http://floridaindependent.com/10163/how-the-american-legislative-exchange-council-turned-health-care-repeal-into-a-national-waveIn early August, an obscure measure called Proposition C — which prohibits the government from mandating the purchase of health insurance — passed overwhelmingly in a Missouri referendum and soon became national news. While seen by many legal scholars as a largely symbolic act of defiance, the new statute will likely lead to yet another legal showdown over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and was seized upon by conservatives as a sign of growing disillusionment with the president’s agenda. #
When the White House tried to downplay the measure as a “vote of no legal significance in the midst of heavy Republican primaries,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, used the response as further evidence that the Obama Administration is out of touch with the American people. “This sheer arrogance and political tone deafness from the Obama White House is simply astounding,” the senator said in a statement. “Their disregard for the votes that were cast by 667,000 Missourians as ‘nothing’ is startling.” #
But was Proposition C a spontaneous show of grassroots discontent or a carefully orchestrated political ploy? Clouding the picture is the close involvement of a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative 501(c)(3) nonprofit that brings together state legislators and representatives of major industries to craft “model legislation,” including an item called the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, upon which Proposition C was based. Missouri state Sen. Jane Cunningham, who sponsored the legislation to refer Proposition C to the ballot, serves as an ALEC board member, and state legislatures in Arizona and Oklahoma, which have referred similar bills to the ballot for November, also enjoyed the support of ALEC-affiliated state representatives. #
“What ALEC does is they’ll get members to simply announce they’ll introduce the legislation and then claim they have a national grassroots movement of 40 states opposing health care reform,” says Charles Monaco of the Progressive States Network, which works on progressive legislation at the state level. “Industry groups saw early on that the mandate would be the place to hit comprehensive reform because it was one of the least popular aspects of the law to voters, even though it’s one of the provisions that will benefit {industry} the most.”
ALEC Watch
http://alecwatch.org/More articles on ALEC aka American Legislative Exchange Council:
http://washingtonindependent.com/tag/american-legislative-exchange-councilALEC: Bringing the vast rightwing corporate conspiracy to a legislature near you (corrected link)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230ALEC site via Internet Archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/
http://www.alec.org/Videos:
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=google#hl=en&q=%22American%20Legislative%20Exchange%20Council%22&lr=&psj=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=,vid:1&source=og&sa=N&tab=wv&psj=1&fp=6b8fdf5087efed0d
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