Speaker Boehner is an alumnus of ALEC and it is no wonder he is dragging his feet on Legal Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
Right Wing Watch conducts a case study of ALEC’s role against divestment from apartheid in South Africa.
Click “Full Story” to read the informative case study below:
Shilling For Profit: A Case Study Of ALEC’s Campaign Against Divestment From Apartheid South Africa
SUBMITTED BY Calvin Sloan on Monday, 12/9/2013 5:27 pm
As the movement for public and private divestment from apartheid South Africa grew throughout the United States in the 1980s, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) aggressively mobilized against South African divestment, stymying state and federal efforts to sanction, isolate, and divest from the Pretorian regime, according to documents newly uncovered by People For the American Way and the Center For Media and Democracy.
ALEC used state and federal policy papers, monthly newsletters, “fact-finding” missions, panel discussions led by lobbyists on the payroll of the South African apartheid regime, and other means to pursue an anti-divestment agenda, one that relied solely on “corporate beneficence” to pressure the country to reform. This effort, in turn, was funded by corporations that were heavily invested in South Africa and had the most to lose from divestment.
In 1984, ALEC described itself as the “nation’s oldest and largest individual membership organization of state legislators and Members of Congress, with over 2,000 members.” ALEC’s reach and access to policymakers was then, just as it is now, formidable.
ALEC used this access to lobby state legislators and even key members of the Reagan administration to stand against divestment, playing a key role in delaying meaningful U.S. action to pressure the apartheid regime. FULL STORY>>>
For those living in Arizona, keep in mind CCA did have a representative at the ALEC meeting where model legislation similar to 1070 was drafted. The Nation points to an In These Times investigation that reveals ”ALEC arranged secretive meetings between Arizona’s state legislators and CCA to arguably draft what became SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law, to keep CCA prisons flush with immigrant detainees. ALEC has proven expertly capable of devising endless ways to help private corporations benefit from the country’s massive prison population.”
So, here’s what I have picked up from DBAPRESS with regard to the CCA fingerprints on SB1070: We know that CCA (Senseman, who, at the time of SB 1070′s passage was working in the governor’s office) was lobbying AZ legislators as early as late 2005 (the genesis of the SB 1070 “trespassing” provisions); We know that Richard Bark (a ACCI lobbyist) was involved in the revisions of what would become SB 1070; We know that Pearce introduced what would become SB 1070 to the ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force, which included CCA; We know that Brewer’s office employed Senseman as director of communications at the time of the bill’s passage; We know that CCA employed the lobby firm of Brewer’s longtime campaign manager and advisor, Chuck Coughlin, immediately following the introduction of SB 1070 in the AZ Leg; We know that the ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force– funded in part by CCA– advanced the “No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants” bill throughout the nation. Now all we need is the smoking gun.