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ALEC News

Scott Walker: The First ALEC President? Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will address the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in San Diego this July. Walker’s speech at ALEC will be a reunion of sorts. Walker was an ALEC member as a state legislator in the 1990s, and the agenda that Walker has championed throughout his long political career has closely tracked the policies promoted by ALEC and its corporate funders, despite public opposition to many of those measures. Read the rest of this item here. ALEC Wants to Educate High Schoolers on Balanced Budgets and Austerity The right-wing push to amend the U.S. Constitution by requiring a balanced federal budget is gaining momentum. In January, GOP Governor John Kasich of Ohio went on a six-state tour to rally support, and so far this year, New Jersey, Utah and North Dakota have passed resolutions calling for a Constitutional Convention to propose a balanced budget amendment. By some counts, 27 states have passed such resolutions; 34 are needed to trigger a convention. Read the rest of this item here. So a Lobbyist and an ALEC Legislator Walk into a Bar...Caught on Tape by NBC A lobbyist and a legislator got caught on tape explaining how corporations subsidize lawmakers' resort trips through the American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC), the controversial corporate bill mill. In a new report aired on Atlanta's NBC TV Channel WXIA 11, Georgia investigative reporter Brendan Keefe went behind the scenes at ALEC's spring meeting in Savannah, Georgia, where he chatted with lobbyists and lawmakers--and was summarily ejected by uniformed off-duty deputies for trying to film public officials at the task force meetings where future state laws are written. Read the rest of this item here. Groups Add to Evidence in "Whistleblower" Tax Fraud Claim Against ALEC Common Cause and the Center for Media and Democracy sent federal authorities new evidence today that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is falsely passing itself off as a tax-exempt charity and effectively using taxpayer dollars to subsidize its lobbying on behalf of private interests. Common Cause filed a supplement to its three-year-old tax whistleblower complaint against ALEC, and the two groups sent a joint letter to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen demanding an investigation, collection of fines and back taxes, and the revocation of ALEC’s status as a tax-exempt charity. Read the rest of this item here.