Council’s bill-writing sway raises questions

LITTLE ROCK — Depending on whom you ask, the American Legislative Exchange Council is either a secretive scheme funded by corporations aiming to control state legislatures or a harmless bipartisan organization that brings lawmakers together to share ideas.

The council, commonly called ALEC, is characterized by some liberal groups as being far from innocent and not deserving of the tax-exempt status it has as a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization.

Common Cause, a Washington, D.C.-based group that seeks to curb the influence of money in politics, asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the council, arguing that the council is a lobbying outfit, not the charitable organization it claims to be.

Arkansas lawmakers who’ve been to the council’s conferences generally dismiss the suspicions.

The council says its aim is to “advance ... free markets, limited government, federalism, and individualism.” It develops “model bills” in task forces made up of state lawmakers and private-sector representatives. The council says that close to 1,000 bills that are based on its models are introduced in state legislatures each year and on average 20 percent of them become law.

The council does not usually make the model bills public, and its spokesman Raegan Weber said access to the bills is a “benefit of membership.” Still, opponents of legislation in several states have at times pointed to the council and its role in the legislation.

ExxonMobil, Wal-Mart, Koch Industries and others pay to be American Legislative Exchange Council members.

Critics say firms play too big a role in writing the model bills and that that is not always clear to legislators who vote on them. The Center for Media and Democracy of Madison, Wis., which calls itself a nonprofit investigative reporting group, last month posted on its website more than 800 of what it said were American Legislative Exchange Council model bills to call attention to the corporate interests that might benefit from them. It called the posting “ALEC Exposed.”

THE COUNCIL IN ARKANSAS

Dozens of Arkansas lawmakers have attended American Legislative Exchange Council conferences. Last year 19 went, Republicans and Democrats.

Two state Democrats have been national chairmen of the council - Bobby Hogue of Jonesboro in 1998 when he was speaker of the Arkansas House and Steve Faris of Central in 2008 when he was a senator.

How many American Legislative Exchange Council bills have been introduced in Arkansas isn’t clear. The Bureau of Legislative Research does not keep records of how many bills originated with outside groups.

In 2009, the only year for which the council provided a tally, six bills came from American Legislative Exchange Council models, Weber said. None became law.

This year, council staff members spoke at Arkansas legislative meetings on House Bill 1002, to reduce the capital-gains tax, and Senate Bill 709, to establish requirements for implementing federal health-care changes.

Weber said the council takes policy positions as allowed by the IRS but does not call for specific action, even when its staff testifies before legislatures.

SB303, a bill that requires state government spending to be posted on a website, was based in part on American Legislative Exchange Council legislation, lawmakers said. It became law with support from members of both parties.

State Rep. Bryan King of Berryville sponsored HB1801, the Mandated Health Benefits Review Act, which, he said, was based on an American Legislative Exchange Council model. It would require the state Insurance Department to do a cost-benefit analysis of federal health-care law mandates. It was not enacted but will be studied in coming months.

It’s rare for any bill to go unamended. Bills that might have been inspired by the council, or anyone else, frequently look very different by the time they’re voted on.

Faris, now on the stateLottery Commission, said he preferred to write his bills but that models can be good starting points, especially with so many new lawmakerseach session because of term limits.

“With term limits you need some help if you’re not accustomed to drawing your own bills with staff,” he said.

Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, who sponsored the Healthcare Reform Accountability Act backed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, said she didn’t pull it from a council model. She worked with other lawmakers and think tanks, she said.

“For me, it really became more about financial responsibility for the state of Arkansas. And that really has nothing to do with ALEC,” she said.

“TWO-HEADED”

The council proposals sometimes come from corporations looking out not for the public good but for themselves, critics contend.

Lawmakers who have served on the task forces said private-sector members have an equal voice and an equal vote on deciding whether to adopt something as a model bill.

The council does not disclose the task force membership, but Weber said legislators outnumber private-sector members on each one.

The group’s “private enterprise board” includes representatives of Wal-Mart, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Foods Inc., AT&T, Coca-Cola Refreshments, and Koch Companies Public Sector LLC. The American Legislative Exchange Council website says its private-sector members have an “unparalleled opportunity” to be heard. Privatesector memberships cost up to $25,000 each year.

An American Legislative Exchange Council filing with the IRS in 2009 said the council received $82,981 in membership dues, compared with $5,302,779 from contributions and grants.

Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, DCrossett, who sat on the council’s education task force, called each task forcea “two-headed animal.”

“You’ve got all these special-interest members with paid memberships ... and who are their bread and butter [and] keepit going financially,” he said. “Certainly no one is going to take their money and then be opposed to what they’re doing. I’ve always found that to be a very curious, with quotation marks around curious, way of doing things.”

Mary Bottari, director of the Real Economy Project at the Center for Media and Democracy, called the American Legislative Exchange Council a “corporate bill factory.”

Bills limiting unions in Wisconsin and other states have been cited by critics as council-inspired measures.

Arizona’s law allowing police to detain anyone who officers suspect is in the country illegally was developed in an American Legislative Exchange Council task force, according to National PublicRadio, and officials with CCA, a prison company that might benefit from the law, were in the room.

“There’s certainly nothing wrong with legislators conferring with these companies,” said Dale Eisman, asenior researcher for Common Cause.

“Our concern is the action of sitting down side by side, writing legislation that the corporation signs off [on], that the legislator introduces as his or her own, and doesn’t often give full disclosure.”

That “dangerous” practice indicates a “corporate dominance” of state politics, Eisman said.

A DIFFERENT VIEW

Irvin said it’s important to have private-sector involvement. “We’re legislating, and our legislation directly impacts the private industry. So for them not to be at the table, it doesn’t seem like democracy is at work there,” she said.

She said if she sees legislation that she knows will have an influence on someone’s field of business, “I pick up the phone, and I call them. I tell them, read this legislation. What do you think about it?”

The private sector has a voice on the task forces, but the council says on its website that the 23 legislators on its board of directors make the final decision on whether a proposal will be a model bill. After the task force, privatesector members have “no procedural role whatsoever,” the website says.

Rep. Ed Garner, R-Maumelle, who attended American Legislative Exchange Council conferences, calls claims that corporations run over lawmakers “laughable.”

“I can’t tell you how manypieces of model legislation are brought out by one or another private-sector member that just get trashed and thrown away and never see the light of day again,” he said.

A council spokesman said corporations’ interests don’t always align and that taskforce corporate members often disagree.

Those members have the ear of lawmakers but that does not mean they’re in control, Faris said.

“These companies want their representatives to have influence, and my perceptionof influence is somebody asking me how I feel about something and asking me to consider something, not telling me what to do.”

Dan Greenberg, a former state representative who was chairman of an American Legislative Exchange Council subcommittee, said legislators brought up most of the bills.

Private-sector members are no more troubling than lobbyists, he said - “If we’re really worried about advocates of private interests talking to legislators, we’re going to have to lock all of them outside the Capitol.”

When lawmakers confer with those who are trying to influence them, for example at dinners or events sponsored by lobbyists, reports of the expenditures sometimes have to be filed with the state. That is not true of American Legislative Exchange Council conferences.

The council is not the only organization that lawmakers can join, and it is not the only one that suggests legislation - even state agencies write bills that they ask legislators to sponsor.

The National Conference of State Legislatures counts every state legislator among its members. It does not generally provide its members with model bills and usually takes stances only on how states interact with the federal government, spokesman John Kuhl said.

Council of State Governments Executive Director David Adkins said the Council of State Governments “rigorously guards” its nonpartisan, nonideological approach, and does not have private-sector members, but allows private organizations to pay $6,000 to be “associates,” which allows them to attend meetings and interact with members.

“They don’t set or drive our agenda,” Adkins said.

The Council of State Governments also does not write model bills but has “suggested state legislation,” which Adkins described as a list of legislation from around the country that members can access and replicate. Which bills go on the list is determined by a committee of legislators.

The state pays for the legislature’s memberships in theNational Conference of State Legislatures and the Council of State Governments. Individual lawmakers pay for membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council. Lawmakers can be reimbursed for attending conferences of any of the organizations.

CONSERVATIVE

King said the substance of proposals is more important than the source.

“I mean, corporationsdon’t motivate me to file bills. I look at the substance of them and try to determine are they good ideas or not, can I explain them, are they somethingpeople back in my district can support?”

Some lawmakers suggested that it’s the substance of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s proposals that trouble liberal groups.

“If you have a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus, then that is apparently good old American politics. But if you have a meeting of conservative legislators ... it’s a big conspiracy,” said Greenberg.

Hogue said he thinks the American Legislative Exchange Council has become more conservative lately, though he still believes in its goals.

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t get in it. I would probably try to go in a little different direction than [it is] going today,” he said.

Jeffress said that on the education task force there wasn’t much room for someone who didn’t want to privatize public education and eliminate teacher unions.

“I argued with them all day. I was the only person there from my viewpoint,” he said. Still, Jeffress said, he thought he was treated fairly.

At a more recent American Legislative Exchange Council meeting, Jeffress said, the tone had changed.

He was in a meeting that was “always from the right’s perspective: ... There’s nothing bipartisan at all,” he said.