause.org/press/press-releases/alec-tries-to-silence-critics.html

[9] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Corporations_that_Have_Cut_Ties_to_ALEC

[10] http://alecclimatechangedenial.org/climate-denier-speakers-1

[11] http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&search_tracking_id=lGidWAGWV6pezkN_5RU_qQ&searchterm=litigation&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=182158421

[12] http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-50527p1.html

[13] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/5710

[14] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/20234

[15] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/20232

[16] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/20233

[17] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/20229

[18] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/9753

[19] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/20230

[20] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/20231

[21] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/6404

[22] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/10100

[23] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/5790

[24] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/9000

[25] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/20225

[26] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/20226

[27] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/7453

[28] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/6853

[29] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/939

[30] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/3062

[31] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/20227

[32] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/20228

[33] http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/8891

[34] http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/04/05/alec-climate-denial-lawsuit-against-critics

==

ALEC State Chairmen "are appointed by the National Chairman. All Private Sector State Chairmen are appointed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) State Chairman, and confirmed by both the Chairman of ALEC's "Private Enterprise Board," (ALEC Corporations), and the Chairman of its "Public Sector Board," (ALEC Politicians). Each ALEC State Chairman shall appoint a Private Sector State Chairman to serve concurrently with the State Chairman. . . . State Chairmen duties shall include recruiting new members, working to ensure introduction of model legislation, suggesting task force membership, establishing state steering committees, planning issue events, and working with the Private Enterprise State Chairman to raise and oversee expenditures of legislative 'scholarship' funds."[1] State Chairmen (legislative and corporate) as of 2014 include:

Previous State Chairmen

2013

Listed as of November 4, 2013, but not as of March 25, 2014:

Listed as of April 2013, but not as of November 4, 2013[9]:

2012

Listed as of December 2012,[6]but not as of June 2014:[3]

Listed as of 2012, but not as of April 2013[8][7][6]

2011

Were listed as of 2011, but not as of November of 2012
[6]

As of the first half of 2011[13]:

Previous Years

1999
1992

==

This week the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a secretive free-market lobbying group that brings together conservative politicians and major corporate interests, is holding its annual policy summit at the Hyatt Regency in the nation’s capital. On Thursday, ThinkProgress ventured down to the scene to try and get into the Energy, Environment, and Agriculture subcommittee meeting after being denied a media pass earlier in the week. Shortly after inquiring about either attending the closed-door meeting or briefly talking with John Eick, director of the Energy, Environment and Agriculture (EEA) task force — who was standing just a few feet away — ThinkProgress was ushered two floors up back to the lobby.

“I don’t know why some people are allowed in and others aren’t,” said the security guard. “I don’t know who’s on the list — just who’s not on the list.”

Much like the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank’s experience last year, this felt like going into the belly of the beast, and quickly being spat out.

At the time Milbank said this brusque closed-door policy with the media “probably won’t fly much longer,” as the organization had received a lot of bad press — in large part for backing Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law, a substantial part of the national discussion following the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. Milbank pointed out that “corporate sponsors, including Amazon, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Kraft, McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, quit ALEC” by this time last year.

This conference puts the EPA directly in ALEC’s crosshairs.

In the intervening year, another slew of corporations have quit ALEC, this time mostly for, in the words of Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt, spreading lies about global warming and “making the world a much worse place.”

Major Silicon Valley companies recently cutting ties with ALEC over the organization’s extremist climate-denial positions include Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Yelp, Microsoft, and AOL.

While this exodus may have led the group to try and present themselves as more media friendly, and in some cases, even environmentally friendly, this is nothing more than window dressing. ALEC’s new CEO, Lisa Nelson, recently said that she “doesn’t know the science” on climate change.

As far as improving transparency, Dave Weigel, a political reporter for Bloomberg tweeted on Thursday around the time ThinkProgress was at the summit, that he only counted “four other reporters in the press seat at its DC conference.”

ALEC, which does not publish a full list of all dues-paying members, includes some 2,000 state legislators, corporate executives, and lobbyists. Many of the state legislators have gone on to become members of Congress. It is also well-documented that most of ALEC’s revenue comes from corporations and corporate foundations, including those associated with petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch, rather than legislative dues. An analysis by the Energy & Policy Institute found that between 1998 and 2012 ALEC’s membership fees totaled just over $1 million while gifts, grants, and contributions were just over $78 million. ALEC received $500,000 in funding from various Koch foundations from 2005-2011 and $1.4 million from ExxonMobil this past decade.

At ALEC’s mid-year conference in Dallas, the EEA task force mission statement and list ofresolutions focused on pushing back on changes to the Clean Water Act, promoting liquefied natural gas, obstructing the EPA’s proposed guidelines for reducing carbon emissions, and a presentation from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. The NIPCC is funded by the Heartland Institute, which questions the existence of climate change, considers the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to be “a joke,” and has equated people that believe in climate change with the Unabomber.

Some five months later, ALEC may have suffered some serious funding blows, but that the same time the group has been emboldened by the November elections in which Republicans gained seats. This is especially true at the state level — where ALEC operates — as more legislatures and governors align as Republican, increasing the likelihood that ALEC’s model legislation can actually pass. Republicans now control 31 state legislatures, 24 of which also have Republican governors.

“I think it’s worth bearing in mind that ALEC is probably pretty buoyed by the election results that took place a month ago,” said Nick Surgey, research director for the Center For Media and Democracy’s PR Watch, on a conference call on Wednesday. “And that the conference that’s taking place this week is probably quite lively. It’s a very packed agenda — and we’re likely to see increased numbers of these ALEC bills popping up in 2015.”

Not a single item in ALEC’s agenda would reduce pollution or protect the environment.

One item on the agenda is an act requiring state legislatures to approve any state agency’s plan to implement carbon guidelines on existing power plants — a process that would basically take away a level of approval that most state environmental agencies already have, according to David Doniger, director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“What this would do is repeal state laws and require passage of new state laws,” said Doniger on a conference call. “In other words, the goal is to pass legislation that repeals existing laws in most states and makes states start over again to pass another law.”

Then there’s the resolution demanding that Congress replace the Environmental Protection Agency with a committee made up of six delegate-employees from each of the 50 states, “with a final committee of 300 replacing the 15,000 employees currently employed by EPA.”

The resolution says that over the past 30 years the “EPA has become an almost wholly owned subsidiary of the liberal environmental movement,” and that that even though “today’s air and water quality are better than at any time in the past century” it’s still time to replace the EPA.

“This conference puts the EPA directly in ALEC’s crosshairs,” said Aliya Haq from the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Ultimately this ALEC proposition to abolish the EPA is fairly ludicrous, but it nonetheless shows the group’s trend towards more extreme environmental propositions.”

There is one ALEC resolution that reads as environmentally friendly: the Environmental Management and Protection Principles statement, which says its mission is to “promote a healthy environmental legacy” and “create opportunities for hiking, hunting, fishing and enjoying natural resources.”

However the content of the resolution is clearly aimed at limiting regulations and promoting property rights and free markets.

“This is clearly a less than halfhearted attempt by ALEC to greenwash itself,” said Haq. “Not a single item in ALEC’s agenda would reduce pollution or protect the environment. In fact, they all do the opposite.”

==

At least twenty American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) member state legislators and alumni ran for higher office in Tuesday's election, in races from U.S. House and Senate to governor and other executive branch state positions. How did they fare? The short answer is that most won their elections with the support of Koch-tied groups.

North Carolina's Senate Race: Tillis

Senator Thom Tillis

ALEC board member Thom Tillis (R-98) engaged in a race against incumbent U.S. Senator Kay Hagan (D) that broke records for money in politics. The Koch brothers' new Super PAC, Freedom Partners Action Fund (FPAF) made a huge seven-figure ad buy attacking Hagan in the final weeks of the race that pushed it over the top, making it the all-time number one Senate race in outside spending, as CMD reported. Tillis' participation at ALEC meetings connected him with a national network of high-powered corporations and donors. Koch Industries lobbyist Mike Morgan, for example, sits on ALEC's private sector "advisory council," which meets jointly with the board of directors on which Tillis sits. After a very close race and with most of the votes counted, Tillis defeated Hagan with 49% of the vote.

Colorado's Senate Race: Gardner

Rep. Cory Gardner

Colorado U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner (R-4) was an ALEC member as a state legislator and is prominently claimed as an ALEC alumnus. He has received corporate gifts via ALEC's "Scholarship Fund." He challenged incumbent U.S. Sen. Mark Udall (D) in Tuesday's election. While Udall's campaign outspent Gardner's, outside spending favored Gardner by nearly $10 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The combined total of campaign and outside spending made this Senate campaign the second most expensive in the country, according to CRP. Gardner won the race with 49% of the vote.

Spending supporting Gardner or attacking Udall came from the Koch-tied 60 Plus Association, Freedom Partners Action Fund, Freedomworks for America, National Federation of Independent Business, and Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund; Karl Rove's Super PAC American Crossroads and 501(c)(4) Crossroads GPS; the Koch-founded and -funded (and ALEC-tied) Americans for Prosperity; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and more.

Iowa's Senate Race: Ernst

Senator Joni Ernst

Iowa state Senator Joni Ernst paid for ALEC membership with campaign funds, and her ALEC ties became an issue in her race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Tom Harkin (D), according to Mother Jones. Ernst, the underdog early in the crowded Republican primary, soon became the darling of outside spending groups, maintaining a $12 million lead in outside spending over Braley into the final weeks of the race, according to CRP. This Senate campaign joined North Carolina's and Colorado's in the top three biggest spending in the country. Earnst won the election with 52% of the vote.

Spending supporting Ernst or attacking Braley came from the Koch-tied 60 Plus Association, American Future Fund, Freedom Partners Action Fund, Freedomworks for America, National Federation of Independent Business, and Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund; the ALEC member American Chemistry Council; Karl Rove's Super PAC American Crossroads and 501(c)(4) Crossroads GPS; the Tea Party-affiliated American Majority Action; the Koch-founded and -funded (and ALEC-tied) Americans for Prosperity; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and more. (In a race that consistently skirted serious issues, the Chamber's ad attacking Braley featured a chicken dance.)

Wisconsin Races: Walker, Grothman

Governor Scott Walker

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, an ALEC alumnus on whom CMD has done a great deal of reporting, won relection with 52% of the vote against challenger Trek executive Mary Burke's 46%.

Wisconsin's outspoken, gaffe-prone state Senator Glenn Grothman has been a member of ALEC's Education and International Relations Task Forces, having paid for his ALEC membership with taxpayer money. When U.S. Rep. Tom Petri (R-6) announced that he would not run for reelection, Grothman announced his candidacy, although Petri refused to endorse him. Grothman ran against Democratic Winnebago County Executive Mark Harris in a district drawn up to be "safe" for Republicans. Grothman won with 56% of the vote.

Oregon Governor Race: Richardson

Oregon ALEC member Rep. Dennis Richardson (R-Central Point) ran for governor versus the incumbent, Democratic Governor John Kitzhaber, who was ahead by a narrow margin in the polls coming into Tuesday's election. Kitzhaber's campaign raised more than Richardson's, according to the National Institute for Money in State Politics. The Democratic incumbent won, defeating Richardson to secure a forth term.

Arizona Races: Tobin and Reagan

Senator Glen Grothman

Arizona Speaker of the House Andy Tobin (R-1), who has had a seat on ALEC's anti-worker rights Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Task Force, ran for the first U.S. House district seat against Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, whom Politico called "one of the most endangered Democratic incumbents in the country." Having raised only about a third of what Kirkpatrick did, to the aggravation of GOP strategists, Tobin received millions in support from outside groups -- as did Kirkpatrick. The race was one of the most expensive in the country. At the end of a tight race, and according to unofficial number reported by NPR affiliate KNAU, Kirkpatrick looks to be out in front, although the race has not yet been called.

Also in Arizona, ALEC state Senator Michele Reagan (R-8) ran for Secretary of State against Democrat Terry Goddard. Both Reagan and Goddard ran for the state's top elections post on pledges to expose "dark money." But the last few weeks of the race saw hundreds of thousands spent on ads attacking Democrat Goddard by the Koch-affiliated 60 Plus Association, which does not reveal its donors. Reagan refused to condemn the expenditure, according to the Arizona Republic. Goddard ran with funding from Arizona's public campaign-finance program, which meant he agreed not to fundraise from private sources. The outside spending by the Koch-tied group eclipsed the money to which he had access. Reagan won the election.

California House Races: Logue and Knight

Of California's three known ALEC members, two ran for higher office in this election: state Rep. Dan Logue (R-3) for U.S. House district three against incumbent Rep. John Garamendi (D). Garamendi, who outspent Logue, won his race with 52% of the vote. ALEC member state Sen. Steve Knight (R-21) ran for U.S. House district 25 against fellow Republican former state Sen. Tony Strickland. Knight won the election.

Virginia House Race: Comstock

Virginia ALEC member Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-34) won her race against Democratic Fairfield County Supervisor John Foust for the U.S. House in the 10th Congressional district. Spending for Comstock, both from her campaign and from outside groups, outstripped spending for Foust. Comstock participated in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Workforce Fairness Institute -- whose members include Richard Berman's front group the Center for Union Facts and National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB).

Georgia House Race: Loudermilk

Georgia ALEC member former Sen. Barry Loudermilk, who has had a seat on ALEC's Communications and Technology Task Force, became the presumptive U.S. Rep. for Georgia's 11th Congressional district when he won a July 2014 runoff primary against Bob Barr, as there is no Democratic candidate. Loudermilk won the uncontested election.

Michigan House Race: Moolenaar

In Michigan, ALEC member state Senator John Moolenaar (R-36) ran for U.S. House district four against Democrat Dr. Jeffrey Holmes, a family physician. Moolenaar was a member of ALEC's since-disbanded Public Safety and Elections Task Force, which pushed voter ID and "Stand Your Ground" bills. Moolenaar's campaign vastly outspent Holmes' and was also supported by hundreds of thousands in outside spending. No outside spending groups supported Holmes or opposed Moolenaar, according to CRP. Moolenaar won the election.

New Hampshire House Race: Garcia

New Hampshire Rep. Marilinda Garcia (R-4), an alternate member of ALEC's Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Task Force, ran against incumbent Anne McLane Kuster (D) for U.S. House in the second Congressional District.In this instance, Kuster won and Garcia lost the election.

Nevada Race: Cegavske

ALEC state chair Barbara Cegavske, who has been an ALEC member for at least 17 years and is on its Education Task Force, faced off against Democratic State Treasurer Kate Marshall for the role of Secretary of State, the state's top election official. Polling showed a tight race between Cegavske, who wants a new voter ID law (an ALEC bill), proposed a bill eliminating early voting, and has voted against increasing disclosure of money in politics; and Marshall, who supports same-day voter registration and increased transparency in political spending. Cegavske has said that she "supports increasing transparency in reporting gifts, travel, and campaign contributions to elected officials," according to the Las Vegas Sun. But as CMD has reported, her role as ALEC state chair means that she has solicited "corporate money for the ALEC 'Scholarship Fund' that was then used to pay for lawmakers' trips. Records show that ALEC legislators know who's paying their way -- some state leaders even urge lawmakers to send thank-you notes to their patrons -- but everyone else is kept in the dark." Cegavske won the election.

Other State Races

Other ALEC members in elections for higher office on Tuesday include:

In addition to ALEC members, this year's election saw Gary Palmer enter the race for U.S. House in the sixth Congressional district in Alabama. Palmer is the former president of the board of directors of the ALEC-allied web of right-wing "stink tanks," the State Policy Network (SPN), and chief development officer and former president of the SPN member Alabama Policy Institute. Palmer faced Democrat Mark Lester, but in what has been called "the reddest district in the country," Palmer won easily, outspending Lester along the way.

CMD's Nick Surgey contributed to this article. Feel free to send tips and election updates to us at editor@prwatch.org.

- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/node/12654#sthash.DkN3oZ13.dpuf

==

11/14

The corporate board chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the software company SAP America, has quit the group, telling CMD that it has made the decision to "immediately disassociate itself from ALEC" because of the group's position on climate change, opposition to renewable energy, its position on gun safety and its attacks on voter rights.

Facing increased criticism of its role opposing action to tackle climate change and for teaching climate change denial, ALEC has lost numerous major corporate funders in recent months, with tech firms Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Yelp all leaving. Most high profile was Google, with Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt telling the Diane Rehm show on NPR that it made a mistake in funding ALEC. "We should not be aligned with such people. They are just literally lying," Schmidt said in reference to ALEC's teaching climate change denial. "The company has a very strong view that we should make decisions in politics based on fact," said Schmidt.

The news on SAP leaving ALEC was first reported on Wednesday in the German magazine, Manager Magazin, which quoted as spokesperson in Germany that the decision was based on ALEC's "strange policies" on climate change and renewable energy. A SAP America spokesperson confirmed this to CMD, and said that other ALEC policies were also a reason including its position on gun safety and voting rights.

SAP is a particularly big loss for ALEC, because its representative at ALEC, lobbyist Steve Searle, is the Chair of ALEC's corporate board, and the former corporate chair of ALEC's Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force. As a leader within ALEC, Searle would have helped drive the ALEC agenda, and would have had inside knowledge of what ALEC has planned for 2015 to continue to stonewall to tackle climate change.

Nick Surgey is CMD's Director of Research. His work has been featured inThe Guardian, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post.

:{

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- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/11/12660/alec-corporate-board-chair-quits-over-groups-agenda-climate-change-renewables-and#sthash.YtxVZja7.dpuf

==

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_King_(Texas_politician)

Phillip Stephen "Phil" King (born February 29, 1956) is a Weatherford, Texas, attorney who has been a conservative Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives since 1999.[1] He represents District 61, which encompasses Parker and Wise counties to the west of Fort Worth.

Contents

  [hide] 

Election History

King was nominated without opposition in the 1998 Republican primary when the incumbent, Ric Williamson, did not seek re-election. In the general election, King defeated the Democratic candidate, Brenda Brown Rotramble, 21,200 (64.6 percent) to 11,626 (35.4 percent). (At the time, the district included a portion of neighboringCooke County.)

King ran unopposed in 2000.

In 2002, King defeated the Democratic candidate Mack Dobbs, 25,525 (69 percent) to 11,475 (31 percent).

In 2004, King once again ran unopposed.

In 2006, King defeated the Libertarian candidate Richard Forsythe, Jr., 27,470 (80.4 percent to 6,696 (19.6 percent), in the general election the Democratic Party did not field a candidate.

In 2008, King faced two opponents in the general election, Democratic candidate Charles William Randolph and (once again facing) Libertarian candidate Forsythe, defeating them 48,879 (72.52 percent) to Randolph's 16,308 (24.19 percent) and Forsythe's 2,205 (3.27 percent).

Legislative History

In 1999, King's colleagues named him "Freshman Legislator of the Year", and Texas Monthly magazine designated him "Rookie Legislator of the Year".[citation needed] He received the designation "Crime Fighter of the Year" from the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas.[citation needed]

In his second term, King was named a "Fighter for Free Enterprise" by the Texas Association of Business for his work on pro-business issues.[citation needed] He was cited by the Texas State Rifle Association for legislation implementing a firearms safety program in public schools.[citation needed]

King was recognized as "Legislator of the Year" by the Texas Association of Builders for his work on HB 730, which was designed to reduce litigation costs for home builders and buyers, and has been utilized as model legislation in other states.[citation needed] King was named "Outstanding Legislator of the Year" by the Texas Alliance for Life.[citation needed]

King has supported legislation that would institute parental notification and parental consent. In 2006 he received the "Defender of Life" award from The Justice Foundation.[citation needed] He has been awarded the "Freedom and Family Award" by Texas Eagle Forum, an interest group founded by Phyllis Schlafly of Missouri.[citation needed]

In the regular and then the three special legislative sessions of 2003, King authored the congressional redistricting legislation favored by the Republican Party, which won more than 55 percent of the total votes cast in thirty-two separate congressional races in the 2002 midterm elections even though the Republican Party obtained just fifteen of the U.S. House seats.[citation needed] The changes led to a temporary 21-11 Republican majority within the Texas delegation to the U.S. House. After the 2006 elections, however, that margin was reduced to 19-13 Republican. After 2008, it became 20-12 Republican.[citation needed]

In 2005, King was the House sponsor of Senate Bill 5, which deregulated Texas telecommunications laws.[citation needed] In a perk to telecommunications companies, a provision of the bill banned Texas cities from participating in projects that offer free wi-fi in airports and public spaces .[2] Later that year Texas Monthly listed Phil King as one of the worst legislators on their annual "Best and Worst Legislators," saying, "Unfortunately, negotiation is not among King’s strong points. He is a zealot, a true believer in his own rightness."[3]

In the 2005 special session on school finance, King proposed a one-cent increase in the state sales tax (6.25 cents) in order to lower the property tax cap for school district funding.[citation needed]

King has been involved in many other legislative matters, including tests for steroid use by high school athletes, ways to prevent abortion clinics from circumventing the parental notification law, and the proposal that voters at the time of registration be able to furnish proof of U.S. citizenship.[citation needed] His opponents referred to the latter measure as King's "Voter Suppression Law" on the theory that it would discourage registration by the poor and downtrodden.[citation needed]

King was mentioned as a potential candidate for Speaker of the House at the start of the 2007 legislative session, but he quickly deferred to Tom Craddick of Midland, who was elected to his third term as the presiding officer.[citation needed] Opposition broke out against Craddick during the 2007 session from a group of Democrats and disaffected Republicans.[citation needed]

Ethics Violations and Claims of Corruption

In 2005, King drew criticism for a dinner hosted by lobbyist Neal "Buddy" Jones whose clients include AT&T and FPL Energy, companies that are regulated by the Regulated Industries committee that King was the Chair of at the time.[4][5]

In 2008, an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram found that the president of AT&T had written a letter urging employees to help re-elect King, then head of the House Regulated Industries Committee.[6][7] During the 2008 primary election cycle, King was given over $200,000 from utility and energy company PACs.[8][9] King's primary opponent, Joe Tison, stated, " "While he was accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from utility companies and their representatives, the rest of us were paying an average of 56 percent more to heat our homes and keep the lights on in our businesses."[10][11] Texas Monthly reporter Paul Burka observed that even the Fort Worth Star Telegram had documented this problem, claiming, "You have to hand it to Phil King. No matter how many stories the Star-Telegram writes about his taking campaign cash from the industries he represents, the chairman of Regulated Industries keeps right on doing it."[12] King also took gifts from CenterPoint Energy Vice President Scott E. Rozzell, a violation of the state’s law governing gifts to public officials.[13][14][15]

In 2009, Phil King was found guilty of using campaign funds for personal expenses and fined $1,300 by the Texas Ethics Commission.[16][17][18][19]

In 2014, Phil King, along with Tom and Christi Craddick, were accused of laundering $25,000 in campaign funds.[20][21] Furthermore, Tom Craddick reported making this $25,000 donation to King on his semiannual campaign finance report, though King's campaign finance reports do not make note of it.[22]

Personal life

Prior to his legislative service, King was a captain in the Fort Worth Police Department, an instructor at his alma mater, Dallas Baptist University, and a Parker County justice of the peace. He currently serves as an officer in the Texas State Guard.[citation needed]

King obtained his Bachelor of Arts and M.B.A. degrees from Dallas Baptist University in Dallas. He procured the Juris Doctor degree from Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. King and his wife, Terry, are active members of Trinity Bible Church in Weatherford. The couple has six children and eight grandchildren. Terry King is a direct descendant of Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford.[citation needed]

References

  1. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ "Phil King Biography". Texas House of Representatives. 2008. Retrieved 2007-01-18.
  2. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ "Wireless networks don't click with some: Telecom bill would ban free Internet access like that in model East End program". Houston Chronicle. 2005. Retrieved 2010-06-14.
  3. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://www.texasmonthly.com/content/best-and-worst-legislators-2005/page/0/5
  4. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://info.tpj.org/page_view.jsp?pageid=1247&pubid=1013
  5. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://glenrosenews.com/default.asp?view=plink&id=578
  6. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ https://www.texastribune.org/bidness/explore/phil-king/
  7. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://media.star-telegram.com/smedia/2008/01/15/20/ATTletter.source.prod_affiliate.58.pdf
  8. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://www.ethics.state.tx.us/php/filer.php?acct=00036483COH
  9. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://www.startelegram.typepad.com/politex/tison-aims-for-a-knockout.html
  10. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://www.startelegram.typepad.com/politex/tison-aims-for-a-knockout.html
  11. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://www.chron.com/business/article/Many-call-energy-deregulation-in-Texas-a-failure-1824046.php
  12. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://blogs.star-telegram.com/politex/2008/02/burka-dings-phi.html
  13. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Texas-Pol-Allegedly-Accepted-Super-Bowl-Tickets028119
  14. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://startelegram.typepad.com/politex/2008/02/super-bowl-tick.html
  15. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://info.tpj.org/page_view.jsp?pageid=1247&pubid=1013
  16. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ https://www.texastribune.org/bidness/explore/phil-king/
  17. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://www.weatherforddemocrat.com/local/x1155970054/King-reports-gifts-ethics-commission-levies-1-000-penalty
  18. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://lubbockonline.com/stories/120306/sta_120306106.shtml
  19. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/4811201.html
  20. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://lonestarproject.net/father-daughter#.U4i3QSi8_Ds
  21. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://quorumreport.com/Quorum_Report_Daily_Buzz_2014/democrats_allege_ethics_violations_by_christi_crad_buzziid22065.html
  22. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:^ http://lonestarproject.net/sites/default/files/Craddick%20Sworn%20Complaint.pdf

External links

==

...

This week, Google, followed by Facebook and Yelp!, announced that they were dropping out of the organization, which signs up corporations, nonprofits and legislators to support “model legislation” intended to benefit big business above all. And Google CEO Eric Schmidt specifically took a shot at ALEC’s climate change policies saying it was “just literally lying.”

ALEC CEO Lisa B. Nelson shot back with an indignant statement that said, “It is unfortunate to learn Google has ended its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council as a result of public pressure from left-leaning individuals and organizations who intentionally confuse free market policy perspectives for climate change denial. In the case of energy generation, ALEC believes renewable energy should expand based on consumer demand, not as a result of a government mandate. Google’s renewable energy commitment—as well as those found throughout private industry—is completely consistent with ALEC policy because the companies in question chose renewables absent a mandate.”

But in fact, ALEC promotes many policies, programs and pieces of legislation contingent on denying climate science. Environmental advocacy group Forecast the Facts, which has organized campaigns to pressure companies like Google to drop ALEC, and the Center for Media and Democracy, which monitors p.r. spin, helpfully provided five ways ALEC does this.

1. ALEC invites climate deniers to its annual meetingsto provide legislators with misinformation. At its most recent meeting, groups like far-right thing tank the Heartland institute and nonprofit Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which promotes unregulated development, armed with talking points, including that there is no need to reduce carbon emissions and that in fact they are healthy, that there is no scientific consensus about human-caused climate change, and that the likely benefits of man-made global warming (which doesn’t exist) exceed the likely costs.

  1. ALEC’s “model legislation” on climate says that while human activity has led to climate change and global warming, this could be beneficial. It suggests establishing a commission to do more research, even though the research has been done and confirmed, thus delaying action indefinitely.

3. ALEC’s “model legislation” on science education promotes the “teach both sides” approach favored by anti-evolution types when there is no scientific debate on climate change. Its so-called “Environmental Literacy Improvement Act” requires that a range of perspectives be offered and that students be encouraged to explore even erroneous contentions to form their own opinions. Tennessee, Texas, South Dakota and Louisiana have all passed nearly identically worded bills, crafted by ALEC, opening the door to bringing climate denial into science classrooms.

4. Prominent ALEC leaders are climate deniers. Its incoming national chair, state rep. Phil King (R-TX) has said,”I think the global warming theory is bad science” and has accused President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency of pushing “unproven” technologies intended not for the “stated objective of combating climate change” but to crush the coal industry. Its current chair, state rep.John Piscopo (R-CT), claims, “There are ice ages and periods of warming throughout Earth’s history. We could be in a period between ice ages. It’s not human-induced, not catastrophic. It’s nothing to panic over. I think it’s a move by government to take over and tax our energy system.” And Ohio state senator Bill Seitz, an ALEC board member, was the prime mover behind Ohio’s recent move to freeze its renewable energy standards, the first state in the U.S. to do so. He has referred to the standards as “some Stalinist government mandating” and is pushing for permanent total repeal.

  1. ALEC has a long history of denying climate science, including a 2005 report called “Top 1o Myths about Global Warming,” which appeared on its website for many years. Among the “myths” it purported to debunk: that human activity causes global warming, that extreme weather events are caused by global warming, that there’s been any significant warming at all in the last century and that what it calls “carbon reduction schemes” will be relatively inexpensive.

Ultimately, it’s not about whether ALEC really believes that climate change is happening or that it’s human-caused. It’s about promoting legislation embodying “free market principles” that benefit its members, which include many major polluters such as Peabody Energy, ExxonMobile, Chevron and TransCanada, impacts be damned.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

ALEC Is Lying About Climate Change Google Chairman Tells Diane Rehm

ALEC Continues Attack on Renewable Energy Policies to Keep America Addicted to Fossil Fuels

Ohio Newspapers Remain Silent on ALEC as Group Influences State Senate’s Anti-Renewable Legislation

==

On the heels of Microsoft, and then Google, leaving the American Legislative Exchange Council, a Facebook spokesperson now says that they will leave the corporatist front group in 2015, as well:

Google’s departure, “really puts Facebook and Yahoo in an uncomfortable position,” said Jay Riestenberg, a research analyst with Common Cause who follows ALEC.

Facebook may be next out the ALEC door, a company spokesperson told The Chronicle on Tuesday.

“We re-evaluate our memberships on an annual basis and are in that process now,” a company representative wrote in an e-mail to the newspaper. “While we have tried to work within ALEC to bring that organization closer to our view on some key issues, it seems unlikely that we will make sufficient progress so we are not likely to renew our membership in 2015.”

==

bs

MEET OUR ADVISOR BILL MEIERLING

WHY WE ARE LUCKY TO HAVE BILL AS AN ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER

Raised in the Washington D.C. area and spoon-fed politics (in Spanish) from his Nicaraguan mother and German father, Bill Meierling arrived in the government policy & nonprofit world as versatile as it gets. With his undergraduate degrees in political science and Spanish from Hampden-Sydney College, and his master’s degree in political management from George Washington University, it is no surprise he has returned to George Washington University to teach some of the same graduate courses he studied.

Worldwide Media and Public Relations at United Way Worldwide. At the organization, Bill managed international relations between the United Way and the 41 countries that the organization served. Bill said that the organization’s passion for creating the most change for the most people, and the United Way’s stance on creating quality of life really resonated with him.

At the present, Bill is the Senior Director of Public Affairs at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization focused on studying policy. He is responsible for all things communications related and helps ALEC create positive change in education public policy and nonprofit issues.

With this experience, Bill has the perfect knowledge to counsel Lipman Hearne about marketing in the nonprofit sector. “Organizations need to connect supporters with the cause and not focus on monetary transactions,” Bill advised when asked about challenges that nonprofits face today. “Nonprofits need to put effort into communicating that it’s not about the money, it is about your time, effort and care. It is about all of us working together to create change. By doing this, together we are able to galvanize positive action.”

On the other hand, Bill shared one of the best communication practices he felt nonprofit organizations use to rally support behind a cause. “Some of the best communications between nonprofits and supporters come from partnering with private interests in a way that supporters can see the connection. Like buying a bottle of shampoo where a percentage of the sale goes to a cause. Large scale projects use this model to connect individuals with a cause. And you can see it boiled down into the marketplace.”

Lipman Hearne is very happy to have Bill serving on its Advisory Board, and it’s good to know that he feels the same way. “Serving on the Advisory Board for Lipman Hearne has been a great educational experience. I have been able to examine the approach Lipman Hearne takes to message and market development, and apply it to the work ALEC does.” Bill also described the differences he sees between Lipman Hearne and other marketing agencies; “it is an honor and privilege to serve on the Advisory Board for a company that is providing a versatile array of services, and offers real design thinking. The company looks at the human factors involved in marketing programs, and creates work design and strategies that focus on specific objectives for each client organization.”

==

Lipman Hearne is a full service marketing and communications firm serving the nonprofit sector. The firm, a member of theAmerican Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), develops marketing solutions for nonprofit and government organizations serving the public interest. Lipman Hearne has worked with clients such as the Lions Clubs, Harvard University, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The firm has more than 60 employees in its Chicago office.

Contents

  [hide] 

History

Lipman Hearne traces its roots to the founding of Lipman Design in 1966 and of Hearne Communications in 1969. The two companies worked together on behalf of a number of clients, including the University of Chicago, the Institute of European Studies, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In 1988 the companies merged, creating Lipman Hearne, Inc.[1][2]

==

bloom

Google Quits ALEC, Says Link With Climate Skeptics Wrong

By Jim Snyder and Brian Womack - Sep 23, 2014

Google Inc. (GOOG) Chairman Eric Schmidt said the world’s biggest Internet search company made a mistake in funding a political group that opposes U.S. action on climate change.

Schmidt said Google paid the American Legislative Exchange Council as part of a lobbying campaign on an unrelated issue. Without elaborating on Google’s relationship with the group, Schmidt said facts about global warming aren’t in dispute.

“The people who oppose it are really hurting our children and grandchildren and making the world a much worse place,” Schmidt said on NPR’s “Diane Rehm Show” yesterday. “We should not be aligned with such people. They are just literally lying.”

Full Coverage:**Climate Week 2014**

Google confirmed in a statement yesterday that it won’t renew its ALEC membership at the end of the year.

The Mountain View, California-based company and others are under mounting pressure from organizations that back government policies to combat climate change to abandon the Council, which says it supports free-market policies, because of its approach to environmental issues.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has withdrawn from ALEC, saying affiliating with group “which is actively fighting policies that promote renewable energy was incongruous,” according to a report in Bloomberg BNA last month.

A Global Push to Save the Planet

ALEC develops model legislation for state legislatures. It was behind Florida’s so-called Stand-Your-Ground law that drew scrutiny after Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer who later was acquitted of murder. It has also pushed to repeal state mandates for renewable energy use.

‘Public Pressure’

The group has written model legislation calling for an interstate research council to study possible beneficial effects of climate change and to examine how regulations capping carbon may hurt the economy.

“It is unfortunate to learn Google has ended its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council as a result of public pressure from left-leaning individuals and organizations who intentionally confuse free market policy perspectives for climate change denial,” Lisa Nelson, ALEC’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Bill Meierling, the ALEC senior director of public affairs, said Google joined ALEC in August 2011 and was active in a communications and technology task force the group created to discuss broadband, privacy and e-commerce issues. The company paid ALEC about $10,000 a year.

Meierling disputed Schmidt’s suggestion that the group denies human activity is a cause of climate change.But he said ALEC has “significant concerns” rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants would hurt the economy.

===

random bits:

==

guardian uk prodigal son pjt http://www.alec.org/alec-guardian-correspondence-2/

Lisa B. Nelson

Chief Executive Officer

703-373-0933

Lisa B. Nelson was named Chief Executive Officer on July 30, 2014. Before joining ALEC, Nelson served as Managing Partner of Ulysses Consulting where she provided counsel to nonprofits and associations on coalition building and marketing development. Previously, Nelson served as the Head of Government Relations, Americas for Visa, Inc.; Senior Vice President for External Relations, AOL Time Warner;Public Affairs Liaison to House Speaker Newt Gingrich; and as Executive Director of GOPAC.

Policy

Amy Kjose AndersonDirector, Task Force on Civil Justice

703-373-0933

:{**Michael Bowman**:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;color:#005daa;"):}:Senior Director, Policy and Strategic Initiatives

703-373-0933

Seth CooperAmicus Counsel

:{**:{Michael Hough:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;color:#005daa;"):}:**

}:ALEC Resident Fellow

703-373-0933

John Eick

Director, Task Force on Energy, Environment, and Agriculture

703-373-0933

**William Freeland**Research Analyst, Task Force on Tax and Fiscal Policy

703-373-0933

:{**:{Karla Jones:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;color:#005daa;"):}:**

}:Director, Task Force on International and Federal Relations

703-373-0933

Theodore Lafferty

Legal Research Analyst, Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force

703-373-0933

**Briana Mulder**

Policy and Intern Manager

703-373-0933

Sean RileyDirector, Task Force on Health and Human Services

703-373-0933

Jon RussellDirector, American City County Exchange

703-373-0933

**Lindsay Russell**Director, Task Force on Education

703-373-0933

Kati SiconolfiManager, Task Force on Tax and Fiscal Policy

703-373-0933

Cara SullivanDirector, Task Force on Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development and Justice Performance Project

703-373-0933

**Jonathan Williams**Senior Task Force Director, Task Force on Tax and Fiscal Policy, Center for State Fiscal Reform

703-373-0933

Ben WilterdinkResearch Analyst, Task Force on Tax and Fiscal Policy

703-373-0933

Communications and Public Affairs

Bill MeierlingSenior Director, Communications and Public Affairs

703-373-0933

Ashley VarnerDirector, Strategic Communications

703-373-0933

Molly Fuhs

Manager, Media and Public Relations

703-373-0933

Jordan Conrad

Manager, Online Community and Engagement

703-373-0933

==

srcwtch

Staff of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as of 2013 include:[1]

Executive Director

Nelson became executive director effective July 30, 2014.[4] Unlike ALEC's immediate past executive director, Ronald Scheberle, she had no known ties to ALEC before taking the position.

Scheberle became executive director in January 2010. As stated in his biography on the ALEC website, he is "Chairman Emeritus of ALEC’s Private Enterprise Board. He has been an active private sector member of ALEC for over 25 years, serving as Private Enterprise Board National Chairman from 1988 to 1994 and as a member of ALEC’s Private Enterprise Board of Directors continuously since."[5]

Scheberle is also a "senior consultant" at Bingham Consulting Group -- the lobbying arm of Bingham McCutchen, a global law firm that represents corporate clients.[6]

Policy Department

Communications and Public Affairs Department

Development Department

Administration Department

Former Staff

This list is not complete:

1999

The following former staff list is from about 1999, compiled by the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research.[17] Additional sources of information are footnoted individually:

Contractors

Articles and resources

 ==

http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/04/187665/revealed-alec%E2%80%99s-2014-attacks-environment

An internal tracking document obtained from the American Legislative Exchange Council, :{ALEC:(style="color:#000000"):}: -- by the Center for Media and Democracy/the Progressive Inc. under Texas public records law -- :{reveals:(style="color:#000000"):}: the scope of ALEC's anti-environmental efforts in 2014.

The :{spreadsheet:(style="color:#000000"):}::{ :(style="color:#000000"):}:(dated from late March 2014 and made public by CMD/:{The Progressive:(style="color:#000000"):}::{ :(style="color:#000000"):}:today) reveals ALEC tracking a total of 131 bills that, amongst other things, roll back state renewable energy standards, increase costs for American households with solar, hype the Keystone XL pipeline, push back on proposed EPA coal regulations that protect human health, and create industry-friendly fracking rules despite growing national and international concerns about fracking.

ALEC's colorful spreadsheet provides insight into the lobbying agenda it pushed in the 2014 legislative sessions in states across the country. For example, an entire section is devoted to the thirty-one items of legislation concerning state standards for renewable energy generation.

Here are the key pieces of legislation ALEC has been pushing to become binding law in states:

Attacking "Freerider" Homeowners with Solar

Eleven of the bills attempt to amend "net metering" laws, which allow homeowners with solar panels on their property to sell excess electricity back to the grid, typically at a price that creates an incentive for homeowners to invest in solar for their homes. This makes the cost of installing solar cost-effective for ordinary homeowners over a period of years and net metering is part of the reason the U.S. has seen a :{60% increase in domestic solar installations:(style="color:#000000"):}: in just the past year.

Speaking to Suzanne Goldenberg and Ed Pilkington of the Guardian in December, ALEC’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force Director John Eick described these small-time solar generators as ":{freeriders on the system.:(style="color:#000000"):}:" ALEC corporate lobbyists and legislators on its energy task force then voted behind closed doors on a model resolution in December, which calls on states to "require that everyone who uses the grid helps pay to maintain it and to keep it operating reliably at all times."

The boom in solar generation is increasingly becoming a threat to the high polluting industries, like the coal companies and oil processors that underwrite ALEC. Longtime ALEC funders includes behemoths like Peabody Energy, Koch Industries (controlled by the infamous Koch Brothers), ExxonMobil, BP, and other global multi-billion dollar corporations.

As reported by Evan Halper in the *:{Los Angeles Times:(style="color:#000000"):}:*:{ :(style="color:#000000"):}::{on April 19:(style="color:#000000"):}:, the David Koch-controlled "Americans for Prosperity" has been running ads attacking solar in Arizona. "Solar, once almost universally regarded as a virtuous, if perhaps over-hyped, energy alternative, has now grown big enough to have enemies," wrote the LA Times.

Repealing Renewable Energy Standards

Thirty-one of the bills relate to state requirements for renewable energy production. :{Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia:(style="color:#000000"):}: have "Renewable Portfolio Standards" or "RPS," which are minimum requirements for utilities to produce a certain amount of the energy they generate from renewable sources such as wind.

Americans for Prosperity has :{targeted these laws:(style="color:#000000"):}::{ :(style="color:#000000"):}:for repeal, with support from rightwing leader :{Grover Norquist:(style="color:#000000"):}: in Kansas and other groups across the country. The :{Beacon Hill Institute:(style="color:#000000"):}:, based out of Suffolk University in Massachusetts, which is an :{associate member:(style="color:#000000"):}: of the Koch-backed :{State Policy Network:(style="color:#000000"):}: (SPN) -- as CMD and ProgressNow have :{documented:(style="color:#000000"):}: -- has written a series of reports that have been released in states by other SPN member think thanks including the :{John Locke Foundation:(style="color:#000000"):}: in North Carolina, the :{Maine Heritage Policy Center:(style="color:#000000"):}:, the :{Washington Policy Center:(style="color:#000000"):}:and the :{Wisconsin Policy Research Institute:(style="color:#000000"):}:. Following internal SPN documents released by the Guardian in December 2013, these reports have been largely discredited, with its host university refusing to stand by the studies. See the Guardian article: :{free-market research group's climate proposal denounced by host university.:(style="color:#000000"):}:

ALEC has been working to repeal or water down these laws since corporate lobbyists and legislators on its energy task force secretly voted for a Heartland Institute drafted "model" bill called the :{"Electricity Freedom Act":(style="color:#000000"):}: as its official policy in 2012. Despite calling the bill a :{priority for 2013:(style="color:#000000"):}:, ALEC failed that year to score a significant victory, and it adopted :{two further anti-RPS bills at its August 2013 Annual Meeting:(style="color:#000000"):}: in Chicago, called the "Renewable Energy Credit Act" and the "Market Power Renewables Act."

Attacking Proposed EPA Regulations of Coal

Seventeen of the bills concern Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, which following proposed rules issued last September on emission standards at new power stations, requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop regulations on carbon pollution standards for existing power plants. The expected rules, which are likely to be released in draft form in June, would set emission standards that may ultimately force the closure of some of the most polluting coal burning power plants in the country.

The coal industry and its allies, including many Fox News commentators and leading members of the Republican Party, have branded this attempt to limit carbon emissions through regulation a "war on coal."

The coal industry has been fighting back.

A bill to block the EPA regulations -- :{Preventing Government Waste & Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America Act (H.R. 2824):(style="color:#000000"):}: -- passed the Republican controlled House in March, mostly on party lines 229-183.

Peabody Energy, the world's largest private sector coal company, has launched a flashy PR campaign called ":{Advanced Energy for Life:(style="color:#000000"):}:." The campaign website claims that "half the world's population lacks adequate energy access," before :{asking users to submit comments to the EPA:(style="color:#000000"):}: opposing rules affecting coal plants.

Peabody Energy is also a :{leader within ALEC:(style="color:#000000"):}:, with the corporation's top lobbyist :{Kelly Mader:(style="color:#000000"):}::{ :(style="color:#000000"):}:sitting on the ALEC corporate board.

At the December 2013 ALEC conference in Washington DC, corporate lobbyists and legislators on ALEC’s task force :{voted behind closed doors for two resolutions:(style="color:#000000"):}: aimed at limiting the regulation of carbon emissions for coal power plants, with legislators reportedly urged to engage in :{"guerrilla warfare":(style="color:#000000"):}::{ :(style="color:#000000"):}:to block the EPA.

It is not known who brought the resolutions to ALEC, since ALEC keeps those details a highly guarded secret. Peabody Energy, Edison Electric Institute, Chevron, Shell, the Charles Koch Institute and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity were all among the sponsors of the December ALEC conference at which the bills were discussed and approved.

Hyping the Keystone XL Pipeline

Four of the bills are resolutions that call for the approval by the Federal government of the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline. ALEC corporate lobbyists and legislators voted behind closed doors for a resolution titled simply ":{Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline:(style="color:#000000"):}:" in December 2011. In the 2013 session, :{ten states introduced similar resolutions:(style="color:#000000"):}: supporting KXL, as reported by :{CMD:(style="color:#000000"):}:.

TransCanada, the proposed pipeline operator, is a funder of ALEC and has sponsored ALEC organized all-expense paid :{"Academy" trips to Alberta:(style="color:#000000"):}::{ :(style="color:#000000"):}:in 2012 and 2013 to "educate" legislators about the tar sands. As reported by CMD, following the trip in 2012, ALEC wrote to participating legislators reminding them of what each oil-industry lobbyist on the trip had paid for and suggested the lawmakers send :{"thank you notes":(style="color:#000000"):}: to the lobbyists. One legislator -- Ohio Representative John Adams -- subsequently introduced a pro-KXL resolution sent to him by a TransCanada lobbyist, according to :{documents obtained by CMD:(style="color:#000000"):}: using the Ohio public records law.

Promoting Trojan Horse-like Fracking Regulations

Thirteen of the bills concern hydraulic fracturing, also known as "fracking."

ALEC has three items of "model" legislation in its library concerning fracking: two pro-fracking resolutions and a bill -- illogically titled :{"The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act":(style="color:#000000"):}::{ :(style="color:#000000"):}:-- that allows operators to keep secret the details of chemicals injected into a well by making a near impossible to challenge claim of "trade secrets."

As reported by the :{New York Times:(style="color:#000000"):}: in April 2012, ExxonMobil brought the fracking bill to ALEC in December 2011 following its adoption as law in Texas. In the 2013 session, five states introduced legislation similar to the ALEC model, as detailed in the CMD report ":{ALEC at 40: Turning Back the Clock on Prosperity and Progress.:(style="color:#000000"):}:"

One of the bills ALEC is tracking is a proposed moratorium on fracking in Massachusetts. This does not relate directly to any of the ALEC "model" bills, but both fracking bans and federal oversight have been a focus at recent ALEC conferences.

For example, at the August 2013 ALEC conference in Chicago, the American Petroleum Institute presented to legislators on "Local Bans on Hydraulic Fracturing: Coming Soon to Your District." And during the most recent December 2013 ALEC conference in Washington DC, the Energy, Environment and Agriculture members received a presentation on the EPA "adversarial oversight" of fracking.

Wait, So ALEC Tracks Legislation?

As :{CMD has reported:(style="color:#000000"):}:, ALEC has recently been claiming that it doesn’t track legislation. As the official ALEC Twitter account tweeted to the Brookings Institute in December 2013: "we don't track our model policies."

In light of the tracking document obtained by CMD, this is obviously not accurate, but this particular document is just one example of many which demonstrate ALEC following where its "model" legislation is introduced.

CMD has on file :{additional ALEC tracking documents:(style="color:#000000"):}: from 2010, 2011 and 2012, and has copies of ALEC :{"legislative scorecards":(style="color:#000000"):}: from various years between 1996 and 2010, which note with varying levels of detail the number of bills introduced and passed in each state that year. ALEC even boasts to potential funders in numerous publications published in 1985, 2000, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013 -- all on file with CMD -- that one of the services it engages in is "legislative bill tracking."

Significantly, as revealed in materials obtained and released by Common Cause as part of its 2012 ALEC IRS submission, ALEC sends email:{ :(style="color:#000000"):}::{"issue alerts":(style="color:#000000"):}: to its members in support of its own model bills when those bills are up for a vote.

Following complaints to the IRS concerning ALEC from Common Cause, the Voters Legislative Transparency Project, and Clergy Voice, supplemented by evidence provided by the Center for Media and Democracy, ALEC launched a new organization called the Jeffersonian Project in 2013, which was formally created earlier in 2012. The new organization is a 501(c)(4) social welfare group, so unlike ALEC it is free to engage in unrestricted lobbying to advance its goals. Lax IRS rules mean the new organization has not yet had to file any financial returns.

- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/04/187665/revealed-alec%E2%80%99s-2014-attacks-environment#sthash.BCv46sPX.dpuf

===

MIRROR ORIGIN

:{http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10882/comparison-alec-and-ncsl:(style="color:#000000"):}:

The :{American Legislative Exchange Council:(style="color:#000000"):}: (ALEC) may appear on the surface to mimic the bipartisan educational archetype of the :{National Conference of State Legislatures:(style="color:#000000"):}: (NCSL), but ALEC's corporate governance structure, near total reliance on corporate funding, and strong ties to legislators from predominantly one political party make it distinctly different. To learn more about ALEC overall, go to :{ALEC Exposed:(style="color:#000000"):}:. (This article was co-authored by Jennifer Page, Brendan Fischer, and Mary Bottari.)

ALEC Has Corporate Leaders and Members, who Vote on Bills Behind Closed Doors, While NCSL Does Not

:{NCSL is run by an Executive Committee made up of legislators only. Corporations and their lobbyists are not members of NCSL committees. NCSL

rarely if ever develops "model" legislation, but it does widely share its governance rules and substantive policy positions online.}:

An ALEC :{PR document:(style="color:#000000"):}: obtained as part of the ALEC Exposed archive proclaims that: "Both legislators and corporate members have a voice and a vote in shaping policy." Formally, ALEC is jointly led by a corporate board of directors and a board of 23 state legislators, plus its executive director, who continues to work for the Bingham government affairs firm and who was a long-time lobbyist for Verizon/GTE. The chairman of ALEC's corporate board is a former tobacco lobbyist whose new firm helps businesses "manage the legislative and regulatory process." In all, the corporate board has 24 members (corporations, trade associations and other groups). Twenty of 24 representatives of these corporate entities are lobbyists. ALEC's annual joint board meeting is where model bills voted on. (ALEC says only the legislators have a final say on all model bills. ALEC has previously said that "The policies are debated and voted on by all members. Public and private members vote separately on policy.") Although ALEC's "public" board approves the "model" bills, corporations vote alongside politicians on ALEC's task forces on bills that are then forwarded to the board. Most corporate chairs of ALEC's task forces are also experienced lobbyists. ALEC says "no lobbying takes place."

ALEC has crowed that it :{gives business:(style="color:#000000"):}: "an unparalleled opportunity to have its voice heard, and its perspective appreciated" in changes to state laws. Its model bills and resolutions have been published in state houses across the country, but without disclosing that they were approved through ALEC, or that corporations voted for the legal changes in advance.

Money: ALEC Is Funded Almost Entirely by Corporations, While NCSL Is Not

NCSL does not accept for-profit corporate members or donors. In 2010, NCSL's general fund was $16.8 million. State legislatures contribute about $10 million a year to :{NCSL:(style="color:#000000"):}:. Most of the remainder comes from grants from federal agencies such as the federal Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Energy, and Transportation, and from mainstream private foundations such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. It also has funds from the sale of NCSL publications. Its convention costs are covered by registration fees.

ALEC, on the other hand, is funded almost entirely by its corporate members. In 2009, ALEC's revenues were $6.3 million. About one percent ($82,981) of its revenues came from dues paid by state legislators. That is, over 98.6% of ALEC's money comes from sources other than legislative dues, including primarily funds from for-profit corporations and foundations funded by the family fortunes of corporate CEOs. In what could be called window dressing for its corporate coffers, ALEC charges state legislators a nominal fee of $50 a year to be members, which some legislators pay with tax dollars. Legislators also get a discounted rate for conferences and even "scholarships" to attend them. Corporations are charged up to 500 percent more in dues to become members and get to vote just like legislative members on ALEC task forces. :{Basic corporate dues:(style="color:#000000"):}: range from $7,000 to $25,000 per year plus :{fees:(style="color:#000000"):}: of between $2,500 and $10,000 to be on ALEC task forces with state legislators. ALEC's corporate donations and sponsorships subsidize its conventions.

ALEC also receives money from :{foundations:(style="color:#000000"):}: that help fund information campaigns against addressing climate change and other issues. For example, two foundations connected to the :{Koch Industries:(style="color:#000000"):}: :{oil fortune -- the [[Charles

G. Koch Foundation]] and the}: :{Claude R. Lambe Foundation:(style="color:#000000"):}: -- gave ALEC over $200,000 in 2009, in addition to corporate dues paid by the company. ALEC also gets checks from other right-wing non-profit groups, like the Allegheny Foundation, funded by the Scaifes, and Coors' Castle Rock Foundation, too.

Partisanship: Almost All of ALEC's Legislative Leaders are Republicans, While NCSL's Leadership Is Strictly Bipartisan

:{NCSL is led by a fully bipartisan group of legislators through an "Executive Committee." Each year, the chair of NCSL's Executive Committee rotates between Republican and Democratic legislators. This year, NCSL's president and Executive Committee Chair is state Senator Richard Moore (D-Massachusetts). The previous leader was state Senator Dan Balfour (R-Georgia). NSCL's committees are led in a similar bipartisan fashion, and its overall membership has a large number of legislators from both major political parties. Additionally, much of NCSL's staff is drawn from nonpartisan professional legislative staff of state legislatures

across the country.}:

ALEC is led jointly by a corporate board and a 23-member public board. All of the public board members are Republican legislators, and the board is chaired by Rep. Noble Ellington (R-Louisiana). There is no indication that a Democratic legislator has ever chaired ALEC's public board. The legislators who co-chair each ALEC task force are all Republicans, and all but one of the leaders of each state delegation are Republicans. In all, ALEC's legislative leadership is 103 Republicans and one Democrat. ALEC does count some additional Democrats in its membership, but overall it is lopsided to the right of the political spectrum in its leaders and members.

ALEC also has an "advisory" board of "scholars," all of whom have been active in Republican administrations, politics, or right-wing causes -- at one point, ALEC's executive director stated, "The ALEC agenda is the Bush agenda," referring to the first president Bush. ALEC scholars are also connected to ALEC funders. For example, Steve Moore is on the Wall Street Journal editorial board and has devoted substantial time to David Koch's Americans for Prosperity to advance its agenda. Unlike NCSL, ALEC's staff is not non-partisan legislative professionals but has strong connections to other right-wing groups or funding, such as Koch Fellowships or internships.

ALEC has also given awards to luminaries on the right, including Charles and David Koch and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. ALEC's alumni include the current Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-Ohio), and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia), as well as several controversial new governors like Scott Walker of Wisconsin, John Kasich of Ohio, and Jan Brewer of Arizona. Donald Rumsfeld was also the chairman of ALEC's corporate board when he headed G.D. Searle pharmaceutical and was between jobs as Secretary of Defense.

===

For consumers, this good news may soon get even better. While the cost of carbon­based energy continues to increase, the cost of solar electricity has dropped by an average of 20 percent per year since 2010. Some energy economists, including those who produced an authoritative report this past spring for Bernstein Research, are now predicting energy-price deflation as soon as the next decade.

For those (including me) who are surprised at the speed with which this impending transition has been accelerating, there are precedents that help explain it. Remember the first mobile-telephone handsets? I do; as an inveterate "early adopter" of new technologies, I thought those first huge, clunky cellphones were fun to use and looked cool (they look silly now, of course). In 1980, a few years before I bought one of the early models, AT&T conducted a global market study and came to the conclusion that by the year 2000 there would be a market for 900,000 subscribers. They were not only wrong, they were way wrong: 109 million contracts were active in 2000. Barely a decade and a half later, there are 6.8 billion globally. 
These parallels have certainly caught the attention of the fossil-fuel industry and its investors: Eighteen months ago, the Edison Electric Institute described the floundering state of the once-proud landline-telephone companies as a grim predictor of what may soon be their fate.

The utilities are fighting back, of course, by using their wealth and the entrenched political power they have built up over the past century. In the United States, brothers Charles and David Koch, who run Koch Industries, the second-largest privately owned corporation in the U.S., have secretively donated at least $70 million to a number of opaque political organizations tasked with spreading disinformation about the climate crisis and intimidating political candidates who dare to support renewable energy or the pricing of carbon pollution.

:{A Call to Arms: An invitation to Demand Action on Climate Change:(style="color:#000000"):}:

They regularly repeat shopworn complaints about the inadequate, intermittent and inconsistent subsidies that some governments have used in an effort to speed up the deployment of renewables, while ignoring the fact that global subsidies for carbon-based energy are 25 times larger than global subsidies for renewables.

One of the most effective of the groups financed by the Koch brothers and other carbon polluters is the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which grooms conservative state legislators throughout the country to act as their agents in introducing legislation written by utilities and carbon-fuel lobbyists in a desperate effort to slow, if not stop, the transition to renewable energy.

The Kochs claim to act on principles of low taxation and minimal regulation, but in their attempts to choke the development of alternative energy, they have induced the recipients of their generous campaign contributions to contradict these supposedly bedrock values, pushing legislative and regulatory measures in 34 states to discourage solar, or encourage carbon energy, or both. The most controversial of their initiatives is focused on persuading state legislatures and public-utility commissions to tax homeowners who install a PV solar cell on their roofs, and to manipulate the byzantine utility laws and regulations to penalize renewable energy in a variety of novel schemes.

The chief battleground in this war between the energy systems of the past and future is our electrical grid. For more than a century, the grid – along with the regulatory and legal framework governing it – has been dominated by electric utilities and their centralized, fossil-fuel-powered­ electricity-generation plants. But the rise of distributed alternate energy sources allows consumers to participate in the production of electricity through a policy called net metering. In 43 states, homeowners who install solar PV to systems on their rooftops are permitted to sell electricity back into the grid when they generate more than they need.

These policies have been crucial to the growth of solar power. But net metering represents an existential threat to the future of electric utilities, the so-called utility death spiral: As more consumers install solar panels on their roofs, utilities will have to raise prices on their remaining customers to recover the lost revenues. Those higher rates will, in turn, drive more consumers to leave the utility system, and so on.

But here is more good news: The Koch brothers are losing rather badly. In Kansas, their home state, a poll by North Star Opinion Research reported that 91 percent of registered voters support solar and wind. Three-quarters supported stronger policy encouragement of renewable energy, even if such policies raised their electricity bills.

In Georgia, the Atlanta Tea Party joined forces with the Sierra Club to form a new organization called – wait for it – the Green Tea Coalition, which promptly defeated a Koch-funded scheme to tax rooftop solar panels.

Meanwhile, in Arizona, after the state's largest utility, an ALEC member, asked the public-utility commission for a tax of up to $150 per month for solar households, the opposition was fierce and well-organized. A compromise was worked out – those households would be charged just $5 per month – but Barry Goldwater Jr., the leader of a newly formed organization called TUSK (Tell Utilities Solar won't be Killed), is fighting a new attempt to discourage rooftop solar in Arizona. Characteristically, the Koch brothers and their allies have been using secretive and deceptive funding in Arizona to run television advertisements attacking "greedy" owners of rooftop solar panels – but their effort has thus far backfired, as local journalists have exposed the funding scam.

Even though the Koch-funded forces recently scored a partial (and almost certainly temporary) victory in Ohio, where the legislature voted to put a hold on the state's renewable-portfolio standard and study the issue for two years, it's clear that the attack on solar energy is too little, too late. Last year, the Edison Electric Institute warned the utility industry that it had waited too long to respond to the sharp cost declines and growing popularity of solar: "At the point when utility investors become focused on these new risks and start to witness significant customer- and earnings-erosion trends, they will respond to these challenges. But, by then, it may be too late to repair the utility business model."

The most seductive argument deployed by the Koch brothers and their allies is that those who use rooftop solar electricity and benefit from the net-metering policies are "free riders" – that is, they are allegedly not paying their share of the maintenance costs for the infrastructure of the old utility model, including the grid itself. This deceptive message, especially when coupled with campaign contributions, has persuaded some legislators to support the proposed new taxes on solar panels.

But the argument ignores two important realities facing the electric utilities: First, most of the excess solar electricity is supplied by owners of solar cells during peak-load hours of the day, when the grid's capacity is most stressed – thereby alleviating the pressure to add expensive new coal- or gas-fired generating capacity. But here's the rub: What saves money for their customers cuts into the growth of their profits and depresses their stock prices. As is often the case, the real conflict is between the public interest and the special interest.

The second reality ignored by the Koch brothers is the one they least like to discuss, the one they spend so much money trying to obfuscate with their :{hired "merchants of doubt.":(style="color:#000000"):}: You want to talk about the uncompensated use of infrastructure? What about sewage infrastructure for 98 million tons per day of gaseous, heat-trapping waste that is daily released into our skies, threatening the future of human civilization? Is it acceptable to use the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet as an open sewer? Free of charge? Really?...

:{http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-turning-point-new-hope-for-the-climate-20140618?print=true:(style="color:#000000"):}:

===

4/14

With your support, the Center for Media and Democracy has gone head to head with our Republican Attorney General and prevailed in our open records lawsuit against ALEC's vice-chair, Wisconsin Senator Leah Vukmir.

For months, Sen. Vukmir insisted that she had no records in her possession and made an unprecedented claim of immunity from lawsuit -- but after a year of litigation, we finally received over 100 pages of emails pertaining to ALEC's Spring 2013 meeting. As part of the settlement, Sen. Vukmir was saddled with $2,500 in damages.

Even the conservative Wisconsin State Journal :{said:(style="color:#000000"):}: that the docs show the "lobbying group pulling legislators strings."

The newly-released records show a Florida State Policy Network "think tank" instructing legislators to introduce model policy -- undermining ALEC's claim that only legislators propose model bills.

The SPN group even drafted an entire script for multiple legislators to parrot when proposing the resolution suggesting that expanding health care to more American citizens would be disastrous (!).

Sen. Vukmir, a former nurse, agreed to work on behalf of this SPN group to sponsor a resolution rejecting Medicaid expansion, which would deprive health coverage to millions of Americans. (:{Read it here:(style="color:#000000"):}:).

An ALEC spokesman says CMD is engaging in a “witch hunt” and “the notion that legislators are puppets is an indictment of the United States and our Constitution as a whole."

We think he has that backwards. It is ALEC legislators who should be considering their obligations under the Constitution to represent their constituents, rather than ALEC corporations and “stink tank” lobbyists.

==

:{http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Alumni_in_Congress:(style="color:#000000"):}:

ALEC Alumni in Congress include[1][2]:

U.S. Senate

U.S. House of Representatives

Former ALEC Alumni in Congress include Former Assistant Minority Leader :{Don Nickles:(style="color:#000000"):}:, Former Speaker of the House :{Dennis Hastert:(style="color:#000000"):}:, Former House Majority Leader :{Tom DeLay:(style="color:#000000"):}: and Former Deputy Majority Whip and subject of the 2006 :{page scandal:(style="color:#000000"):}:, :{Mark Foley:(style="color:#000000"):}:.[10]

References

  1. :{:{Jump up:(style="color:#000000"):}::(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}::{↑:(style="color:#000000"):}: American Legislative Exchange Council, ":{Senate:(style="color:#000000"):}:," organization website, accessed April 18th, 2012
  2. ↑ Jump ^up to:2.0 2.1 American Legislative Exchange Council, ":{House of Representatives:(style="color:#000000"):}:," organization website, accessed April 18th, 2012
  3. :{:{Jump up:(style="color:#000000"):}::(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}::{↑:(style="color:#000000"):}: American Legislative Exchange Council, :{'99 ALEC Leaders in the States:(style="color:#000000"):}:, organizational website, archived by the Wayback Machine December 8, 2000, accessed October 2012
  4. ↑ Jump ^up to:4.0 4.1 American Legislative Exchange Council, :{ALEC Leaders in the States:(style="color:#000000"):}:, organizational document, accessed October 2012
  5. :{:{Jump up:(style="color:#000000"):}::(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}::{↑:(style="color:#000000"):}: George Allen Press Office, :{The George Allen Record – Thomas Jefferson Freedom Award – August 3, 1996:(style="color:#000000"):}:, campaign press release, August 3, 2011
  6. :{:{Jump up:(style="color:#000000"):}::(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}::{↑:(style="color:#000000"):}: Voters Legislative Transparency Project, :{American Legislative Exchange Council - Federal Government and Corrupt Practices:(style="color:#000000"):}:, organizational report, November 2011
  7. :{:{Jump up:(style="color:#000000"):}::(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}::{↑:(style="color:#000000"):}: Bob Sloan, :{ALEC Pursues Control of the U.S. Senate in November – The Allen vs. Kaine Virginia Senate Race:(style="color:#000000"):}:, Voters Legislative Transparency Project, September 14, 2012
  8. :{:{Jump up:(style="color:#000000"):}::(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}::{↑:(style="color:#000000"):}: American Legislative Exchange Council, Sourcebook, annual organizational publication, 1995
  9. :{:{Jump up:(style="color:#000000"):}::(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}::{↑:(style="color:#000000"):}: American Legislative Exchange Council, Inside ALEC, organizational newsletter, June 2012, on file with CMD
  10. :{:{Jump up:(style="color:#000000"):}::(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}::{↑:(style="color:#000000"):}: American Legislative Exchange Council, :{2001 Annual Report:(style="color:#000000"):}:, organizational report, 2002

===

At least 71 bills introduced in 2013 that make it harder for average Americans to access the civil justice system resemble "models" from the American Legislative Exchange Council, or "ALEC," according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy, publishers of :{ALECexposed.org:(style="color:#000000"):}:.

ALEC Agenda Tips the Scales of Justice to Help Corporations Win

For decades, ALEC has been a conduit for the oil, tobacco, and pharmaceutical industries to push legislation that changes the rules to limit accountability when a corporation's products or actions cause injury or death -- such as when a Koch Industries pipeline :{explodes and kills teenagers:(style="color:#000000"):}:, or when the tobacco or pharmaceutical industries withhold evidence that their products are dangerous. In just the first six months of 2013, seventy-one ALEC bills that advance these "tort reform" goals have been introduced in thirty states (see chart below).

"Each of these bills would weaken the legal rights of everyday people who are wrongfully harmed by a corporation or health care provider," says Joanne Doroshow, Executive Director of the Center for Justice & Democracy, a group that works to protect the civil justice system and fight tort reform. "[The bills] are carefully crafted to provide relief and protections for the industries who wrote them."

A long-standing principle of American law gives a person injured (or whose family member is killed) by the fault of another the right to pursue justice and seek fair compensation in front of a judge and jury. An injury for which a person can sue is known as a "tort." Tort lawsuits are one of the few instances where an average American can stand on equal footing with a global corporation, make their case in front of a citizen jury, and demand justice. On a level playing field, consumers often win -- which is why corporate interests want to rig this centuries-old system to their benefit.

Tort cases are relatively rare -- they make up only six percent of the entire civil court caseload, and are declining -- but they are effective. Tort liability is why U.S. companies have stopped selling dangerous cribs that strangle infants and children's pajamas that catch fire.

The ALEC "tort reform" bills fundamentally alter the tort liability system by making it harder to bring a lawsuit or by limiting a jury's ability to award damages. The bills provide a way for ALEC corporations to escape responsibility for wrongdoing, help ALEC insurance companies limit payouts (and increase profits), and prevent Americans wrongfully injured or killed from receiving just compensation.

ALEC Bills Limit Corporate Accountability, Change Liability Rules

Some ALEC bills limit how much a corporation might have to pay for causing injury.

Other ALEC bills change how liability is apportioned when more than one individual or corporation is at fault.

Other ALEC "model legislation" would provide immunity for certain forms of lawsuits.

ALEC Corporations Reap the Rewards

The Trespasser Responsibility Act :{was brought to ALEC:(style="color:#000000"):}: by Matt Fullenbaum of the American Tort Reform Association and Mark Behrens of Shook Hardy & Bacon, a law firm that has long represented tobacco companies and other industries seeking to avoid tort liability. Behrens is an "advisor" to the ALEC Civil Justice Task Force, as are other Shook Hardy & Bacon attorneys. The head of Shook Hardy & Bacon is Victor Schwartz, the so-called ":{undisputed king of tort reform:(style="color:#000000"):}:" who for many years has chaired the ALEC Civil Justice Task Force.

Others involved with the Civil Justice Task Force include a variety of corporate trade groups that have worked closely with Schwartz and his law firm, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business, as well as the American Insurance Industry and others.

"Industries like the tobacco, insurance, oil and chemical industries are pretty detested," Doroshow says, "and trade groups provide a way for these corporations to hide behind a more neutral-sounding entity that will push their agenda. This makes it harder for the public to learn how these detested industries would benefit from tort reform."

ALEC's corporate members are a who's-who of companies that face tort liability. Its corporate board, recently renamed by ALEC as the ":{Private Enterprise Advisory Board:(style="color:#000000"):}:," includes representatives of fossil fuel interests (Koch Industries, Peabody Energy, Exxon Mobil, Energy Future Holdings), the pharmaceutical industry (PhRMA, Pfizer), and big tobacco (Altria, formally known as Phillip Morris). It also includes insurance companies like State Farm, which profits from a rigged tort liability system by paying out less in claims (:{even while raising premiums:(style="color:#000000"):}:).

Average Americans Pay the Price

An increasingly major player in advancing the ALEC tort reform agenda is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its Institute for Legal Reform, both of which are members of the ALEC Civil Justice Task Force.

A big priority for the Chamber this year has been legislation narrowing access to the courts for asbestos victims. The ALEC "Asbestos Claims Transparency Act" was first adopted by members of the ALEC Civil Justice Task Force in 2007 and was introduced in four states in 2013, in many cases supported by :{testimony:(style="color:#000000"):}: from Shook Hardy & Bacon attorney Mark Behrens on behalf of the Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform. The effort would benefit corporations like Crown Holdings, a Fortune 500 company with over $8 billion in annual sales that has worked with ALEC for years to legislate its way out of compensating asbestos victims, as well as ALEC member Honeywell International, which has :{faced significant:(style="color:#000000"):}: asbestos liability in recent years.

Asbestos-related diseases kill at least 10,000 Americans every year, in many cases from mesothelioma, an incurable and painful cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. For decades, asbestos was used for insulation and industrial purposes, and the diseases particularly affect veterans, firefighters, construction workers, and individuals who worked in factories with high-heat machinery.

Asbestos company executives knew from at least the 1940s that asbestos was deadly but covered it up for half of a century. For example, an internal memo from a subsidiary of ALEC member Honeywell in 1966 :{stated:(style="color:#000000"):}:, "if you have enjoyed a good life while working with asbestos products why not die from it?" The disease can take between 20 and 50 years to manifest, so individuals exposed decades earlier are only discovering the illness now.

Like the ALEC-supported voter ID laws that spread across the country in recent years, supporters of the Asbestos Claims Transparency Act claim the law is necessary to stop fraud -- despite no persuasive evidence of significant fraud or abuse. The law is couched in terms of "transparency," but is actually designed to save corporations money by delaying justice for asbestos victims and enacting unnecessary procedural hurdles for getting their day in court.

The bill could allow corporations like Crown Holdings or Honeywell to delay a lawsuit until a victim files claims with any other asbestos or personal injury "trust funds," which are accounts set up after a company goes bankrupt to pay claims to injured parties. This requirement, advocates say, is intended to drag out a case until after a sick victim dies -- an especially pointed concern given that asbestos cancer victims usually die within a year after being diagnosed.

In December of 2012, Ohio became the first state to pass the ALEC asbestos bill, which the Chamber :{publicly applauded::(style="color:#000000"):}: "'As Ohio goes, so goes the nation,' and we hope this will result in a domino effect," said Lisa Rickard, president of the U.S. Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform. The Wall Street Journal editorial board -- which includes Stephen Moore, an ALEC "advisor" -- :{published:(style="color:#000000"):}: an editorial in support of the legislation.

Consumer and worker advocates expect more states to introduce versions of the Asbestos Claims Transparency Act in 2014. A parallel bill has been introduced on the federal level and recently passed the House Judiciary Committee (:{prompting a response:(style="color:#000000"):}: from the New York Times Editorial Board). Testimony presented to Congress from attorneys at Caplin & Drysdale :{has identified the ALEC:(style="color:#000000"):}: connection.

"Tort Reform" Bills Contradict ALEC's Alleged Free Market Principles

A robust tort liability system advances "free market" goals -- a principle ALEC claims to support -- by providing market pressures that provide a check on corporate misbehavior. The possibility of a lawsuit, and the associated financial liability, :{provides an economic incentive for manufacturers, hospitals, utility companies, and other corporations to be more safe and responsible:(style="color:#000000"):}:, and it advances these goals without government regulation and enforcement.

By pushing these "tort reform" bills, ALEC is not advocating for "free markets" and "limited government," but instead protecting corporate interests from any form of accountability to consumers or the public.

"[The ALEC tort reform bills] offer nothing for consumers and in fact, would do them great harm," Doroshow says. "And they create frameworks, easily amended by future lawmakers, that could result in even worse damage to the public."

View the full list of 2013 ALEC "tort reform" bills :{here:(style="color:#000000"):}:.

:{http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/07/12172/justice-denied-71-alec-bills-2013-make-it-harder-hold-corporations-accountable-ca:(style="color:#000000"):}:

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