Corporate Interests Come First at ALEC Convention

Labor representatives were ejected from the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, DC today when they attempted to get legislators attending a corporate lobby group’s convention to sign a pledge to put the needs of their constituents first.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization composed both of corporate members and federal and state legislators, is holding its 40th annual convention this week.

John Williams, Head of the Washington DC Central Labor Council, was thrown out of the lobby of the Hyatt after he tried to get legislators to sign what he called a “Rights Priority Pledge.” “Nobody wanted to sign the pledge because they said it did not apply to them,” he said.

Critics of the controversial partnership between corporations and legislators say it crafts “model legislation” favoring industry interests, then gets it passed word for word in Congress and State Houses around the country.

John Williams gave them a stern warning: “My message to ALEC is–you can run from us but you aren’t gonna be able to hide.”

Michelle Ringuette of the American Federation of Teachers said, “ALEC has been in business for 10 years and it is fundamentally a key part in the right-wing infrastructure that advances corporate interests over constituent interests.”

“So what you have here today are individuals from the labor movement, environmental movement, people fighting so kids have healthcare access, to people worried about about food safety,” she said.

A giant inflatable “fat cat” labeled “ALEC” hovered above the protestors who represented unions, environmental groups, teachers, and healthcare workers as they marched from Franklin Park to the Hyatt Hotel on 10th St. in Northwest Washington.

“ALEC brings corporate lobbyists and state legislators together behind closed doors,” said Connor Gibson, a researcher at Greenpeace USA.

“Some of those corporations include Koch Industries, Exxon-Mobil, Peabody Coal, Duke Energy and a lot of oil, gas and fossil fuel companies,” he said. “ALEC has for a long time played a role in the climate change denial movement. They [have] blocked climate change policy.”

Ringuette lamented ALEC’s influence on education policy. “ALEC is really the tip of the spear for a movement that’s trying to privatize teaching education in this country,” she said.

ALEC is struggling to maintain its funding in the wake of negative press revealing that it wrote “Stand Your Ground” laws for many states, including Florida, where it may have been key in the acquittal of George Zimmerman. More than 400 legislators and 60 corporate members have left in the past two years.

“ALEC is a liability for companies,” said Gibson. “According to their own documents, their own lawyers, they’ve been lobbying for years and they know it and they are a tax exempt charity. That should not be legal.”

“It appears that they spinning off the Jeffersonian Project, moving all these things they’ve always been doing to a more legally sound operation,” he continued. “I think that’s the kind of information that would interest the IRS.”