Ohio ALEC Does Dallas

This year marks the 41^st annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a clandestine lawmaking organization of corporations and legislators that was founded in 1973.  Its original mission statement promised, “No substantial part of the activities of the corporation shall be the carrying on of propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation.”  Since that time, ALEC has used propaganda and corporate influence to secretly shape public policy on a state-by-state basis throughout the USA. In 2011, the Center for Media and Democracy published a report exposing over 800 business-friendly bills that were created, endorsed, and secretly voted on by corporations and a multitude of conservative lawmakers, and the next year, People for the American Way, Progress Ohio, and Common Cause documented the control that ALEC has on the legislative process in Ohio.

Beginning Wednesday, July 30, 2014, ALEC legislators from all over the country, including Ohio, will be lavishly entertained by corporate lobbyists during ALEC’s Annual Meeting in Dallas, Texas. At the largest of three national conferences held each year, ALEC members will secretly meet with special interest groups to vote on model legislation to change state laws.  ALEC’s task forces will work on bills to make it largely impossible to enroll in Medicaid, lessen EPA clean air and water regulations, broaden exports of fracking gas, and expand charter schools to further diminish traditional public schools.  For more information, check out: http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/07/187796/alec-agenda-dallas-evisceration-medicaid-school-privatization-and-expansion-gas

Corporate backers of ALEC have provided “scholarships” of over $4 Million to state legislators for travel, hotel rooms, and meals at expensive resorts with corporate lobbyists ever since 2006. In addition to Ohio Governor John Kasich, identified by ALEC as very involved in its formative years, listed below are Ohio’s GOP legislators who may travel to the wild, wild west to attend this year’s big bash.

Contact these elected officials, and ask them if they will attend and how they will pay their way to Dallas.

ALEC Members in the Ohio House of Representatives

1. Rep. John P. Adams (R-78)

2. Rep. Ron Amstutz (R-3)

3. Rep. Marlene Anielski (R-17)

4. Speaker William G. Batchelder (R-69)

5. Rep. Peter A. Beck (R-67)

6. Rep. Terry Blair (R-42)

7. Rep. Terry R. Boose (R-58)

8. Rep. Andrew Brenner (R-67)

9. Rep. George J. Buchy (R-77)

10. Rep. James Butler (R-37)

11. Rep. Timothy Derickson (R-53)

12. Rep. Anne Gonzales (R-19)

13. Rep. Cheryl L. Grossman (R-23)

14. Rep. Bill Hayes (R-72)

15. Rep. Brian Hill (R-94)

16. Rep. Matt Huffman (R-4)

17. Rep. Ronald Maag (R-35)

18. Rep. Kristina D. Roegner (R-42)

19. Rep. Mark Romanchuk (R-2)

20. Rep. Cliff Rosenberger (R-86)

21. Rep. Barbara Sears (R-46)

22. Rep. Gerald L. Stebelton (R-5)

23. Rep. Louis Terhar (R-30)

24. Rep. Andrew M. Thompson (R-93)

25. Rep. Lynn Wachtmann (R-75)

26. Rep. Ron Young (R-63)

U.S. Representative

27. Sen. Bob Gibbs (R-18)

ALEC Members in the Ohio Senate

28. Sen. David Burke (R-26)

29. Sen. William P. Coley, II (R-4)

30. Sen. John Eklund (R-18)

31. Sen. Randy Gardner (R-6)

32. Sen. Kris Jordan (R-19)

33. Sen. Frank LaRose (R-27)

34. Sen. Bob Peterson (R-17)

35. Sen. William Seitz (R-8)

36. Sen. Joseph W. Uecker (R-14)

ALEC Alumni from Ohio in Congress

37. Rep. John Boener (R)

38. Rep. Steve Austria (R)

39. Rep. Jim Jordan (R)

40. Rep. Robert Latta (R)

41. Rep. Jean Schmidt (R)

42. Rep. Steve Stivers (R)

43. Rep. Pat Tiberi (R)

Hold ALEC members accountable for the damage they are doing to Ohio, and vote them out of public office as soon as they’re up for re-election.

Think.

Time to Fix the Fence!

Q: What time is it when an elephant sits on the fence? 

A: Time to fix the fence!

Elephants have been getting the short end of the stick for years.  Not only have they become the laughing stock of the animal world with a cartoon elephant named “Dumbo,” but they’ve had to put up with some really bad elephant jokes. In the nineteenth century, Thomas Nast even drew an editorial cartoon with a donkey wearing a lion’s skin to scare other animals away. One of those other animals was an elephant labeled, “The Republican Vote,” and the poor elephant has been hopelessly stuck as the symbol of the GOP ever since.

Governor John Kasich and the Ohio Republican Party are mired in the corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council, and they repeatedly sponsor privatized initiatives, including the unbridled expansion of publicly funded charter schools. It’s a tenet of ALEC that charter schools be unregulated and unaccountable, so GOP legislators have essentially allowed unsupervised charter schools to endanger many of Ohio’s school children.

Because the GOP followed ALEC principles and exempted charter schools from so many laws, nineteen schools are currently being investigated for hiring unlicensed teachers, tampering with attendance numbers and state tests, ignoring sexual misconduct, allowing racism and sexism, and other damaging practices.

How could today’s Republican Party ever be compared to the gentle giants of the elephant species?

Elephants are highly intelligent animals.  Ohio House and Senate Republicans are not. In their rush to accommodate the wants of for-profit education companies that share ALEC membership, they have created an ill-conceived mess that allows unqualified profiteers to run public charter schools that don’t serve the needs of families.

Elephants are social creatures that collectively take care of young elephants in the herd. If taking care of Ohio’s young was as important to lawmakers as the campaign donations and other perks they receive from ALEC, the legislature would have already begun working to mandate greater accountability from charter school companies.

Elephants have incredible memories.  Ohio Republicans do not. Charter school improprieties, including their lack of oversight, have been consistently reported in the news. ALEC lawmakers conveniently forgot about the problems and sat idly on the fence.

They may have bad memories, but their constituents will never forget that the GOP put the lives of countless children in harm’s way to give free rein to for-profit education companies.

An analogy can be made using the following timeless example of a bad elephant joke:

Q: What time is it when an elephant sits on the fence? 

A: Time to fix the fence! 

Ohio House and Senate Republicans have been slow to get off the fence and pass legislation to more closely monitor charter schools to keep our children safe, because allegiance to ALEC is more important to them.

Rest assured, Ohio voters will unite to “fix the fence” the next time ALEC legislators are up for re-election.

Remember in November.

 Think.

The Answer is ALEC

“The 5 WHYs” is a methodology that helps people easily get to the root of a problem, because by quickly identifying the source of an issue, one can focus resources and ensure that the true cause of the issue is addressed, not just its symptoms. The idea was created by Toyota in the mid-seventies to tackle problems with its car production, and it’s an invaluable problem-solving technique that can be applied to Ohio politics in the 21st century. One can think of a plethora of “WHYs” about the current law-making process in Ohio, but here are five that come to mind:

1. WHY does the text in so many of Ohio’s bills look identical to the wording in laws being passed in other Republican-controlled states?

2. WHY have anti-union campaigns, such as SB 5 and the so-called “Workplace Freedom Amendment,” become a recurring theme at the Ohio Statehouse?

3. WHY have GOP lawmakers been seen in Columbus establishments engaged in backroom politics with corporate lobbyists?

4. WHY does the GOP’s “educational reform” for our public schools involve sending more of the public’s tax dollars to Ohio’s chronically low performing charter schools?

5. WHY are so many Republican-controlled state legislatures, including Ohio, rolling back civil rights, challenging government restrictions on polluters, limiting government regulations of commerce, privatizing public services, and representing corporate interests?

The answer to the “5 WHYs” is ALEC. The majority of our Republican lawmakers belong to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate-backed organization calling all the shots in the Ohio legislature. ALEC politicians who follow the big business agenda, to the detriment of the people who elected them, have caused so many of the challenging issues we see in our state today.

Suzanne Merkelson at United Republic, a non-partisan organization dedicated to highlighting the corruption of public officials from special interests and big money lobbyists wrote, “This is about using big money to advance an agenda that’s harmful to individual freedoms. This is about using that big money, which comes from the pockets of ALEC members’ shareholders and customers, to suppress the American people’s ability to self-govern. This is about using carefully-hidden big money to subvert American democracy.”

ALEC continues to be the source of extreme legislation causing problems for our state and our country. Activists need to focus their resources on exposing ALEC legislators, demanding that they cut all ties with this bill mill, and working diligently to get them voted out of office if they continue to choose corporations over constituents.

We must stand up to ALEC. Let’s take our government back, and return it to the people of Ohio!

Think.

ALEC Sends Its Thanks!

American Legislative Exchange Council

2900 Crystal Drive, 6th Floor

Arlington, VA 22202

Phone: 703-373-0933

Ohio Republican Party

211 S. 5^th Street

Columbus, Ohio  43215

Phone: 614-228-2481

Dear Ohio GOP:

Thank you so much for giving us complete control of your political party to further the intentions of our organization, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC.) We are truly grateful for the way you used the poor economy, which we helped orchestrate, to trick people into agreeing with attacks on public workers and their retirement systems. You have been very gracious in backing our efforts to get corporate-friendly legislation passed on controversial issues in hydraulic fracturing, renewable energy, gun control, women’s health, and the privatization of your prisons, your highways, and your schools.  Also, many thanks for convincing your constituents that there are widespread cases of voter fraud- that alone made our voter suppression statutes so much easier to pull off.

Our joint efforts may have motivated progressive voters to form grass roots movements to vote against Republicans in November, but that sort of thing happens sometimes. Even though your sacrifices will be an unfortunate consequence of our partnership, we know that there will always be other ignorant fools we can exploit to do our work.

Speaking of ignorant fools, it’s pretty clever the way you have fired up your extreme base, the Tea Party, to work faithfully to achieve our goals.  We often wonder how a group of billionaire businessmen and corporations like ALEC could ever get a bunch of broke middle American white people to lobby for lower taxes for us, but we’re not complaining.

Please convey our gratitude to our brother-in-arms, Governor John Kasich, for continually slashing the state budget to help us implement our initiatives.  It’s brilliant the way he uses severe funding cuts to artificially create the need for any initiative that’s on our agenda. ALEC certainly cannot achieve corporate victory without Johnny!

Though many Ohioans have organized to make phone calls and write letters to warn others about ALEC’s control over your party, we are cautiously optimistic that the damage has already been done.  Keep your fingers crossed!

Thanks again for your tremendous support, GOP Buckeyes!

Sincerely,

Your Friends at ALEC

Think.