Oops: Michigan Republicans Have Passed a Right to Work Law that may be Impossible to Implement

By: Sarah Jones/politicususa

Did Michigan Republicans even read the ALEC-Koch “Right-to-Work” legislation they just passed?

It doesn’t appear likely. Why? Because the law may not be able to be implemented as intended.

Just as the Wisconsin law violated their state constitution, so it appears the Michigan law does the same, albeit for different reasons. In addition to the violation of the state constitution, just as in Wisconsin, we also have a lawsuit filed over the violation of the Michigan Open Meetings law. But to the constitutional issue…

Michigan Senate Democrats report, “The Michigan Constitution gives clear authority to the Civil Service Commission over conditions of employment for the state’s workforce. Experts have suggested today only a vote of the Civil Service Commission could enact Right to Work policies for state workers.”

Oopsie.

This is the sort of thing that happens when a national organization is writing your legislation for you. But one assumes that the big boys at ALEC did not count on the uber laziness of the Republicans. Surely they were meant to fine tune the bill to suit their state. But then, when you shove a bill through in a lameduck session and don’t hold it open for debate, these things tend to happen.

Senator Bert Johnson (D – Detroit) pointed out that not only the public, but also the lawmakers were not given a chance to read the bills, “The public was not given an opportunity to read these bills, legislators were not given an opportunity to read these bills, and we now know that the Governor himself either didn’t read or didn’t understand these bills himself. This process has been a complete affront to Democracy from the start and was nothing more than a political gift to the Koch Brothers and ALEC who bought and paid for this legislation.”

Over and over again, we see Republicans violating the law to pass ALEC legislation, and we also see them refusing to even read the bills they present let alone the bills of the opposition. What, exactly, are they being paid by the people to do, if not read and write legislation that actually fits the laws?

The same law that Governor Walker passed in violation of Open Meetings laws and in violation of the state constitution was struck down by the courts in September. The millions wasted on passing legislation illegally and fighting it in courts speaks to the seriousness of Republicans when they talk about deficits. There’s always money to enact a political agenda aimed at the opposition party, but there’s no money for starving kids.

Further irony is provided by Michigan State Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons (R-Alto), who called the passage of the “right-to-work” law “freeing” the workers. Apparently Ms. Lyons didn’t want her husband freed. He is a corrections officer and Ms. Lyons fought to have corrections officers exempted from the law. She explained, “When we talk about the brave women in police and fire we need to remember people in corrections. These guys work in conditions that we can’t even begin to imagine. It’s not financial. It’s philosophy. I am saying we need to treat our corrections officers that way we treat our police men and women and firefighter men and women.”

So, Ms. Lyons believes that we should treat our corrections officers (like her husband) the way we treat our police and firefighters, which she implies is better than we treat the other workers, because they work in tough conditions and therefor deserve or have earned the right to be treated better. And yet, she calls denying the right to collectively bargain freedom. What we have here is an admission by a Republican that when it comes to their own personal lives, they’ll take the union, please. No doubt Ms. Lyons is familiar with all that the union does to protect her husband. If she’s lucky, the law she supported will be struck down.

Ms. Lyon’s amendment was not taken up by the Michigan legislature, but then, seeing as they appear not to have read the actual bill they passed, she should take heart that it wasn’t personal. ALEC doesn’t recognize corrections officers as worthy; aka, voting Republican.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie Adopted ALEC Bills ‘Nearly Word For Word’

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

In the past year, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has lost over 40 member companies because of its role in crafting voter suppression laws, anti-immigration laws like Arizona’s SB 1070, and other conservative causes. Still, the group continues to be popular among lawmakers in Republican-controlled states. According to areport released Monday, ALEC has even made inroads in Democratic-leaning New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie (R) and other New Jersey lawmakers have apparently introduced 22 bills since 2010 based on ALEC model legislation. Christie denied the connection in April, when another report found many similarities between his legislation and ALEC bills. However, records found Christie’s advisers and conservative lawmakers in New Jersey consulted ALEC on key legislation, including:

The New Jersey Jobs Protection Act (S240) and a similar bill (S164), which would require all employers to verify whether their workers are legally qualified to work in the United States. The report said they were “taken nearly word for word from ALEC’s Fair and Legal Employment Act, which is also incorporated in ALEC’s longer and more thorough No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act — the infamous model legislation that was introduced in Arizona … and led to protests across the country and a showdown at the Supreme Court.”

ACR103, which would allow a two-thirds majority in the state Legislature to nullify any federal law or regulation. It’s sponsored by Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-Monmouth) and Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris), co-chairman of ALEC’s state chapter. Handlin, who has said she is not an ALEC member, and Webber declined to comment.

The New Jersey Parental Rights Program Act (S504), which would create a publicly funded scholarship program for students attending certain types of private or religious schools.

None of the bills passed in the Democrat-controlled Legislature, and Christie’s office continues to deny any coordination on the bills in spite of the nearly identical language. His attempts to distance himself from the group is no surprise; ALEC has become notorious since their involvement in pushing right-wing legislation was exposed earlier this year. The bad publicity led corporations including Amazon, General Electric, Coca-Cola, and Walmart to drop their financial support of the group.

ALEC is funded by Koch Industries and has proven to be a good investment for the powerful brothers. The group wrote models for many of the most radical state bills, including “Stand Your Ground” laws, SB 1070, union-busting bills, anti-minimum wage laws, voter ID requirements, and efforts to block clean energy while promoting “the benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment.” In spite of their heavy reliance on the group, lawmakers are not required to disclose the powerful group’s influence as it is technically a non-profit and refuses to comply with lobbying laws.

MSNBC host Martin Bashir debates Koch Industries general counsel

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

MSNBC host Martin Bashir grilled Koch Industries general counsel Mark Holden on Thursday over the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Bashir noted that Koch Industries was a member of ALEC, a controversial organization that drafts model legislation for state lawmakers. The organization has supported so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws, which have been tied to the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

But Holden quickly turned the tables, stating that MSNBC’s parent companies, General Electric and Comcast, were members of ALEC as well. Holden claimed that Koch Industries was only a member of ALEC because they advanced their economic interests.

“I can tell you our involvement in ALEC is limited to economic freedom,” he said.

Later in the tense nearly 15-minute long interview, Holden implied he was the victim of an ambush interview.

“This wasn’t going to be the topic today, we are supposed to be talking about the attacks launched on us concerning the Trayvon Martin tragedy” he complained.

Watch video, courtesy of MSNBC, below:

Procter & Gamble Becomes 13th Company To Drop ALEC

By Alex Seitz-Wald/Think Progress

Joining a dozen other major corporations, Procter & Gamble decided not to rejoin the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) this year,according to a statement from Color Of Change, which launched a campaign against the shadowy right-wing front group behind state laws restricting access to the ballot and “stand your ground” gun laws. The statement:

On Friday afternoon, we learned that P&G began reviewing its membership in January and recently decided not to rejoin ALEC in 2012. External Relations Manager Elizabeth Ratchford told us via email that, ‘Decisions about which memberships we retain are guided by budgetary considerations, value to the business and engagement on issues core to our ability to compete in the marketplace.’ The multinational corporation made the determination that ALEC does not help P&G compete for consumers’ loyalty and support.

Procter & Gamble, a Fortune 100 company that is the largest maker of consumer packaged goods in the world and the largest advertiser in the United States, joins other blue chip companies like Coca-Cola and Kraft Foods in disassociating themselves from ALEC. P&G’s main competitor, Johnson & Johnson, has not come to the same decision, Color Of Change notes.

The good government group Common Cause filed a complaint with the IRS today contesting ALEC’s charitable tax status, arguing it is actually a lobby group getting preferential tax treatment.

After the high-profile defections, ALEC shuttered its unit that works on gun and voting legislation to focus on taxes and regulatory issues.

Fox Rushes To Defend ALEC After Coca-Cola Cuts Ties With Group

by Marcus Feldman/Media Matters

Coca-Cola, one of its corporate sponsors, has cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) after advocacy group Color of Change had called for a boycott of Coca-Cola due to its ties with ALEC. And Fox hasn't wasted much time coming to ALEC's defense.

As the Huffington Post reported:

The soft-drink company has severed its tieswith the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a conservative lobbying group that drafts legislation and sends it out to lawmakers. ALEC's fingerprints have been found on bills and laws in a number of states, and the group's opponents have grown resistant to what they call ALEC's efforts to shape the legislative agenda in a way that harms minority and low-income voters.

[...]

On Wednesday, the advocacy group Color of Change called for a boycott of Coca-Cola, one of the companies that sits on ALEC's elite Private Enterprise Board, citing ALEC's efforts to get voter ID laws passed.

In response, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly interviewed ALEC communications director Kaityln Buss to discuss Coca-Cola's departure. Did Kelly ask about funding ALEC receives from the controversial Koch brothers? Did Kelly ask why ALEC was pushing for voter ID laws in the absence of evidence of voter fraud? Did Kelly ask about ALEC pushing the "Stand Your Ground" laws that have become infamous in the wake of the Trayvon Martin case?

No. She just provided a platform for ALEC to paint itself as innocuous.

Here's a list of Kelly's questions during the segment:

KELLY: So Coke has bailed, in response to the pressure from these groups. Walmart not so much, not yet anyway. What do you make of the threats that these groups are facing, the threat of boycott?

KELLY: Your point is it's not a partisan organization, but to get the things that you want enacted, you have to have money, and you have to get the word out, and you get that from donor like Coca-Cola, like Walmart. But now, no longer Coca-Cola, because some groups on the left have organized to put pressure on that group to not fund you, in particular because they don't like your push for voter ID laws, and my question to you is what do you think of that?

KELLY: That's what Walmart came out and said. They said look, we don't necessarily agree with every single position, you know, the entities that we give money to support, but we're not going to bail on this particular group. But the group that is going after you and your supporters has come out and said that "many leading organizations have left your organization," and I quote, "as it moves to the extreme right," your response?

KELLY: I know. They came out and said that by funding ALEC, Coca-Cola and others are supporting an effort to disenfranchise African Americans, Latinos, students, the elderly, the disabled, and the poor. That's how they stand. And I want to ask you, a couple weeks ago a guy named Mark Stevens, who was pressured to boycott Rush Limbaugh as an advertiser, but refused came on the program and said this about the pressure he was facing from some groups on the left. Stand by:

MARK STEVENS (video clip): They have called my people in my company, they have called the women in my company and told them they're women haters, the most horrible terms, they've told me -- these are tens of thousands of emails by the way, most of them positive, but the small group, they told us that we're under surveillance. The email subject lines say citizen of the internet, police of the internet, Mark you're in danger, your house is going to be shown up by buses, your businesses are going to be destroyed, your people are in trouble. This is terrorism, why don't we start calling it what it is. You don't have to commit an act of bloodshed for there to be terrorism, you have to invoke a sense of fear.   

Intuit Is Now The Fourth Company To Drop Voter Suppression Group ALEC

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

Software company Intuit, the makers of programs such as Turbo Tax and Quicken, announced today that they will join Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Kraft as the fourth company to end their partnership with the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council this week.

The Center for Media & Democracy, which launched ALECexposed.com last year, broke the news:

A stampede seems to be on the way as more and more groups break ties and dump ALEC. Intuit, Inc. (maker of Quicken and QuickBooks accounting software) told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that Intuit also decided not to renew its membership after it expired in 2011. That comment came from Bernie McKay, Vice President of Government Affairs. He gave this response when CMD identified that Intuit was no longer listed on the board and contacted the company. CMD began its effort to spotlight Intuit and other corporate funders and tie these corporations to the ALEC agenda when it launched ALECexposed.org in July 2011. … Intuit’s McKay explained to CMD that the company doesn’t “usually issue statements about membership in any organization” and declined to comment further.

Although Pepsi quietly left ALEC as recently as last January, the growing exodus of companies’ from ALEC’s began earlier this week when the progressive group Color of Change announced a petition and boycott campaign targeting ALEC’s corporate supporters. Other corporations thathave not yet publicly renounced their support of ALEC include Koch Industries, Wal-Mart, Pfizer, Reynolds American, Altria/Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, Exxon Mobil and British alcohol firm Diageo (makers of Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker).

As a recent Center for American Progress report explains, ALEC is one of the leading proponents of so-called Voter ID legislation that potentially disenfranchises millions of low-income, minority, student and elderly voters in an effort to exclude groups that tend to vote Democratic from the franchise. ALEC is also linked to state “Stand Your Ground” laws that can potentially enable accused murders such as Trayvon Martin’s accused assailant George Zimmerman to remain free.

BREAKING: Progressive Movement Compels Coca-Cola To Pull Support From ALEC Over Voter Suppression Efforts

By Faiz Shakir/Think Progress

Prompted by a petition campaign by the progressive advocacy group Color of Change, Coca-Cola has pulled its support from ALEC, a right-wing corporate-funded front group which has been pushing voter restriction effortsaround the country. The company released this statement moments ago:

The Coca-Cola Company has elected to discontinue its membership with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Our involvement with ALEC was focused on efforts to oppose discriminatory food and beverage taxes, not on issues that have no direct bearing on our business. We have a long-standing policy of only taking positions on issues that impact our Company and industry.

Impressively, Coke’s retreat came just five hours after Color of Change announced its petition, which read: “ALEC has pushed voter ID laws which disenfranchise large numbers of Black voters. Along with the NRA, ALEC also pushed a bill based on Florida’s ‘shoot first’ law – which has shielded Trayvon Martin’s killer from justice – into two dozen states across the country.”

Just this morning, the Center for American Progress released a report highlighting ALEC’s role in voter suppression:

ALEC charges corporations such as Koch Industries Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and The Coca-Cola Co. a fee and gives them access to members of state legislatures. Under ALEC’s auspices, legislators, corporate representatives, and ALEC officials work together to draft model legislation. As ALEC spokesperson Michael Bowman told NPR, this system is especially effective because “you have legislators who will ask questions much more freely at our meetings because they are not under the eyes of the press, the eyes of the voters.

Protestors call on ALEC to disavow ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws after Trayvon Martin’s murder

By Anna John/Raw Story

Just before noon on a sunny D.C. day, close to 100 students, office workers and activists quietly converged outside a nondescript office building for a rally to shine light on the role that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) played in pushing legislatures to pass “Stand Your Ground” or “Shoot First” laws around the country — laws which many blame for the Sanford police force’s unwillingness to charge Trayvon Martin’s acknowledged killer, George Zimmerman.

Led by a broad coalition of progressive groups — including the NAACP, the Urban League, Color of Change, Common Cause, People for the American Way and MoveOn.org — some wore hooded sweatshirts over or under their business attire. Many carried signs emblazoned with slogans like “Don’t shoot me, I’m innocent”, “Don’t shoot me, I’m unarmed” and “Don’t shoot me, I’m a Mom”. Some of the protestors also held aloft bags of Skittles, the candy that Martin purchased just before being accosted by Zimmerman.

“This story is a family tragedy enabled by laws that protect people who kill others and then hide behind heinous ‘Shoot First’ legislation as pushed by ALEC and the National Rifle Association,” said Garlin Gilchrist II, the National Campaign Director of MoveOn.Org and one of the speakers at today’s rally. “Such laws make racial profiling a pretext for homicide and they enshrine injustice at a policy level. There are ‘Shoot First’ laws in more than 20 states. Trayvon Martin’s case… the pain it is causing the entire country is a call to action to fight for a just society.

While there have been several notable protests since Zimmerman shot Martin on February 26, 2012, many of those movements channeled outrage over the fact that Zimmerman had yet to be arrested, focusing on getting the local police to act against the self-appointed neighborhood watchman. Today’s rally sought to go further by addressing the organization that drafts laws like the one Zimmerman used to defend his actions while educating the public about the connections between politically conservative corporations and lobbying groups and the state legislators who ALEC encouraged to promulgate the laws.

“Our organizations are sending a clear message to ALEC and the corporations that sponsor it that you cannot come for black money by day and try to take away our votes and our lives by night,” declared Color of Change’s Executive Director Rashad Robinson, who, like each of the rally’s speakers, stood upon a makeshift stage before the hooded, sign-carrying protesters.

Doug Clopp, the Deputy Director for Programs at Common Cause, said the day was about seeking justice and accountability. Common Cause is a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy group founded to help citizens hold their elected officials accountable to the public interest.

“America is waking up,” he said. “There are corporations behind the elected members of ALEC who pass ‘Stand Your Ground’ legislation. Where is Coca-Cola and Kraft when this is happening? I believe corporate accountability is coming. One-third of state legislators are members of ALEC — so who are they representing? The men and women who voted for them or the corporations who put profit above public interests? We need to hold both politicians and the corporations who are behind them accountable when they act in opposition to the values we hold dear in a democracy.”

As activists addressed the rally, they were periodically greeted with chants of “No justice, no peace!” from the crowd, which included Howard University student Natasha Steadman, originally from Brooklyn.

“The voices of young people need to be heard,” Steadman said. “I’m here in support of Trayvon Martin, but it’s also bigger than that case now. It’s time for my generation to stand up and speak out about the injustice that affects us as black youth.”

The Florida version of the “Stand Your Ground” law, which exists in some form in 23 other states, holds that a person is justified in using deadly force if they reasonably believe that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death, bodily harm or the commission of a forcible felony without a duty to retreat. “Stand Your Ground” laws are controversial, in part, because they can be employed as an affirmative defense and used to gain immunity from criminal charges and civil suits.

ALEC, which is funded by prominent corporations, has worked closely with the National Rifle Association (NRA) to promote such legislation through its members, who are conservative lawmakers.

Immediately after the rally, a coalition of leaders including Marge Baker and Diallo Brooks from People For the American Way, Hillary Shelton of the NAACP, MoveOn’s Gilchrist and Lisa Graves of PR Watch attempted to hand-deliver a letter with their demands to ALEC but were thwarted by a locked door. Brooks finally slipped the letter under the door before the group retreated.

“How typical that the doors were closed,” Shelton responded. “It’s sad and unfortunate because we brought information to share with ALEC. In the context of racial profiling, all they’ve done with their ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws is throw kerosene on a fire”

Not Just "Kill At Will": ALEC Helps The NRA Push Guns On Campus

by Matt Gertz/Media Matters

In 2008, in the wake of mass shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) adopted model legislation proposed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) that would have allowed any concealed carry permit holder to bring guns on college campuses.

The model legislation not only expressly permitted the carrying of concealed handguns on college campuses, but banned colleges and universities from restricting such activity. At the time, Utah was the only state in the nation that either expressly permitted guns on campus or banned public institutions from making their own restrictions.

In recent days, the media has shined a spotlight on ALEC's efforts to help the NRA promote Florida's "Kill at Will" self-defense law across the country. The NRA, reportedly a "longtime funder" of ALEC, presented the shadowy group with "proposed model legislation based on" Florida's law in August 2005. That model bill was endorsed by ALEC and distributed to its network of conservative legislative members, and similar measures were subsequently passed in more than 20 states.

Similarly, in May 2008, ALEC's Criminal Justice Task Force "unanimously adopted a model "Campus Personal Protection Act," which the NRA says was "[b]rought forth" by their lobbying arm. The model bill was adopted by ALEC 30 days later with no objection from its Board of Directors.

The model bill contains sections to repeal state laws banning valid permit holders from carrying concealed handguns on campus, and further states:

Section 3. No governing body of a college or university or postsecondary vocational technical school shall have the authority to establish rules or regulations limiting or abridging the ability of a person issued a valid concealed handgun permit recognized by this state to lawfully carry a concealed handgun on its campus.  However, governing bodies of educational institutions may establish rules or regulations relating to the storage of firearms in campus dormitories.

According to a November 2008 report from the American Associate of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), "17 states attempted major reforms to campus weapon laws in 2008"; many of those efforts predated ALEC's endorsement of model legislation. According to the advocacy group Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus, bills to increase access to firearms on college campuses were introduced "in at least 23 states" during the 2011 legislative session, passing in two.

AASCU "discourages the passage of new state legislation that would overturn or weaken concealed weapons bans on campus," stating that the "the safety and security of all members of the campus community must remain paramount." Likewise, the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators says that there is "no credible evidence to suggest that the presence of students carrying concealed weapons would reduce violence on our college campuses" and that "concealed carry laws have the potential to dramatically increase violence on college and university campuses."

Oops: Florida Republican Forgets To Remove ALEC Mission Statement From Boilerplate Anti-Tax Bill

By Alex Seitz-Wald/Think Progress




Progressives have long tried to expose the influence the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) wields in state house across the country, but one Florida lawmaker is making it too easy.

Funded almost entirely by large corporations, ALEC produces “model legislation” favorable to industry that state lawmakers can introduce as their own bills. Usually, the legislators tweak the language of the bills to make them state-specific or to obfuscate their origins. Usually, but apparently not always.

In November, Florida state Rep. Rachel Burgin (R) introduced a resolution (PDF here) that would officially call on the federal government to reduce corporate taxes, but she apparentlyforgot to remove ALEC’s mission statement from the top of the bill, which she seems to have copied word-for-word from ALEC’s model bill:

As the government transparency group Common Cause reports, “Burgin quickly withdrew the bill hoping that no one had noticed and then re-introduced it 24-hours later, with a new bill number (HM 717), but now without the problematic paragraph.” Apparently no one noticed until this week.

While it’s no secret by now that conservative lawmakers in state capitals everywhere have used ALEC’s legislation to tear down environmental and labor regulations, curb voting rights, and coordinate a business-friendly agenda nationwide, it’s rare to see it on display so clearly.

ALEC Deems Kids Eating Rat Poison An ‘Acceptable Risk

By Marie Diamond and Scott Keyes/Think Progress

As ThinkProgress has been reporting for some time, the corporate front group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been colluding with the billionaire Koch brothers to privatize government and eliminate environmental regulations that interfere with profits.

GOP legislators in many states have given ALEC free reign to write anti-health care reform and anti-environment legislation. Now, ALEC is fighting to kill Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules limiting the sale of rat poisons that pose a serious health threat to children and the ecosystem.

A top representative for the ultra-conservative group said kids eating rat poison is an “acceptable risk” that does not justify government intervention:

“There are certain levels of acceptable risk in society,” says Todd M. Wynn, director of the ALEC Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force, in an interview about the EPA rules with the Heartland Institute’s Heartlander website. “And parents play an important role by weighing the potential risks and benefits of using a product.”

“Unfortunately, EPA expands its reach into the American economy more and more each and every year,” Wynn said. “This year it will be d-Con, but next year another useful product will be burdened by additional regulations or banned outright from the market.” [...]

Aaron Colangelo, an attorney for the NRDC…told the Center for Media and Democracy that “there is not an undue economic burden associated with reformulating these products,” pointing out that the rest of the industry had complied with the new rules without adverse economic impact. Additionally, he said, “the health care costs for treating these kids certainly outweigh the economic costs of reformulation.”

Wynn’s startling admission illustrates the extent to which ALEC is willing to sacrifice the health of Americans to advance their radical agenda. For decades, at least 12,000-15,000 children a yearhave become ill after accidentally touching or ingesting rat poison that’s spread in pellet form. Poisoned children experience internal bleeding, bloody urine, bleeding gums, and blood coming from their ears. Poor and minority children are disproportionately affected.

Exposure often occurs in settings outside parents’ control, and giving companies the option of voluntary adopting changes has done nothing to help. After thirteen years of studies, hearings, reports and legal battles, “the EPA announced in 2008 rodenticide manufacturers would havethree years to adopt limits on the sale of the products.”

For years, ALEC has successfully killed these kind of regulations on environmental toxins and pollutants on behalf of corporations. At their annual conference in New Orleans this year, ALECdistributed a pamphlet titled “The Many Benefits Of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment,” complete with pictures depicting happy wildlife and a healthy environment. Companies like Koch Industries, BP, WalMart, and others join forces to fund this little-known organization that works behind the scenes to fight the dirty battles that no corporation would want to be publicly associated with.