Meet ALEC’s Little Brother, ACCE

The right-wing lobby’s newest offshoot is equipping city and county officials with the tools to promote special-interest bills at the local level.
By Brendan Fischer andMary Bottari


Bush Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Leavitt addresses members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)


With Congress and the states gridlocked and dominated by special-interest spending, America’s cities have emerged as engines of policy innovation. From efforts to raise the minimum wage and secure paid sick days to bills banning fracking, some of the biggest progressive policy victories in the United States are happening at the local level.

So how has the American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful lobby serving right-wing interests at the state level, responded to this resurgence of local democracy? With a systematic effort to destroy it.

ALEC task force director Cara Sullivan recently explained to a room full of local officials that when it comes to citizen movements supporting job creation and higher wages, “perhaps the biggest threat comes from the local level.”

Thankfully, she added, ALEC has a solution: “ALEC has passed…state legislation that preempts the polities from within the state from raising the minimum wage higher than the state level.” In other words, if living-wage campaigns succeed at the city or county level, state legislators should intervene, repeal, and ban any such advances.

more

http://www.thenation.com/article/meet-alecs-little-brother-acce/