PA Bill Number: SB1198
Title: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and ...
Description: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and .. ...
Last Action: Referred to AGRICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS
Last Action Date: May 17, 2024
Pittsburgh summit bringing business, legislators together :: 05/05/2016
Depending on whom you ask, the American Legislative Exchange Council is either a Model United Nations or “a kind of dating service for corporations to hook up with legislators.”
It won’t be easy to tell who’s right. ALEC’s “Spring Task Force Summit,” to be held Friday at the Omni William Penn Hotel, will be closed to press and public. And although the organization touts steps toward increased transparency, as an educational nonprofit group, it does not disclose its roughly 300 corporate members or the names of most state legislators who belong.
ALEC bills itself as a forum where “job creators and state legislators alike … offer important policy perspectives.” Participants help shape model legislation for state governments on issues including reforming public pensions, scrapping union-backed “prevailing wage” laws and barring local ordinances that require restaurants to post nutrition information.
“Think of ALEC as a Model United Nations,” suggested Molly Drenkard, a spokeswoman for the four-decade-old Washington, D.C., organization.
But Erin Kramer, who heads the activist group One Pittsburgh and is the person who characterized the group as a “dating service” for legislators and businesses, said ALEC is nothing more than a conduit for corporations to get their messages to lawmakers.
In Pittsburgh, ALEC members will discuss, amend and vote on proposals that, if approved, will be submitted as potential model bills to a 23-member board of state legislators.
ALEC is “legislator-led, legislator-driven,” Ms. Drenkard said. And “if legislators are inspired [by bills] they still have to ... talk about them to their peers and to their constituents. … There are so many ways they are held accountable.”
Not good enough, said Ms. Kramer, whose organization will protest ALEC at noon Friday in Mellon Square Park.
“Constituents don’t get days with their official to dig into what the state should look like,” she said. And because business members can participate in the task-force votes, “Corporations will have a vote on what those legislators go back to the capital to work on.”
ALEC’s influence was sharply questioned after the 2012 fatal shooting of Florida teen Trayvon Martin. Mr. Martin’s death cast a spotlight on ALEC-backed “stand your ground” laws, which make it easier to cite self-defense in shootings. Critics also denounced ALEC’s support of “Voter ID” laws, saying they disenfranchise poor voters.
After activists ferreted out some corporate supporters, companies such as McDonald’s, Pepsi and General Electric distanced themselves from ALEC. So did Pittsburgh’s U.S. Steel, which in a statement Wednesday said, “We assessed our memberships and made strategic decisions to narrow our focus areas.”
ALEC no longer works on gun issues or voter ID, said Ms. Drenkard, who called pursuing those matters a case of “mission creep. … We’re fundamentally a pro-growth organization looking at economic issues.” Among the topics being discussed in Pittsburgh, meanwhile, are proposals to rethink tough-on-crime measures, which many progressive activists also denounce.
ALEC has also begun posting its “model policies” online.
After the recent “added scrutiny ... we thought, ‘We really want people to be able to see this,’” said Ms. Drenkard.
Such moves don’t appease staunch ALEC foe Michael Morrill, the executive director of Keystone Progress.
“The model legislation isn’t the real problem,” he said. “It’s the backroom deals that bother us.” And because ALEC touts its efforts as educational, he said, such activities aren’t reported as lobbying, the way a typical face-to-face meeting might be.
That’s one reason ALEC’s power is hard to gauge.
“I’ve always thought their influence was overrated,” said Nathan Benefield, vice-president of policy at Harrisburg’s conservative Commonwealth Foundation. “They’ve provided ideas, but they don’t have a lobbying arm, so it’s funny to see people saying, ‘This is ALEC pushing this.”’
“They’ve become a boogeyman: Anything you don’t want to support, you say an evil group is behind it,” Mr. Benefield surmised.
Squirrel Hill Democrat Dan Frankel said ALEC remains influential. “They foment ultraconservative ideas and try to characterize them in ways that I think conceal the true motive: promoting the interest of the corporate community.”
As examples, he cited efforts to preempt local governments such as Pittsburgh from passing higher minimum wages and requiring employers to offer paid sick leave.
Ms. Drenkard said the group didn’t have a position on paid sick leave per se, but “we do have preemption policies” on wage requirements. That policy is “really about understanding the rule of law,” she said, in that “municipalities are creations of the state,” and must defer to them.
As for ALEC’s reputation for pulling strings, she said, somewhat ruefully, “We’re against raising the minimum wage — but every story you read is about someone doing it.”
Chris Potter: cpotter@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2533.
