News leaked out a year ago from various sources about this organized effort under ALEC by corporations to subvert state political institutions to serve the interests of corporations, to crush unions, to downsize and privatize public programs. To add insult to injury, they do all this under the guise of a tax exempt charitable non-profit organization while giving all kinds of generous "scholarships" and other expensive perks to state legislators. Researchers at CMD went to work to study the details of their nefarious operations, and have now released the results of this study. This illustrates capitalist "democracy" in action.
The key findings are:
- 32 bills or budget provisions reflecting ALEC model legislation were introduced in Wisconsin's 2011-2012 legislative session;
- 21 of these bills or budget provisions have passed, and two were vetoed;
- More than $276,000 in campaign contributions were made to ALEC legislators in Wisconsin from ALEC corporations since 2008;
- More than $406,000 in campaign contributions were made to ALEC alumnus Governor Walker from ALEC corporations over the same time period for his state campaign account;
- At least 49 current Wisconsin legislators are known ALEC members, including the leaders of both the House and Senate as well as other legislators holding key posts in the state. Additionally, the Governor, the Secretary of the Department of Administration, and the Chairman of the Public Service Commission are ALEC alumni; and
- At least 17 current legislators have received thousands of dollars of gifts cumulatively from ALEC corporations in the past few years, in the form of flights and hotel rooms filtered through the ALEC "scholarship fund" (complete "scholarship" information is not available).
The details vary, but this is essentially the way the One Percent function the world over to promote their agenda of the private appropriation of socially produced wealth. (If this doesn't work, they have other well known methods.) To see how corporate "philanthropy" works internationally, read this article entitled "Foundations for Empire: corporate philanthropy and US foreign policy".
I also think that one can make the argument that ALEC is, in fact, derived from the neo-colonial model that has been employed throughout the Empire to co-opt leaders of targeted countries, most especially, members of military elites. Hence, what we are seeing is this colonial model brought home to subvert any remaining vestiges of civil and human rights that still exist in the "land of the free".
Israel uses essentially the same model on US representatives, except that I don't believe that the latter are handed model laws to pass in Congress. But, they are wined and dined in junkets sponsored by the Israeli government probably from recycled US "foreign aid" amounting to billions of dollars. See this, this, and this.
