Martha Rosen Article- ALEC, The Fascist Billionaires Reviving The Confederacy
I wrote this on April 29, 2021, outlining the Billionare corporate fascist network which was financing and organizing this movement for a New Confederacy, as Lucian Truscott IV of "Salon" has written, and my husband Lance Rosen has covered in this Blog, "The Rosen Report". This is what I wrote about ALEC, the command structure for this attack on our Constitutional System, which includes updated material, sourcing and some editing.
This is a brief overview of the organization and operators behind most of the Republican legislation to deny people their Constitutional rights. Republican corporate funders and the "Christian " Right are experts in political warfare unlike our fellow Democrats who have not known how to fight.
Part 1- Introduction
["More than a year before the election of 2020, in August 2019, conservative operatives in closely connected rightwing organizations began preparing a strategy for disputing election results. A “Political Process Working Group” focused on “election law and ballot integrity” was launched by Lisa Nelson, the CEO of the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), heavily funded by the Koch brothers’ dark money syndicate, the Donors Trust.
Nelson is also a member of the secretive Council on National Policy (CNP), composed of more than 400 rightwing Republican leaders, a roster that includes Ginni Thomas, the ubiquitous rightwing zealot and wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, and Leonard Leo, vice-president of the conservative Federalist Society and the Judicial Crisis Network, “a $250m dark money operation” to pack the federal courts and deny Democratic appointments to the bench, according to the Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehead."]
--Sidney Blumenthal, "The Guardian" article-- "The Insurrection Is Only The Tip Of The Iceberg." Jan 6, 2022
"In 1973 Mark Rhodes launched the Conservative Caucus of State Legislatures soon to be renamed the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC (an educational charity).
ALEC was created in the immediate aftermath of Richard Nixon's Watergate tainted reelection in 1972. It was tasked with functioning as the mechanism for beginning the gradual and systemic dismantling of the central and most vital Constitutional basis for protecting the "General Welfare" of the US population. Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of the most outspoken defenders of the ongoing Trump Coup, has pointed out that ALEC is the most effective organization for so-called conservative policies today.
ALEC "is best known as a "bill mill" writing corporate friendly legislation that is handed off to its politician members to introduce in their state legislatures.
Their organizational network meets yearly where they entertain and lavish elected lawmakers with promises and links to dark money donors, forming in depth relationships with them and their families over dinners and drinks.
ALEC claims that nearly one quarter of state legislators and other public "stake holders" are members . According to USA Today, from 2010 to 2018, 2,900 laws have been passed on the state level modeled on ALEC models. 600 have become law, including Stand your Ground, Voter ID laws, Consumer Rights, Tort reform, Privatizing Schools, Immigration, Gun reform, Prison and Criminal reform, Corporate immunity, removal of Environmental protections, and undermining of Labor rights. Just to name a few
Also from USA Today--
Copies of models were introduced nationwide more than 10,000 times in the span of eight years the investigation found, amounting to perhaps the largest unreported special interest campaign in American politics".
"Legislators are urged to "take back control of States from the Federal government and transform the country statehouse by statehouse by reducing taxes and removing regulations."
"ALEC model bills are written by lawmakers, lobbyists, and corporate executives, or from orgnizations seeking a wider audience.
"ALEC guards draft "fill in the blank" legislation like trade secrets, distributing them only to members deemed trustworthy.
--according to USA Today, April 3, 2019
"The industry sponsored group has weathered controversy and flourished because it also offers conservative Republicans a social network, access to campaign donors and a blueprint for how to accelerate their political causes."
Alexander Hertel Fernandez, Associate Professor at Columbia University, who has studied the influence of ALEC and other conservative groups on State legislators said, "they approach you when you are first elected and build these enduring social connections with you."
Patr 2-- Follow The Money
"ALEC is funded by hundreds and hundreds of major corporations who pay 10,000 to 25,000 dollars to join depending what kind of access to legislators they want.
(for a full list of funding sources for ALEC, click here, MZR)--
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Corporations
(additionally, for a recent list of companies which have severed financial ties to ALEC, click here)--
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Corporations_that_Have_Cut_Ties_to_ALEC
USA Today continued--
ALEC has a system for networking which then works with the American Renewal Project-ARP. which the New York Times called a stealth weapon for the right. The ARP goal according to its mastermind David Lane is to connect pastors and other religious right activists with conservative politicians and then train ministers and have them run for office. "Government is not going to save America. Wall Street is not going to save America, The Republican party is not going to save America. If America is going to be saved, it will be done by Christian men and women restoring the Judeo-Christian culture to the country". (David Lane Washington Times 11/23/2014).
"The ARP helped put Cotton, Hawley and Cruz in the Senate. Through it's sister organization the AFA American Family Association, Lane maintains an e- mail list of 40,000- 60,000 pastors across the country. In 2019, the ARP brought 400 pastors together for training. In 2018, eight pastors ran for the State Legislature in Missouri, five were elected. In 2018 six hundred pastors in California took the ARP training called Issachar.
From "Teen Vogue.com," "What Is ALEC?"
"Since 2018, ALEC has been responsible or for bills penalizing Oil and Gas pipeline protesters...for trespassing and impeding is considered a felony, penalizing organizations found to be "conspirators" with the accused".
To conclude, it is my view that one of the most important outstanding issues of campaign finance reform is addressing the continued political/financial "shell game" being played by US corporations and non-profit 501c3 organizations in directing "dark money" to political campaigns and influence campaigns. The ongoing capability for unscrupulous financial Oligarchs to "buy" elections, and legislation, with the intent of dismantling the US Federal Government's most essential functions leaves us vulnerable to corporate looting, exploitation, and the threat of one party dictatorship. The fight for Democracy begins and ends with our efforts to illiuminate and defeat this command structure which funds and deploys Democracy's adversaries.
This is just a thumbnail sketch of how Corporate America and their so-called "Christian" army works.
