WHAT IS ALEC AND WHY DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?

                                                                 January 2020

                                                        By:  Attorney Deborah G. Stevenson

ALEC stands for American Legislative Exchange Council.

   You can find it here:  <https://www.alec.org>

It purports to be a non-profit organization providing a forum for state legislators from all across the country to discuss business and economic interests facing the states and to exchange ideas for solutions. Alec also claims to “value” “public-private partnerships” in policy discussions. 

Legislators attend meetings and events set up by ALEC, which are held in private.  No one from the public is allowed inside such meetings.

ALEC then assists the legislators by providing them with “model bills” that the legislators can take back home and introduce them into their own House and Senate. In effect, ALEC  drafts legislation for the legislators, doing the research and leg work for them, making the legislators’ lives easier.  The legislators, in turn, after having been pitched the ideas in these “model bills”, accept them as valuable, and promote them for acceptance in their States. 

This is one reason why you see the same idea for legislation, virtually the same bills, appear in State after State.  

This is no accident.  This is the goal.

Sometimes, you may approve of the content of such bills, other times, you may not.  The point is, you need to know who is promoting the bills, and why they are doing so.

Understand that hatever the bill is, it may not be an original idea of your local State Senator or Representative.  Your local State Senator or Representative may have attended an Alec meeting sometime prior to proposing the bill.  Although he thought he was engaging in a free exchange of ideas, in reality, he may have been manipulated, unknowingly, into buying into an idea that was part of the larger agenda of ALEC, and the folks who pay for the existence of ALEC.  In other words, your local State Senator or Representative may have been targeted by well funded lobbyists working in the guise of a great sounding “non-profit” organization.

There are pros and cons to everything, of course, but you need to know what those pros and cons are before you act.  Check out the ALEC website, but also check out the websites of ALEC critics, such as alecexposed.org.   The more you are informed about both sides, the better decisions you can make.  Keep in mind, this is not just a right wing or a left wing tactic employed by these well funded organizations..  Both sides engage in this sort of lobbying..  This is about the same things most things are about: money, power, and control. This is about you, as an individual, recognizing what is happening, taking appropriate action to hold your elected officials accountable, and retaining your authority as free people.

Remember, ALEC is not the only such organization that may have an ulterior motive or agenda, that sounds like a great organization doing great work, but may not be so great after all.   Anytime you see one State after another proposing similar or identical bills, especially on critically important issues, you should think about organizations such as ALEC, do your research, and ask your legislators where they came up with their idea, and why.  Ask who is lobbying your legislators, and who actually is writing the legislation?  ,

Remember also, according to the U.S. Constitution, and most State Constitutions, only elected legislators have the constitutional authority to write legislation.  They do not have the authority to delegate that duty to anyone else, not even to staff lawyers, let alone powerful corporations or non-profit entities.  Tell your legislators that when they do delegate that authority, they do so unlawfully.  Tell them to do their own work and to accept their own responsibility.  After all, that is what they were elected to do, and that is what they swore under oath to do.  Hold them accountable to their word. 

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Attorney Stevenson is the founder of National Home Education Legal Defense, LLC. (NHELD)

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