ALEC and State Legislatures
- Saturday, 07 December 2013
ALEC’s Influence over Lawmaking in State Legislatures
The goal of this article is to begin to fill the gap in our
knowledge. Given the pervasive gridlock in Congress, key legislative
change is occurring predominantly in the states. It is, then, all the
more important to know who is affecting which bills are introduced in
the state legislatures, and which bills pass. Using text analysis, I
find where bills based on ALEC model legislation are introduced in the
statehouses during the 2011-2012 session and track their progress in the
legislative process.
My findings are threefold. First, ALEC model bills are,
word-for-word, introduced in our state legislatures at a non-trivial
rate. Second, they have a good chance – better than most legislation –
of being enacted into law. Finally, the bills that pass are most often
linked to controversial social and economic issues. In the end, I argue
that this is not good for ALEC, its corporate partners, or for the
democratic process.
About ALEC
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a national policy
organization that “provides a constructive forum for state legislators
and private sector leaders to discuss and exchange practical,
state-level public policy issues.” (
ALEC website).
ALEC members, including state legislators and corporate
representatives, meet in task forces on specific issue areas (i.e.,
environment and energy, worker’s rights, etc.) and collaborate to write
model legislation. Once the task force completes a model bill it is
approved by the ALEC membership and governing board. Once bills clear
those hurdles, they become official ALEC “model policies,” which are
disseminated to state legislators.
ALEC is notoriously secretive about the process by which members
draft and approve model legislation. A recent Washington Post article by
Dana Milbank detailed the closed-door policy at
ALEC’s annual policy summit. My own attempts to contact ALEC staff in order to understand the model bill drafting process were unsuccessful.
ALEC does list on its website all official ALEC policies (though it
does not say – and representatives claim not to have collected –
information on where those policies have been introduced in the
states). However, there is reason to believe that the list is
incomplete. The ALEC board reviews the status of every piece of model
legislation every five years, and adds and removes model bills from the
website periodically. It is not surprising, then, that the
Castle Doctrine (a.k.a. Stand Your Ground) was removed from the ALEC website following the public scrutiny that arose during the Trayvon Martin trial.
Thus, obtaining a complete list of ALEC model bills and their rates
of introduction and success in the U.S. statehouses requires a nuanced
data collection strategy.
Methodology:
As discussed in the previous section, ALEC’s public list of model
bills is not complete – and may include some of their most controversial
and influential bills. Rather than relying on the organization’s own
list, I turned to a third party website: ALEC Exposed. ALEC Exposed, a
subsidiary of PR Watch, tracks all ALEC activity and keeps a list of the
most significant ALEC model legislation approved between 2010 and
2013. From the
ALEC Exposed database,
I collected information on the 169 model bills that they tag as most
significant, covering each of the nine ALEC task force areas.
Using the text from those169 model bills, I used Boolean string
searches in LEXIS to find bills with the same language that were
introduced in the 2011-2012 legislative session. In total, I recovered
132 bills. I then coded a variety of features of those bills including
their state and chamber of origin, sponsors’ party identification and
connections to ALEC, and legislative history.
ALEC Bills Introduced
During the 2011-2012 legislative session, 132 bills based on ALEC
models were introduced in the states. Democrats sponsored nearly 18% of
those bills, while Republicans sponsored more than 81% (one bill was
introduced by a joint committee, and, thus, does not have a single
sponsor). Nearly two-thirds of those bills were introduced in state
lower chambers, while only 34% were introduced in upper chambers. Of
those legislators who sponsored ALEC model legislation, 57% can be
explicitly connected to ALEC. However, that does not necessarily
preclude the other legislators from having ALEC ties; ALEC does not
disclose the names of their legislative members, so this figure is based
primarily on information from leaked documents.
ALEC model language appeared in bills in 34 states (see Figure 1).
Those bills were most common in West Virginia, where legislators
introduced 10 bills based on ALEC model legislation. Both the Oklahoma
and Mississippi legislatures considered nine ALEC bills, Arizona eight,
and Kansas and Montana saw seven apiece.
One feature that separates ALEC from other lobbying ventures is that
it partners with corporations whose interests span the space of
conservative issues. This is reflected in the fact that legislation
introduced based on ALEC models covers a variety of seemingly-unrelated
subjects (see Figure 2).
Most common were bills pertaining to immigration and the environment,
followed by those relating to guns and crime. The now-infamous Castle
Doctrine Act was introduced in nine chambers and was, thus, one of the
more common pieces of ALEC legislation to appear in the statehouses.
The five most common ALEC model bills introduced in the state
legislatures include:
| Table 1: Top 5 ALEC Model Bills Introduced in the States |
| ALEC Model Bill |
# of States Introduced |
Description |
| No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act |
23 |
Closely
resembles Arizona’s SB1070 law in that it mandates local law
enforcement of federal immigration law, and allows private citizens to
sue their local government if they feel the law is not being fully
enforced. In addition, it further criminalizes the employment of illegal
immigrants, and creates a crime of “trespassing” on state land without
immigration status, and a crime of having an illegal immigrant in one’s
vehicle, among other provisions. |
| The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act |
10 |
Requires
the disclosure of fluid used in the production of natural gas through
hydraulic fracturing. It would also allow operators not to disclose any
materials that are considered a “trade secret” or present incidentally
in the hydraulic fluid, and would limit the ability of individuals to
challenge a the operator’s claim to trade secret protection. |
| Castle Doctrine Act |
9 |
Also
commonly referred to as “Stand Your Ground” legislation, this act
authorizes the deadly use of force against an intruder in a residence or
vehicle. It declares that a person has a right to stand his or her
ground under reasonable fear of great bodily harm. It also reduces the
grounds under which law enforcement may investigate the use of deadly
force under these circumstances. |
| ALEC State Withdrawal from Regional Climate Change Initiative |
9 |
Declares
the lack of benefit to reducing carbon emissions in the state that
would adopt it, and would provide that state reasonable cover to
withdraw from a regional climate initiative. |
| Consistency of Firearm Regulation |
9 |
Prohibits
local jurisdictions from independently enacting restrictions on the
possession of firearms. This bill would also preempt the right of local
jurisdictions to bring certain civil actions against firearms or
ammunition manufacturers, trade associations, and dealers. |
ALEC Bills Enacted
Of the 132 ALEC model bills introduced, 12 were enacted. One
additional bill passed the New Hampshire legislature only to be vetoed
by the governor. Now, a success rate of 9% may not seem high upon first
glance. However, consider the fact that, in the 112
th
session of the U.S. Congress, less than 2% of introduced bills passed.
That means that bills based on ALEC policies have a survival rate nearly
5 times that of the average bill in Congress.
Table 2 summarizes the ALEC policies that were passed in the
2011-2012 session. Republicans sponsored all of the enacted bills, and 7
of those sponsors have explicit ties to ALEC. Two states –
Pennsylvania and Oklahoma – passed the Castle Doctrine. Though the
modal ALEC bill introduced in the states was the No Sanctuary Cities for
Illegal Immigrants Act, only Alabama passed it.
| Table 2: ALEC Bills Enacted |
| Enacting State |
|
ALEC bill |
Sponsor |
Known ALEC Tie? |
Description |
| |Alabama |
2011 H.B. 56 |
No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act |
Rep. Micky Hammon (R) |
- |
See Table 1. |
| Arizona |
2011 S.B. 1546 |
Eminent Domain Authority for Federal Lands Act |
Senator Al Melvin (R) |
Yes |
Increases the state government’s ability to appropriate federal lands (such as wilderness areas or national parks) |
| Arizona |
2012 H.B. 2503 |
Regulary Compliance Congruity with Liability Act |
Rep, Kimberly Yee (R) |
Yes |
Increases
protection for corporations in product liability suits, and adopts a
presumption in favor of the corporate defendant when it can show
compliance with governmental standards. |
| Kansas |
2011 S.B. 9 |
Discovery of Electronically Stored Information and Limitations on Waiver of Attorney-Client Privilege |
Judiciary Committee |
- |
Limits the ability to produce electronically-stored information during discovery. |
| North Carolina |
2011 H.B. 542 |
Regulatory Compliance Congruity With Liability Act |
Rep. Johnathan Rhyne (R) |
Yes |
Increases
protection for corporations in product liability suits, and adopts a
presumption in favor of the corporate defendant when it can show
compliance with governmental standards. |
| North Carolina |
2011 H.B. 650 |
Consistency of Firearms Regulation Act |
Rep. Mark Hilton (R) |
- |
See Table 1. |
| Oklahoma |
2011 S.B. 704 |
Class Actions Improvement Act |
Senator Constance Johnson (R) |
Yes |
Limits
individual’s ability to bring class action suits against large
companies by specifying that class action suits cannot seek any monetary
relief, and restrict the ability to bring a class action suit with
plaintiffs from multiple states. |
| Oklahoma |
2011 H.B. 1439 |
Castle Doctrine Act |
Rep. Steve Vaughan (R) |
Yes:Yes |
See Table 1. |
| Pennsylvania |
2011 H.B. 40 |
Castle Doctrine Act |
Rep. Scott Perry (R) |
- |
See Table 1. |
| Tennessee |
2011 H.B. 1030 |
Virtual Public Schools Act |
Rep. Harry Brooks H (R) |
Yes |
Requires
“virtual” or online schools be recognized as public schools and given
equal resources as other public schools in the state. |
| Texas |
2011 H.B. 3328 |
The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act |
Rep. James Keffer (R) |
Yes |
See Table 1. |
Conclusion
This research shows that the American Legislative Exchange Council
wields considerable influence in state legislatures. The bills that it
writes find their way into the majority of state legislatures.
Moreover, the percentage of those bills that pass is strikingly high
compared to the dismal rate at which all other bills are enacted into
law.
In the midst of this success, recent controversy over particular
ALEC-inspired bills – such as the Castle Doctrine Act (a.k.a. Stand
your Ground) – has caused the organization to come under increased
scrutiny from journalists, transparency groups, and voters. As a result,
almost 400 legislators and 60 corporations have cut ties with ALEC in the last two years, with some now publicly repudiating the organization’s methods.
Many of ALEC’s prominent (former) corporate partners, such as
Wal-Mart, General Electric, and McDonald’s, were almost certainly
displeased with the negative publicity and media criticism sparked by
ALEC’s foray into hot-button issues like gun control. That involvement
damages ALEC’s reputation,
hindering their typical (corporate-friendly) efforts surrounding
manufacturing regulations, court procedures, and environmental laws.
ALEC’s corporate partners are paying to influence legislators over those
issues, which they want introduced and passed quickly and quietly.
Dirtying its hands with social issues undermines ALEC’s ability to
exercise influence over fiscal ones.
This has broader implications for how we think about lobbying.
Consolidation of lobbying groups into broader organizations of
legislators and corporations increases their reach but also creates
significant hazards. Attempting to tie together such a wide range of
interests undermines the ability of the umbrella organization to achieve
any of its objectives. The bigger you get, the more likely it all is
to fall apart. ALEC’s Napoleonic reach may turn out to be its undoing.
This
article was researched and written by The Brookings Institute. Both
CMD’s Sourcewatch and Firedoglake identify Brookings as a once-liberal
now-conservative think tank, with FDL stating “it has become the Alan
Colmes of think-tanks, fake liberals who meekly accept conservative
mythology on every major point, but says we should at least think of the
misery we are causing.”
The author credits ALECexposed for a lot of the information used
in the article. I want to note that ALECexposed is still the source I
use regularly to verify and cross-check information that I have
researched. Its Sourcewatch articles are, IMHO, the best.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This article is written by
Molly Jackman with research assistance from Grace Wallack and Brian Boessenecker. It is posted by the Brookings Institute at
http://tinyurl.com/mw5bog6
