Exposing the American Legislative Exchange Council

In our second hour, Christopher Renner connects with journalist Beau Hodai for a discussion of the American Legislative Exchange Council. What Is ALEC? They meet in secret. They write our laws. And they want to silence the American people.

On March 15th, University of Wisconsin Professor Bill Cronon posted a study guide on his blog on the history and actions of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). He asked: What is behind the “sudden and impressively well-organized” wave of right-wing legislation targeting workers, students, women, immigrants, and the environment in state legislatures? He found that all roads led to ALEC.

ALEC is a conservative think-tank run by right-wing politicians and corporate and financial interests within the banking industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the big oil and gas industries, and others. They are aligned to many right-wing and conservative interests, including the election-manipulating Koch Industries. ALEC is funded by the Koch brothers to promote an agenda that curbs individual liberties, attacks unions, the social safety net and seeks to insure that corporations pay no taxes, but benefit from all sorts of tax-payer dollars in return. Much of the legislation passed in the during the 2011 Kansas Legislative session was ALEC inspired, including cuts to public education, the "administrative reforms" Governor Brownback has imposed on the state, and Kris Kobach's Voter ID bill.

Additional Links/Resources:

ALEC Exposed, website - a project of the Center for Media and Democracy.

Publicopoly Exposed: How ALEC, the Koch brothers and their corporate allies plan to privatize government, Beau Hodai, In These Times, August 2011.

Corporate Con Game: How the private prison industry helped shape Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, Beau Hodai, In These Times, June 19, 2010.

ALEC Exposed, John Nicholas, The Nation, July 12, 2011. 

ALEC Exposed: The Koch Connection, Lisa Graves, The Nation, July 12, 2011.

ALEC Bills in Wisconsin, Mary Bottari, PR Watch, July 14, 2011.

The Latest Threat to Health Care, Andres Grimes, MS Magazine Blog, July 15, 2011.

ALEC Exposed: State Legislative Bills Drafted by Secretive Corporate-Lawmaker Coalition, Democracy Now!, July 15, 2011.

Billy Bragg website.

ACTION ALERT: Stop ALEC's end run around the law

From Common Cause:
The American Legislative Exchange Council is a secretive front group of hundreds of corporations that are investing millions of dollars a year to write business-friendly legislation at the expense of the middle class.

ALEC has drafted more than 800 model bills for state legislators, including efforts to privatize everything from schools to prisons, to weaken workers' rights, and to make it more difficult for citizens to vote. They even wrote a resolution in support of the horrendous Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates for corporate money in our elections.

Worse, they are lobbying in state capitals across the country, all while claiming to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that they are a charitable organization. That means that their corporate backers can take a tax deduction by giving money to ALEC to – guess what? – push for more tax breaks and less regulation for their companies!

Under the law, charities are allowed to lobby, up to certain limits, and they must disclose what they spend on that lobbying work. ALEC's annual filings state that they have engaged in zero lobbying activity.

Tell the IRS to launch an immediate investigation into whether ALEC is committing tax fraud. 

Mark Potok on the Rise of Right-Wing Extremists

Community Bridge opens this week with Mark Potok, Southern Poverty Law Center, in a discussion of the Center's annual report "The Year in Hate."  Potok discusses the rise of right-wing extremists and how they are infiltrating organizations such as the Tea Party to make racism mainstream once again.  We close out the hour with Monique King, Yasche Glass, and Jonathan Anderson, from the Manhattan Juneteenth Planning Committee discuss this year's celebration.

Related Articles:

The Year in Hate and Extremism, 2010; Marl Potok, Intelligence Report, Spring 2011.

'Armed and extremely dangerous' ex-militia leader hunted after Mont. shootout; The Associated Press, Reuters, NBC News and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report, June 14, 2011.

Exclusive: Polluter Billionaire David Koch Says Tea Party ‘Rank And File Are Just Normal People Like Us’; Lee Fang, Think Progress, January 6, 2011.

Right-Wing Militias Are Resurging -- Will They Produce More Terrorists Like Timothy McVeigh?; David Love, AlterNet, August 2009.

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An Interview with David Bacon

Community Bridge opens with representatives of Morning Star, Inc., a consumer run organization (CRO). CROs are not-for-profit organizations, run by current and former consumers of mental health services. Richard Stitt, Executive Director and Elizabeth Stitt, Community Transition Coordinator at Morning Star, Inc., will join us to discuss this important community service.

Then David Bacon, union activist, journalist, and immigration rights advocate has a conversation with Community Bridge host Christopher Renner. Bacon presented the spring Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice lecture at K-State on February 28th.

Bacon is an associate editor at Pacific News Service, and writes for TruthOut, The Nation, The American Prospect, The Progressive, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. He has been a reporter and documentary photographer for 18 years, shooting for many national publications. He has exhibited his work nationally, and in Mexico, the UK and Germany. Bacon covers issues of labor, immigration and international politics.

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My Written Testimony Against HB 2372

This afternoon, Thursday 17 March, in Topeka the House Judiciary Committee is once again going to take up another xenophobic law that the racist right-wing extremist Kris Kobach is trying to force on the state of Kansas. Today the Judiciary Committee Chair, the right-wing extremist Rep. Lance Kinzer  is going to force a vote on Kobach’s anti-immigration bill HB 2372. Modeled on the now notorious Arizona legislation that Kobach authored, should this legislation pass, Kansas will face spending millions of taxpayer dollars defending legislation that is nothing more than the race laws passed by Nazi Germany.

While I am a fourth generation Kansan, born and raised in Marshall county, from 1982 - 1998 I lived and worked in Italy. The first four years I lived in Italy, I did so as an undocumented worker. Thus I know well what it means to be an immigrant and why HB 2372 is a morally corrupted piece of legislation.

According to the US Census Bureau, the foreign-born share of Kansas' population rose from 2.5 percent in 1990 to 5.9 percent in 2008. More than four in five (or 85%) of children in immigrant families were born in the US. Latino and Asian entrepreneurs and consumers add $10 billion and thousands of jobs to the Kansas economy. In 2009 the purchasing power of Hispanic Americans in Kansas totaled $5.2 billion - an increase of 488 percent since 1990. Asian buying power totaled $2.1 billion - an increase of 418 percent. Immigrants comprise 7.3 percent of the Kansas workforce.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, in 2009 roughly 2.8% of the Kansas workforce was undocumented -- meaning they did not possess the papers needed to work here. Research conducted by the Perryman Group found the following: If all undocumented immigrants were removed from Kansas, the state would lose $1.8 BILLION in economic activity; would lose $807 million in gross state product; and, roughly 12,000 jobs.

At a moment when Kansas is facing a catastrophic economic crisis, can we afford to cause this much damage to an already depressed economy?

But moreover the cost of the implementation of the Arizona law which HB 2372 imitates has been disastrous for that state:

New America Media reports that Arizona has lost $141 million due to the cancellation of conferences and conventions, as a result of a national boycott that was launched against the state following its passage of the immigration law SB 1070. Center for American Progress found that some 2,761 jobs were lost in the convention industry while hotels and conference venues have lost $45 million in revenues.

In order to implement the Arizona legislation, the Yuma County Sherriff's estimated the cost to Yuma County law-enforcement agencies to be:

* Law-enforcement agencies would spend between $775,880 and $1,163,820 in processing expenses;

* Jail costs would be between $21,195,600 and $96,086,720;

* Attorney and staff fees would be $810,067-$1.6 million;

* Additional detention facilities would have to be built at unknown costs.

Where will the state and county governments come up with this funding when we have had to cut basic, life-saving services to those living in poverty, the elderly, the mentally ill and those with disabilities and our schools?

Howard Fisher, a reporter for the East Valley Tribune in Arizona, reports that from July to October 2010, SB 1070 cost the state over $1 million in in legal fees with a total budget of over $3.6 million needed to defend the legislation in court. How can Kansas AFFORD SUCH AN EXPENDITURE to advance an fascist xenophobic law?

The great American Henry Wallace in 1942 defined Fascism as the lust for money or power combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make one ruthless in one’s use of deceit or violence to attain one ends.

American fascists, such as Kris Kobach, are easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Kobach’s anti-immigrant propaganda is designed to challenge democracy. While claiming to be a super-patriot, he aims to destroy every liberty guaranteed by the US and Kansas Constitutions.

Kansas cannot afford to waste taxpayer dollars so one individual can impose his xenophobic fear on our state. I encourage you to stand on the side of the American Dream and our democracy and stand against the "impostures of pretended patriotism” (George Washington).

I hope you will join me in speaking out against this waste of taxpayer dollars and the racism Kris Kobach is trying to force on our state.

International Women's Day 2011

Following this week's Media Minutes, we turn our attention to International Women's Day and it's centennial celebration. Host Christopher E. Renner provides some historical background before we hear a clip from Democracy Now! featuring Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Amy Goodman, and Kavita Ramdas. Then Renner takes on Kris Koback's racist anti-immigration legislation before we close out with some commentary from Jim Hightower addressing the on-going protests in Wisconsin.

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An Interview with Tim Wise

This week's Community Bridge opens with Ruth Douglas Miller giving an overview of the next Science Cafe that will take place on Tuesday, March 8th at 7:00 pm at Radina's.

Then we hear a previously-recorded interview Christopher Renner conducted with Tim Wise when he was at K-State earlier in February.  Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and educators in the United States. Recently named one of “25 Visionaries Who are Changing Your World,” by Utne Reader.  

Wise is the author of five books, including White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son; Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White; Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male; Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama, and his latest, Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity. He has contributed essays to twenty-five books, and is one of several persons featured in White Men Challenging Racism: Thirty-Five Personal Stories (Duke University Press). He received the 2001 British Diversity Award for best feature essay on race issues, and his writings have appeared in dozens of popular, professional and scholarly journals.

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Feb. 24: Anti-Immigrant Legislation in the KS House

In our second hour, we take up the issue of anti-immigrant legislation in the Kansas House. This week the House voted to repeal in-state tuition for Kansas high school graduates who are undocumented. This law provides in-state tuition for some 400 Kansans who in many cases have only known our state as their home. Now Kris Kobach and his xenophobic supporters are trying to deny these Kansas graduates their right to a university education. In addition, Kobach is trying to make Kansas a second Arizona by introducing in the Kansas House a Kansas version of AZ SB 1070 that legalizes racial profiling and denying "suspected" undocumented immigrants basic services. 

Lalo Muñoz, director of the Latino Information Network of Kansas, Alaide Vilchis, a 2008 graduate of the University of Kansas who benefited from the in-state tuition law, Holly Weatherford from the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri, and  Angie Williams, immigration lawyer and an expert on Kobach's draconian laws, will join us by telephone for a discussion of the legislation being proposed.

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