The quotes below are from the article Koch Brothers’ ALEC Tentacles Creep Into Your State by Allison Kilkeny.
we now know that ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), a front group for major corporations, the Koch brothers and right-wing lobbying groups, actively disseminated model bills promoting its agenda to state leaders.
ALEC creates plausible deniability for state legislators by claiming it’s not lobbying, of course, but merely making friendly suggestions and, in turn, the legislators ultimately reap the rewards of being extra nice to ALEC’s corporate clients.
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ALEC’s Public Safety and Elections Task Force approved a piece of model legislation called the “Voter ID Act,” that calls for voters to have IDs with both a photo and expiration date, which, of course, rules out college IDs from young voters who historically vote overwhelmingly Democrat. These types of bills also discriminate against poor and minority voters, who again, tend to vote for Republicans’ ideological opponents.
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An ALEC model called “Prevailing Wage Repeal Act” would repeal all laws requiring administratively determined employee compensation rates, including wages, salaries and benefits. CMD notes that paying the prevailing wage is designed to ensure quality work is done on public projects and also helps keep wage standards in the construction industry.
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“The Employer Standing Act” gives an employer preferential standing before the appropriate boards or commission to dispose of a workers’ compensation claim if they can convince the board the claim was filed fraudulently. This bill gives rights to corporations and employers at the expense of workers, notes CMD.
When you consider how benign it is to watch NOVA on PBS sponsored by one of the Koch brothers or for MIT to accept huge amounts of money to build a cancer research building and name it after this Koch brother, let this post flit through your brain for just a moment.