Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council’ Category

‘Transparent & accountable’ House decides that legislator’s solitication letters on behalf of ALEC are not public record

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Transparency on July 18, 2012| 4 Comments »

There has been an interesting turn of events concerning LouisianaVoice’s attempts to obtain the names of recipients of Rep. Joe Harrison’s letter soliciting contributions of $1,000 to help defray the expenses of “over thirty” state legislators to attend a national conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in Salt Lake City next week.

Harrison (R-Gray) mailed out a form letter on July 2 that opened by saying, “As State Chair and National Board Member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, I would like to solicit your financial support to our ALEC Louisiana Scholarship Fund.” ALEC Letterhead

The letter was printed on state letterhead, which would appear to make the document a public record so LouisianaVoice immediately made a public records request of Harrison to provide:

• A complete list of the recipients of his letter;

• A list of the “over thirty” Louisiana legislators who are members of ALEC.

ALEC membership, of course, is a closely-guarded secret but once the letter was printed on state letterhead—presumably composed on a state computer in Harrison’s state-funded office, printed on a state-purchased printer and mailed using state-purchased postage—the request for a list of members was included in the request for recipients of the letter.

Harrison never responded to the request despite state law that requires responses to all such requests.

LouisianaVoice then contacted House Clerk Alfred “Butch” Speer to enlist his assistance in obtaining the records and last Thursday, July 12, Speer responded:

“Rep. Harrison informs that his assistant will return Monday (July 16) and send the list of recipients of the letter.

“The names of legislators who serve on the task forces of ALEC is not a record of the state. Because joining ALEC is an individual decision for each legislator and does not involve expenditure of public funds, no record of the House is maintained relative to this membership.

“Monday, I will forward you the list of recipients.”

But when Monday came, things had changed dramatically.

On Monday, LouisianaVoice received an e-mail from Speer:

“I have looked further into your records request.” (Notice he omitted the word “public” as in “public records.”)

“Rep. Harrison composed the letter of which you possess a copy. Rep. Harrison sent that one letter to a single recipient,” Speer’s email continued.

“If that letter was distributed to a larger audience, such distribution did not create a public record.

“R.S. 44:1 defines a public record as a record: ‘…having been used, being in use, or prepared, possessed, or retained for use in the conduct, transaction, or performance of any business, transaction, work, duty, or function which was conducted, transacted, or performed by or under the authority of the constitution or laws of this state…’

“My opinion is that the solicitation of donations for ALEC does not create a public record. The courts have been clear in providing that the purpose of the record is determinative of its public nature, not the record’s origin.”

It seems questionable, at best, to contend that the letter went out to only recipient. First of all, the letter’s began with, “Dear Friend:” It would seem logical to assume that if it went to only one person, Rep. Harrison would have at least extended the courtesy to make the salutation a bit more personal, as say, “Dear John:” or “Dear Mr._____:.”

Moreover, it would also seem highly doubtful that Harrison would be soliciting a single $1,000 contribution to cover the expenses of an entire contingent of “over thirty” legislators to attend the conference.

Still, Speer persisted, saying, “…it is my responsibility to consult with Representatives and make the determinations as to what records are or are not public in nature.

“…The contents of (Harrison’s) letter speak for itself….The origin of a document is not the determining factor as to its nature as a public record. The purpose of the record is the only determining factor. Whether the letter was or was not ‘composed on state letterhead, on a state computer, printed on a state-owned printer and mailed in state-issued envelope(s)’ (a list of assertions I do not agree with and which you cannot substantiate) does (sic) not, per force, create a public record. If the letter were concerning ‘any business, transaction, work, duty, or function which was conducted, transacted, or performed by or under the authority of the constitution or laws of this state,’ then such a letter is a public nature.”

That interpretation flies in the face of past requests for records that included e-mail messages and jokes—and in at least one case, pornography—by state employees that had no relation to state business but which news media have obtained and subsequently published and/or broadcast.

Speer then offered a most curious interpretation of the public records statute when he said, “The fact that an official may be traveling does not place the travel or its mode of payment or the source of the resources used to travel ipso facto within the public records law. The purpose of the travel is the determining factor.”

Speer was asked by LouisianaVoice, “What changed between your e-mail of last Thursday (July 12) and today’s (July 16) decision?”

Again, Speer responded:

“I did as I promised. What information I gathered resulted in my e-mail to you.

“What Rep. Harrison was attempting is of no moment unless he was attempting some business of the House or pursuing some course mandated by law. Anyone’s attempts to raise money for a private entity is (sic) not the business of the House nor is it an activity mandated by law.

“Your personal interpretation of the law is not determinative of the actual scope of the law.”

Speer apparently was overlooking the fact that the House and Senate combined to pay 34 current and former members of the two chambers more than $70,000 in travel, lodging and registration fees for attending ALEC functions in New Orleans, San Diego, Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Austin between 2008 and 2011.

Of that amount, almost $30,000 was paid in per diem of $142, $145, $152 or $159 per day, depending on the year, for attending the conferences. The per diem rates corresponded to the rates paid legislators for attending legislative sessions and committee meetings.

ALEC advertises in pre-conference brochures sent to its members that it picks up the tab for legislators attending its conferences. That would raise the question of why legislators were paid by the House and Senate for travel, lodging and registration costs if ALEC also pays these costs via its ALEC Louisiana Scholarship Fund.

Read Full Post »

Remember that $80M broadband internet grant that Piyush rejected? Well, it seems that John White needs it for DOE

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Broadband, Internet, Education, Governor's Office, Grant, Grants, Higher Education, Regents, Supriya Jinda Foundation on July 12, 2012| 8 Comments »

Remember last year’s incredible fiasco precipitated by Gov. Piyush Jindal when he spurned that $80.6 million Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant to provide high speed broadband internet to rural areas of Louisiana?

Well, it’s back—perhaps to bite him in the gluteus maximus.

State Superintendent of Education John White has released a report that shows Louisiana public school students and teachers are lacking the technology to enter the digital age.

The Louisiana Technology Footprint report discusses technology guidelines that provide a snapshot of the current state of digital readiness of school districts and campuses in the state.

Louisiana Believes, the highly-touted plan by the department includes, among other goals, one for all schools to be digital-ready by 2014-2015.

The report provides districts with an initial footprint picture of network, bandwidth and device requirements need to fully implement online assessments by the 2014-2015 school year and full digital readiness thereafter.

“Data and technology specifications…indicate school campuses in Louisiana have 197,898 devices available for online testing but only 67,038 (33.9 percent) met new device standards,” the report says.

Only five districts—Ascension, City of Bogalusa, Red River, St. James and FirstLine Schools of New Orleans—meet the minimum device readiness requirements and only two—Ascension and St. James—meet both device and network readiness guidelines for online testing, it said.

It was last Oct. 26 that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Division (NOAA) issued its final termination letter for the grant after repeated efforts to get the state to comply with its request for additional information.

The project, which LouisianaVoice learned was opposed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), would have created 900 miles of cable over 21 rural parishes in Louisiana and would have supported several Louisiana universities with expanded optical fiber networking capacity.

That could have complimented the Board of Regents’ $20 million Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI) project, designed to extend high-speed networking capabilities in the state.

But Jindal, whose wife’s charitable foundation received considerable funding from AT&T, apparently preferred that the project be carried out by private companies—such as…oh, say AT&T, for example.

The governor refused to re-apply for the grant because what he termed a “heavy-handed approach from the federal government that would have undermined and taken over private business.”

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu call Jindal’s stated reason “hogwash.” She said the grant would not have interfered with private enterprise and in fact, would have granted money for private companies to lay the cable. “We weren’t trying to create a government broadband system,” she said.

Almost a year before the final rejection of the grant, ALEC, at its annual meeting in San Diego in August of 2010, passed a resolution opposing initiatives targeted at providing universally accessible broadband service because of “the unnecessary, burdensome and economically harmful regulation of broadband internet service companies, including the providers of the infrastructure that supports and enables internet services…”

Looks like someone forgot to tell White about Jindal’s opposition to expanded availability to that evil internet.

In fact, White, in his report, encourages school districts to join a statewide consortium that will aid in consolidated purchasing and contracts as well as providing technology services and support.

Wonder who’ll get the contract to form that consortium?

Read Full Post »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables on July 7, 2012| 3 Comments »

“ALEC has deliberately and repeatedly failed to comply with some of the most fundamental federal tax requirements applicable to public charities. The information…also suggests, quite strongly, that the conduct of ALEC and certain of its representatives violates other civil and criminal tax laws and may violate other federal and state criminal statutes as well.”

–Complaint challenging the tax-exempt status of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) by Marcus Owens, who, for 10 years directed the IRS division responsible for approving organizations’ tax-exempt status, particularly as it applies to ALEC failure to report the payment of expenses to legislators through its ALEC Scholarship Fund for attendance at ALEC conferences.

Read Full Post »

ALEC faces new test in challenge to tax-exempt status–by a former IRS agent: Legislative Scholarship Fund is key issue

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Exemptions, Incentives, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators on July 7, 2012| 7 Comments »

Recipients of letters of solicitation from Rep. Joe Harrison (R-Gray) for donations to the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Louisiana Scholarship Fund might want to hold off a bit before writing that thousand dollar check.

It may not be tax deductible much longer.

In fact, it is ALEC’s Scholarship Fund itself that is at the heart of the most credible attack yet on ALEC and Harrison’s fundraising efforts might well be in the crosshairs.

Harrison, as ALEC’s state chairman and national board member, on July 2 mailed out an undetermined number of letters on state letterhead in which he asked for $1,000 donations to the scholarship fund to be used to help pay the expenses of “over thirty Louisiana legislators” to attend the ALEC national conference July 25-28 in Salt Lake City.

ALEC is a national organization supported by Koch Industries, pharmaceutical companies, power companies, private prison companies, energy companies, communications companies, and many banking and insurance concerns, among others.

The organization’s corporate members meet regularly with state legislators to draft “model legislation” for the lawmakers to take back to their home states for introduction and passage into law. Some examples include legislation calling for sweeping education reform, public employee pension reform, privatization of such services as state prisons, employee benefits, Medicaid and, some say, the eventual privatization of state colleges and universities.

Moreover, ALEC’s corporate logo is also prominently featured on the Louisiana Legislature’s state web page http://www.legis.louisiana.gov/.

In his letter, Harrison noted that “All of these issues are import (sic) to the entire lobbying community.” ALEC, however, insists that it is not a lobbying organization.

Harrison asked in his letter that the $1,000 checks be sent to him at his state office at 5058 West Main St., Houma, meaning he not only solicited contributions for ALEC on state letterhead and asked that they be sent to a state office.

He also said that ALEC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization as designated by the Internal Revenue Service, the implication being that any contributions would be tax-deductible.

Not so fast.

It seems a former IRS agent is calling for a revocation of ALEC’s tax-exempt status, according to the influential Washington, D.C. publication Roll Call.

And it’s not just any former IRS agent. Marcus Owens, former head of the IRS Exempt Organizations division for 10 years, directed the agency’s division responsible for approving the exempt status for organizations.

He is now an attorney in private practice.

Among other violations, he is accusing ALEC of illegally lobbying state lawmakers.

“ALEC has deliberately and repeatedly failed to comply with some of the most fundamental federal tax requirements applicable to public charities,” he said in a recent letter to the IRS. He said that information he included with his letter “also suggests, quite strongly, that the conduct of ALEC and certain of its representatives violates other civil and criminal tax laws and may violate other federal and state criminal statutes as well.”

Under requirements of tax code 501(c)(3), ALEC, as any other 501(c)(3) organization, is barred from political activity. It may lobby, provided its attempts to influence legislation do not constitute a “substantial” part of its activities.

Though its stated mission is to bring corporations and lawmakers together to draft and promote legislation, the 30-year-old organization claims it does not lobby, a contention with which watchdog organizations like Common Cause have taken issue.

ALEC has consistently deflected such criticism but Owens’s experience in this particular area of tax law, along with his reputation at the IRS, is considered significant and new evidence that ALEC may have deliberately misled the agency on its annual federal filings could be critical to efforts to strip ALEC of its tax-exempt status.

Owens, in his complaint, notes that ALEC does not report any payments to state officials, even though tax forms filed by the organization specifically request that such amounts be reported. Such payments would constitute a “private benefit,” he said.

LouisianaVoice possesses documents from ALEC in which the organization promises to pay all expenses, including travel, registration, and hotel accommodations, for state legislators attending its conferences.

Moreover, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a member of ALEC, reported a $350,000 grant to the ALEC Wisconsin Scholarship Fund in 2010.

Harrison, in his July 2 solicitation letter, said, “With over thirty Louisiana legislators serving on ALEC task forces, your support will allow the opportunity to attend conferences funded by the ALEC Scholarship Fund.

“These conferences are packed with educational speakers and presenters, and give the legislators a chance to interact with legislators from other states, including forums on Medicaid reform, sub-prime lending, online privacy, environmental education, pharmaceutical litigation, the crisis in state spending, global warming and financial services and information exchange.”

LouisianaVoice last week submitted two formal public records requests to Harrison. The first requested the identities of the Louisiana legislators who are members of ALEC and the second asked for the identities of all recipients of his solicitation letters. A similar request to Harrison several months ago for the identities of legislative members of ALEC was ignored.

“The fact that ALEC provides significant benefits to its donors and legislative members in incontrovertible,” Owens’s complaint said. “The benefits conferred on either group alone would be sufficient to jeopardize ALEC’s tax exempt status.”

Loss of its tax exempt status might even be sufficient to prompt the removal of the ALEC logo from the Louisiana Legislature’s state web page.

Read Full Post »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Ethics, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, Public Records, Transparency on July 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“I, along with other members of the Louisiana Legislature, greatly appreciate your contribution to the scholarship funds. Your $1,000 check…can be sent directly to me…”

–Exerpt from solicitation letter by State Rep. Joe Harrison (R-Gray) seeking contributions to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Louisiana Scholarship Fund. The scholarship fund pays the expenses of state legislators to attend ALEC conferences.

“Relative to the attached letter which you mailed out (on state letterhead) soliciting contributions to the ALEC Louisiana Scholarship Fund, please provide me with a complete list of those to whom these solicitations were sent.”

–Public records request submitted on July 5, 2012, to State Rep. Joe Harrison by LouisianaVoice.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »