The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a nonprofit organization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives who draft and share model legislation for distribution among state governments in the United States.
ALEC provides a forum for state legislators and private sector members to collaborate on model bills—draft legislation that members may customize and introduce for debate in their own state legislatures. ALEC has produced model bills on a broad range of issues, such as reducing regulation and individual and corporate taxation, combating illegal immigration, loosening environmental regulations, tightening voter identification rules, weakening labor unions, and opposing gun control. Some of these bills dominate legislative agendas in states that include Arizona, Wisconsin, Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Maine. Approximately 200 model bills become law each year. ALEC also serves as a networking tool among certain state legislators, allowing them to research conservative policies implemented in other states. Many ALEC legislators say the organization converts campaign rhetoric and nascent policy ideas into legislative language.
ALEC's activities, while legal, received public scrutiny after news reports in 2012 from outlets such as The New York Times and Bloomberg Businessweek described ALEC as an organization that gave corporate interests outsized influence. Resulting public pressure led to a number of legislators and corporations withdrawing from the organization. However, at ALEC's July 2022 policy summit, Insider reported on a political commentator who stated that if the conservative constitutional convention movement—which "is gaining momentum" largely out of public view—is successful in its plan to rewrite the Constitution, the USA will become the "conservative nation" ALEC has been working toward.Grace Panetta, Brent D. Griffiths, Republicans' next big play is to 'scare the hell out of Washington' by rewriting the Constitution. And they're willing to play the long game to win, Insider, July 31, 2022
History 1973 to 2010 ALEC was founded in 1973 in Chicago as the Conservative Caucus of State Legislators, a project initiated by Mark Rhoads, an Illinois state house staffer, to counter the Environmental Protection Agency, wage, and price controls, and to respond to the defeat of Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election.
Conservative legislators felt the word "conservative" was unpopular with the public at the time, however, so the organization was renamed to the American Legislative Exchange Council. In 1975, with the support of the American Conservative Union, ALEC registered as a federal nonprofit agency. Bill Moyers and Greenpeace have attributed the establishment of ALEC to the influential Powell Memorandum, which led to the rise of a new business activist movement in the 1970s.
ALEC was co-founded by conservative activist Paul Weyrich, who also co-founded The Heritage Foundation. Henry Hyde, who later became a U.S. congressman, and Lou Barnett, who later became national political director of Ronald Reagan's Political Action Committee, also helped to found ALEC. Early members included a number of state and local politicians who went on to statewide office, such as Bob Kasten, Tommy Thompson, and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, John Engler of Michigan, Terry Branstad of Iowa, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and John Boehner and John Kasich of Ohio. Several members of Congress also were involved in the organization during its early years, including Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Sen. James L. Buckley of New York, Rep. Phil Crane of Illinois, and Rep Eric Cantor of Virginia.
In the 1980s, ALEC opposed U.S. disinvestment from South Africa, a movement to put pressure on the South African government to embark on negotiations with a goal of dismantling apartheid. In 1985, ALEC also published a memo that opposed "the current homosexual movement", portrayed homosexuality as a result of a conscious choice, and said that pedophilia was "one of the more dominant practices within the homosexual world". ALEC spokesman Bill Meierling discussed the document in 2013 and said that ALEC does not draft model bills on social issues, and added, "I'm also sad that the critics would not acknowledge that organizations change over time."
Duane Parde served as the executive director from December 1996 to January 2006. Lori Roman, who served in the same role from 2006 to 2008, had an imperious style that led to financial difficulties and the departure of two thirds of ALEC's staff. According to Dolores Mertz, then a Democratic Iowa state representative and chairwoman of the ALEC board, ALEC became increasingly partisan during that period, with Roman once telling Mertz "she didn't like Democrats and she wasn't going to work with them." Ron Scheberle became executive director in 2010 after acting as a lobbyist for Verizon Communications (previously GTE) and as an ALEC board member.
By 2011, the number of ALEC legislative members had reached 2,000, including more than 25 percent of all state legislators nationwide. Approximately 1,000 bills based on ALEC language were being introduced in state legislatures every year, with approximately 20% of those bills being enacted.
Since 2011 Prior to 2011, ALEC's practices and its ties to specific pieces of legislation were little known outside of political circles. In July 2011, The Nation published a series of articles produced in collaboration with the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that showcased some of the ALEC model bills and described ties to the Koch family, and CMD launched a website "ALEC Exposed" that documented more than 800 of ALEC model bills, the legislators and corporations that had helped to draft them, and the states that enacted them.
The joint effort, and particularly its coverage of ALEC's push for tough voter ID laws, prompted the advocacy group Color of Change to launch a public campaign to pressure corporations to withdraw their ALEC memberships.
The criticism among media outlets and political opponents was that ALEC was secretly subverting democratic institutions to further the aims of its corporate benefactors. Oregon state representative and ALEC member Gene Whisnant said in December 2011, "We're getting a lot of attention saying we're trying to destroy the earth and everything on it." ALEC staff and members promoted the organization as promoting public-private partnerships for the advancement of free market principles. ALEC senior director of membership and development Chaz Cirame said, "The hook about some conspiracy or some secret organization is a lot better story than one about bringing state legislators together to talk about best practices around the country."
In 2012, ALEC was the subject of an Occupy movement protest, an Internal Revenue Service complaint by Common Cause, and calls for attorney general investigations in several states.
The killing of Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012, led to increased public attention on "Stand-your-ground" gun laws that ALEC had supported. Color of Change launched a new campaign in April to pressure ALEC corporate members to withdraw. More than sixty corporations and foundations, including Coca-Cola, Wendy's, Kraft Foods, McDonald's, Amazon.com, General Electric, Apple, Procter & Gamble, Walmart, the Gates Foundation, and the medical insurance group Blue Cross and Blue Shield dropped support of ALEC in the ensuing weeks or let their memberships lapse. Thirty-four legislative members also left ALEC.
ALEC responded by releasing a statement describing efforts by its critics as a "campaign launched by a coalition of extreme liberal activists committed to silencing anyone who disagrees with their agenda". Doug Clopp of Common Cause credited ALEC Exposed for the successful campaign, saying that "for 40 years you couldn't get the kind of accountability we're seeing now because ALEC, its members, its legislators, its bills were secret."
Former Visa Inc. lobbyist, Newt Gingrich aide, and GOPAC executive director, Lisa B. Nelson, succeeded Scheberle as CEO of ALEC in 2014.
In late 2014, a number of technology-oriented companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, eBay, and Yahoo! announced that they were ending their ties to ALEC. Multiple companies cited environmental concerns as a point of contention with the organization. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt remarked that ALEC was "just literally lying" about recent global climate change. Yahoo!, Uber, and Lyft also announced withdrawals later that same week. Occidental Petroleum and Northrop Grumman also cut ties with ALEC. In response to the departure of Northrop Grumman, an ALEC spokesperson said, "Like any other membership group, membership in ALEC ebbs and flows, and in 2014 we gained far more private-sector members than we lost." T-Mobile and BP severed ties with ALEC in 2015.
In 2023, ALEC held its fiftieth anniversary celebrations in Washington, D.C. The celebrations included a gala event at the National Portrait Gallery.Pearson, Arn; Armiak, David, After 50 Years, This Right-Wing Law Factory Is Crazier Than Ever: The American Legislative Exchange Council is where corporations and far-right groups go to buy government policy, The American Prospect, October 4, 2023
ALEC is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025, a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from The Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should the Republican nominee win the 2024 presidential election.
Organization
As of December 2013, ALEC had more than 85 members of Congress and 14 sitting or former governors who were considered "alumni". The majority of the ALEC legislative members belong to the Republican Party. Membership statistics presented at an ALEC board meeting in 2013 indicated that the 1,810 members represented 24% of all state legislative seats across the U.S., and that ALEC members represented 100% of the legislative seats in Iowa and South Dakota. It also has approximately 300 corporate, foundation, and other private-sector members. The chairmanship of ALEC is a rotating position, with a new legislator appointed to the position each year. , 28 out of 33 of its chairs had been Republicans.
ALEC has nine task forces that generate model bills that members may customize and introduce for debate in their own state legislatures. Private sector members effectively have veto power over model bills drafted by the task forces.
The ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force, which promoted stand your ground gun laws and voter identification requirements, was disbanded in April 2012. Thereafter, the National Center for Public Policy Research announced the creation of a voter ID task force to replace the one discontinued by ALEC.Ryan J. Reilly, "Conservative Group With Abramoff Scandal Ties Picks Up Voter ID Issue Where ALEC Left Off" Talking Points Memo
Bills drafted by the task forces must be approved by the ALEC board of directors, composed exclusively of legislators, before they are designated as model bills. ALEC also has a Private Enterprise Advisory Council, which meets whenever the board of directors meets. Council members include representatives from prominent corporations such as ExxonMobil, Pfizer, AT&T, SAP, State Farm Insurance and Koch Industries. ALEC statements assert that the council provides advice to the board of directors. Former ALEC co-chairman Noble Ellington said in 2011, "I really kind of think of us as one board," although he added, "It's certainly not our goal to sit there and do everything that business wants to have done."