ALEC Meetings Being Challenged in Court
Last week, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) met at a resort in Scottsdale and a group of left-leaning Arizonans filed suit against the state lawmakers in attendance, claiming that their being there violated the Open Meetings Act.
States with so-called “sunshine laws” require that where policy-makers gather to discuss, propose or draft legislation, the meetings must be open to the public. ALEC is a private group sponsored by corporate interests and funded by the likes of the Koch brothers. It holds these elegant events at posh locales so that the elite can meet the solons away from the prying eyes of average Josephines and Joes.
No list of legislators attending the Scottsdale summit has been made available, but a purloined roster from a meeting in Austin, Texas, included more than two dozen Arizona lawmakers. The very secrecy of the list is part of the complaint filed in the Phoenix court, which is the first such suit filed involving an ALEC legislative summit.
ALEC is known for drafting bills which are then taken by friendly legislators back almost verbatim for introduction in home-state law-making bodies. The Arizona Republic has written extensively about the influence of law-drafting mills such as ALEC, famously known as the source for Arizona’s infamous SB 1070, the “Show me your papers” law, passed in 2010.
Other bills from ALEC range from anti-union proposals to “stand your ground” laws to so-called tort reform matters.
Of course, people on the right are perfectly entitled to support their political views. The litigation started in Arizona last week challenges the right to closet elected members of the legislature to get them on board with powerful interests behind closed doors so that the groundwork for next year’s legislative agenda can be done in the dark with virtually no accountability.
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