Al Franken: ‘They're coming after the Internet’

American Legislative Exchange Council
The big political player you've never heard of
Posted by Fortune Editors
January 10, 2011 5:00 am

By Tory Newmyer, writer

Opponents of President Obama's health care overhaul landed a chin shot last month when a federal judge found the law's requirement that citizens buy health insurance unconstitutional. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli argued that there was a conflict between a state law that made it illegal to force people to buy coverage and the new federal law.

But the Virginia law itself wasn't thought up in the Old Dominion. Rather, it was the product of a 2008 huddle in Washington. Conservative state legislators from across the country, along with industry lobbyists, hashed out the bill at the annual gathering of a little-known group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. The organization, founded in 1973 and funded mostly by corporations and conservative foundations, exists to bring business-friendly state lawmakers together with lobbyists for corporations, including AT&T (T), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Wal-Mart (WMT), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). It drafts model bills related to its goals of free markets and limited government. Issues that ALEC has influenced include Arizona's anti-immigration law, tort reform in Mississippi, and the opposition to Net neutrality.

Despite the intimate involvement of lobbyists, ALEC officials insist the organization is not a lobbying group, since it doesn't follow lawmakers to try to advance their bills. Instead, ALEC is a charity, a status it justifies because of its educational mission. The designation allows the group to collect tax-deductible contributions, and it eases lawmaker travel to ALEC events. Says Edwin Bender of the National Institute on Money in State Politics: "Corporations can implement their agendas very effectively using ALEC."

-snip-

State Legislators Oppose FCC's Plans to Re-label and Regulate Internet

August 12, 2010


WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) voices its opposition to plans by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to change the status of broadband Internet Service from a lightly-regulated “information service” to a more heavily regulated “telecommunications service.”

At its meeting late last week, ALEC’s Telecommunications & Information Technology Task Force approved its ALEC Broadband Regulation Resolution. The Resolution declares ALEC’s opposition to the FCC’s controversial plan to subject broadband Internet service to a handful of older monopoly-era telephone regulations.

Today the Resolution was delivered to the FCC along with a letter by Connecticut State Representative Bill Hamzy, who serves as Public Sector Chair of ALEC’s Telecom & IT Task Force. In the letter, the state legislator insists the agency should back off from its controversial plan to subject broadband Internet to heavier regulatory burdens.

“ALEC supports the continuation of federal policies that have kept the Internet free from government regulation. Marketplace freedom has encouraged the explosive growth of the Internet and e-commerce in recent years. It would be a grave mistake for the FCC to suddenly reverse course and saddle the Internet with burdensome new regulation. ALEC remains concerned that attempts by federal regulators to impose new restrictions on broadband Internet service will hurt technological innovation, deter private infrastructure investment, and threaten job growth in the states,” said Representative Hamzy.

As declared in the Resolution, “ALEC urges that the FCC, Congress and state regulatory and legislative bodies refocus their efforts on specific and limited initiatives targeted at ensuring that broadband service is made universally available and affordable to consumers, rejecting overly prescriptive regulations that would harm innovation, investment, and job growth.”

In January, over 90 other state legislators submitted a letter to the FCC opposing its plans to impose net neutrality regulation. In 2007, ALEC adopted a Resolution on Net Neutrality, opposing federal and state regulation of network management practices.

Whether the issue is the environment, education or telecommunications, ALEC's modus operandi is the same. ALEC brings state lawmakers and "their private sector counterparts to the table as equals."<24> Corporate lawyers then assist in drafting "model" legislation that ALEC works to get passed in state legislatures. Mother Jones magazine characterized ALEC's work as "ghostwriting …business-friendly bills."<25>

ALEC has accepted contributions from many of the top telecom industry players: AT&T, BellSouth, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, SBC Communications (now merged with AT&T), Sprint, Verizon Communications and more.<26>

In return, ALEC pushes telecom legislation that bars or makes it difficult for local governments to offer broadband Internet services to their citizens, even in areas where the telecom giants have determined it's not economically worthwhile to offer such service, such as rural and low-income areas (view ALEC's "model bill" online). ALEC has backed such bills in a number of states, including Louisiana,<27> Nebraska,<28> and Wisconsin.<29>