I first heard about ALEC on Rachels' show, in 2009(?).
That legislative initiative led to John Kasichs' trying to stop public unions in Ohio. His law was overturned by a large margin. Walker of Wisconsin was a product of that group as well.

think that good bills are generally written and created by those who really want good products for their voters without an 'ALEC' doing the grunt work...and bad bills are readily identified as being 'bad' bills rather quickly. I would hope...

If it's a cause that's important to you, they're doing the grunt work of writing policy papers and lobbying (through their 501C4 branch) Congresscritters for you. It's their work in many cases that starts the process because they're the experts in their fields.

One thing that has long bothered me is that our lawmakers often legislate things about which their knowledge is woefully inadequate, and quite obviously so to any who actually do know about the subject. On the left, gun laws are where I have seen this most frequently. Ironically, it was Trump who finally enacted a gun reform that actually does make sense, when he banned bump stocks. Such a ban has support even among sane gun owners for the simple reason that it regulates one and only one thing, and that thing actually does matter.

I would like to see the lawmakers on our side make a more serious effort to be adequately and properly informed on the subject matter they seek to regulate, but I don't want to see them just adopt language provided to them by interest groups, even if they are ideologically aligned with the left. I would rather they invest the effort to actually understand the practical impact of the language they support, as well as why it will have that impact in practicality. To rely on model legislation is to shirk responsibility to an extent, in my opinion, and exposes lawmakers to the risk of being misled as a product of ignorance.

Rec