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

Notable Quotables (In their own words)

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Education, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables, Transparency on March 13, 2012| 1 Comment »

“We will discuss what you as a state legislator can do to address a variety of issues surrounding K-12 education reform, including charter schools accessibility, accountability and transparency, standards for teacher excellence, open enrollment, vouchers, tax credits and blended learning options.”

–Invitation from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to state legislators to attend ALEC’s Education Reform Academy in Amelia Island, Florida on Feb. 3-4. ALEC paid travel and hotel accommodations for attending legislators but barred the media and general public from the meeting.

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Jindal “reform” is a reflection of ALEC national agenda; Legislation being spoon-fed by corporate puppetmasters

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Campaign Contributions, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators on March 13, 2012| 12 Comments »

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s education reform package has some interesting bedfellows, including a national organization that writes legislation which it spoon feeds to state lawmakers throughout the U.S. and a local organization with ties to Jindal political campaigns past and present.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which boasts that its membership comprises about a third of all state legislators in the U.S., regularly holds conferences and seminars at which it unveils proposed legislation for its members to take home for enactment.

Believe in Louisiana, a Baton Rouge Political 527 non-profit corporation, has been running television ads throughout the state in support of Jindal’s education reform legislation.

Believe in Louisiana is headed by Rolfe McCollister, publisher of the Baton Rouge Business Report and former chairman of Jindal’s 2007 transition team and treasurer of his most recent campaign for governor. McCollister also made five separate contributions to Jindal’s first two gubernatorial campaigns totaling $17,000.

Also making five contributions totaling $8,500 was Business Report President Julio Melara. Melara also is president of two other Baton Rouge publications, 1012 Magazine (for Interstates 10 and 12 that run through Baton Rouge) and 225 Magazine (Baton Rouge is in telephone Area Code 225).

Before entering the publishing business Melara worked as an advertising salesman for a New Orleans radio station.

Within weeks of becoming governor in January 2008, Jindal appointed Melara to the Louisiana Superdome Commission.

At the same time, Jindal appointed six other members to the Superdome Commission. They included Chairman Ron Forman of New Orleans, David Chosen of Lake Charles, Bill Windham of Bossier City, J.E. Brignac of Prairieville, Tim Coulon of Harvey and Robert Bruno of New Orleans.

Most of those contributed to various Jindal gubernatorial campaigns. Forman gave $2,000 in 2011; Bruno, his wife, and law firm gave $28,500 between 2007 and 2010; Windham and his wife made six contributions between 2003 and 2011 totaling $30,000; Brignac, his wife and business gave $22,200 between 2007 and 2011, and Coulon’s own political campaign for Jefferson Parish President and his consulting company gave Jindal $7,500 in 2007 and 2009, records show.

Coulon, as an agent of Lagniappe Industries, was implicated in 2010 in the federal investigation into the parish’s $160 million contract with the River Birch Land Fill, owned by Fred Heebe and his stepfather Albert Ward. Heebe also made a $2,500 in-kind contribution to Jindal in 2008.

Coulon, while serving as parish president, appointed Ward to the board of West Jefferson Hospital. Ward subsequently voted to replace the hospital’s insurance carrier with Lagniappe.

Though there is nothing to link Melara directly to the land fill or insurance deals, Jindal never returned any of the donations from those individuals.

Former State Rep. Noble Ellington of Winnsboro is the immediate past national president of ALEC and hosted the organization’s annual convention in New Orleans last August.

Ellington, who did not run for re-election following a 24-year career in the Louisiana Legislature, was recently appointed to the number two position at the Louisiana Department of Insurance at a salary of $150,000 per year.

Besides Ellington, at least 52 current and former House members and 18 current or former members of the Senate are affiliated with ALEC, either as members or attendees at ALEC events.

As recently as last month, ALEC hosted a secretive “education academy” on Amelia Island off the coast of Florida. The meeting was “invitation only” and closed to the pubic and the media—especially the media.

That meeting followed closely on the heels of the release of ALEC’s 17th annual Report Card on American Education.

The report was authored by Matthew Lardner and Dan Lips, both of whom are affiliated with the right-wing Republican organizations the Goldwater Institute and the Heritage Foundation. The two gave overall grades to every state’s public schools based on how they rated in 14 categories.

ALEC has been drafting and promoting education bills for more than two decades in its effort to privatize public education through a growing network of school voucher systems that divert taxpayer dollars away from public schools. Those public dollars are used to create new private charter schools in the name of reform.

The ALEC 130-page report card is sorely lacking in any real evidence that school choice, charters, or firing teachers improves student performance.

The National Assessment for Education Progress (NAEP) exam is the largest and most accepted national, standardized assessment of student knowledge in several subject areas.

Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Kansas, New Hampshire and New York are listed as the top 10 states in NAEP performance.

Yet, from those 10, only Colorado was among the 13 states the ALEC report card gives a B or better. Vermont, which scored number two on the NAEP, tied for dead last for policy with a D+ on the ALEC report card. Conversely, Missouri, ALEC’s standard-bearer with an A- grade, scored 47th on NAEP.

John Underwood, dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin, said the ALEC agenda has nothing to do with educating students. He said tables ranking states according to the NAEP performance of low-income students, students of color and students with disabilities, potentially the most interesting, revealing and useful data in the ALEC report, was not factored into ALEC’s final grade.

“Why is that not part of the states’ A to F grades?” Underwood asked. Missouri, he said, ranked 43rd in low-income students’ fourth grade reading score improvement and 34th in math improvement, but still got ALEC’s top grade. Maryland was number one in reading improvement and number two in math improvement, but got a C- from ALEC.

The answer is quite simple: someone is skewing the numbers—and NAEP’s testing procedures have been around a lot longer than ALEC’s.

But then, numbers can be tweaked to advance just about any theory. Someone once said, “There are lies, there are damned lies, and there are statistics.” At this juncture, ALEC appears to be the one playing with the statistics and tweaking the numbers.

For that “Education Academy” on Amelia Island, Florida, last month, ALEC’s invitation said the organization’s goal was “to ensure the successful and productive education for all American students.”

The invitation even offered to pick up the tab for attendees: “You are cordially invited to attend ALEC’s K-12 Education Reform Academy, February 3-4, 2012 at the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida. For invited legislators like you, ALEC will cover your room for up to two nights at the host hotel. ALEC will also reimburse up to $500 for travel expenses, which includes coach airfare, cab fare, and a reimbursement of 55.5 cents per mile driven.

“This event will address the top reforms in K-12 education that ALEC believes each state must have to ensure the successful and productive education for all American students. We will discuss what you as a state legislator can do to address a variety of issues surrounding K-12 education reform, including charter schools accessibility, accountability and transparency standards for teacher excellence, open enrollment, vouchers, tax credits and blended learning options.”

It’s ironic how ALEC—and Jindal—toss around those two words accountability and transparency in their rhetoric to reinforce their respective public images, yet run and hide when asked to deliver. It would seem they want those principles applied to others, but not themselves.

With apologies to The Wizard of Oz author Frank Baum, they’d rather remain behind the curtain where they can pull the levers and push the buttons while luring the metaphoric Dorothy (voters) down the Yellow Brick Road.

There you have it. Jindal’s education reform package is not his own any more than prison privatization or the overhaul of state employee retirement can be claimed by him as original ideas.

He has his marching orders and ALEC is calling the shots.

And you may be assured that any member of the Louisiana Legislature who goes along with these “reforms” is likewise listening to the corporate powers behind the curtain that shields ALEC from public view.

Does anyone remember the economic collapse and political chaos that came about when we allowed Wall Street to write the rules?

Does anyone see the damages already done by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision?

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Guest columnist Judith Howard offers another perspective on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators on February 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

Editor’s note: We occasionally like to showcase the writing skills of guest columnists. Judith Howard is a regular columnist for the Morning Paper of Ruston. She has written a thought-provoking piece on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and we are proud to have her essay grace our blog.

By Judith Howard

A year ago when newly elected governors in Wisconsin (Scott Walker), Ohio (John Kasich), Florida (Rick Scott), and Michigan (Rick Synder) simultaneously began their war on workers by trying to destroy collective bargaining, I thought this must have been a plan hatched at some national Republican meeting after the 2010 elections.

I thought the same thing about these Republican governors, including our own, when they started pushing the privatization of education and prisons. With a $500 million surplus, the Louisiana state office that administers health insurance is a gem Jindal can’t wait to sell, even though it will result in higher premiums for state retirees and workers.

I was half right and half wrong about the origin of these parallel Republican initiatives. The sponsor was the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). This organization describes itself thusly: “With more than 2,000 members, ALEC is the nation’s largest, non-partisan, individual public-private membership association of state legislators.”

So I was right in that it was a coordinated attack, but I was wrong that it must the Republican National Committee pushing this stuff. ALEC is, however, overwhelmingly Republican.

ALEC says it is interested in the conservative principles of free markets (translated—unregulated markets), limited government (translated–except in private affairs like family planning and how you die), and federalism (translated–state governments are cheaper to buy and control. You know, divide and conquer). It touts its benefit to private members this way:

“One of ALEC’s greatest strengths is the public-private partnership. ALEC provides the private sector with an unparalleled opportunity to have its voice heard, and its perspective appreciated, by the legislative members.” (Emphasis mine.)

Appreciated, indeed. ALEC develops model legislation that its legislative members take to their respective states. This way, it gives the public the impression that these ideas have widespread support across the country, and that said support just popped up independently.

Dues for corporations are $7,000, $12,000 or $25,000 depending on the membership level. The Koch Brothers, David and Charles, long-time drivers of ALEC are members at the $25,000 level. For the return they get on that minimal investment through legislation written by ALEC, you gotta figure these are pretty cheap dues.

Koch Industries, the second largest privately held business in the U.S., reports annual revenues of 100 billion dollars. For David and Charles, $25,000 is pocket change.

Dues for state legislators are just $100 for a two-year membership. There is no list of legislative members on the ALEC website, but the organization boasts that 1/3 of all legislators are members.

If legislators pay dues from their campaign funds rather than out of their pocket, it’s possible to find out which legislators are ALEC members.

Hollis Downs, for example, was a member of ALEC.

Each year ALEC legislative members in their respective states introduce about 1000 pieces of legislation, and estimates about 20% gets passed into law. Do you think legislators advertise that these legislative proposals were written by ALEC?

Of course not. It’s as if this legislation originated in their own minds as they contemplated what would be in the interests of the public they purport to serve. Who writes our legislation and who benefits from it should be public knowledge, especially when those two happen to be one and the same. As it stands now, ALEC is able to keep its fingerprints off laws that roll back environmental protection in order to increase energy company profits, roll back union rights for the same reason, and roll back voting rights in order to get more corporate-sponsored Republicans elected.

I should say are USUALLY able to keep their fingerprints off legislation. In November, Florida Rep. Rachel Burgin introduced a bill to reduce corporate taxes. She made the embarrassing mistake of using the model bill written by ALEC’s Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force rather than changing the wording a little.

Rep. Burgin forgot to delete the following from the bill: “WHEREAS, it is the mission of the American Legislative Exchange Council to advance Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty.” Oops.

So when you hear the constant drumbeat of privatizing public services like education and prisons, demolishing EPA regulations, initiating voter ID laws, destroying collective bargaining, remember where these ideas originated–ALEC. The reasons given for the need to do these things are not the real reason behind the push to do them.

To take just the first of these issues–why, you ask, is the Koch brothers-backed effort to privatize education such a priority? Well, I’m glad you asked. That effort has an interesting history.

Charles and David Koch’s father’s name was Fred. Ol’ Fred ranted and raved that public school books were filled with communist propaganda. His paranoia about communist infiltration extended to President Eisenhower, the Supreme Court, and the national teacher’s union. That man hated him some unions!

I suspect the Koch paranoia about public education and union hatred stems from Daddy Fred’s deranged mind. Plus, there is money to be made by privatizing schools, so what’s not to like? Of course the home schooling movement also fears that teachers might indoctrinate their kids with science, so there’s that too.

When David Koch ran for VP on the Libertarian Ticket in 1980, he pushed the idea of tax credits to encourage alternatives to public education. Over 30 years later, he’s still pushing for taxpayers to pay for private schools.

So what is the strategic goal in the legislation ALEC advocates for and that Republican governors push? Think about it.

They want to control what’s taught in schools (the Kochs now fund university departments IF they get to approve the professors and the content of the courses). They want to teach the scripture of unfettered capitalism, where unions are socialist Satans instead of being a countervailing force to corporate power.

It’s important to break up unions since they fund primarily Democratic candidates while corporations fund primarily Republican candidates. Disregard any noise about the need to break up public unions because of budgetary problems. That’s merely a convenient ruse.

As long as plutocrats can pit poor whites against blacks, blacks against Latinos, and private workers against public workers, that animosity keeps our attention off the real problem–corporate ownership of government.

The EPA is a favorite whipping boy for ALEC, and they are going berserk over the new consumer protection bureau. Heaven forbid that anybody in government look out for the interests of the little guy.

Until the sudden rush to crush unions by new Republican governors last January, I had never heard of ALEC. My colleague, Tom Aswell, wrote a column about ALEC sometime last year, but my guess is most Americans haven’t heard of the organization either.

Yet for 40 years about 300 of the largest corporations like Koch Industries, Exxon, Centerpoint, Verizon, AT&T, Bank of America, State Farm, Blue Cross, Pfizer, and Walmart have used ALEC to push legislation written by themselves to benefit themselves, but put forth by legislators. Local company Hunt-Guillot is also a member.

I envision ALEC as something like a computer virus, stealthily infecting our political system without our knowledge. We notice things slowing down as it spreads behind the scenes until, like a computer, our politics cease to function.

As if there weren’t already enough corporate influence in government, the Supreme Court two years ago allowed unlimited money into the political system with their Citizens United decision. Super Pacs will probably spend more money than political parties in this year’s election.

As someone once said, “Legislators ought to wear logos like NASCAR drivers so everyone would know who sponsors them.”

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OGB sale proposal included in Executive Budget to be presented to joint legislative committee next Thursday

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Budget, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, Transparency on February 3, 2012| 8 Comments »

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

As recently as Jan. 31—less than a week ago—we told you that Gov. Bobby Jindal is following the playbook of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) almost to the letter.

That playbook includes a section entitled “Tools to Control Costs and Improve Government Efficiency.” Among the “tools” it recommended were:

• Adopt a state hiring freeze;

• Reform state pensions;

• Delay automatic pay increases (we wondered where legislators came up with the term “automatic” in freezing merit increases a couple of years back);

• Embrace the expanded use of privatization and competitive contracting.

Each of these has already been done or is in the process of being done.

Next Thursday, the administration will present the governor’s Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2012-2013. Included in the budget will be the proposed sale of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) for $189 million, to become effective Jan. 1, 2013.

The committee meeting is scheduled to be held at 9:30 a.m. in House Committee Room 5.

The $189 million apparently is the price tag derived by Morgan Keegan, the Memphis banking firm that stands to reap a $750,000 bonus over and above the $150,000 for assessing OGB’s value if it is successful in negotiating the OGB sale at the $189 million price.

Morgan Keegan was itself only recently sold after being fined $210 million nearly two years ago by the Securities and Exchange Commission for misrepresenting critical information to investors.

Whoever ultimately purchases OGB will take with them the $500 million surplus now carried on the OGB books which the new operators will use to pay claims.

LouisianaVoice has also learned that once the sale of OGB is successfully negotiated and the agency is taken over by private industry, premiums will rise by approximately 10 percent.

There are other proposed changes coming that we can tell you about next week.

We can tell you this much, though: It ain’t gonna be pretty.

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Jindal’s retirement agenda mirrors that of ALEC, but blindsided state employees should have seen it coming

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Campaign Contributions, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Retirement on January 31, 2012| 12 Comments »

State employees who were blindsided by Gov. Jindal’s announcement last week of proposed sweeping changes to the state’s retirement system have only themselves to blame; they simply haven’t been paying attention.

It’s been a long time coming and while the jury is still out on what will and what won’t be approved in the upcoming legislative session or what is or is not fair to longtime state employees is irrelevant at this point. There is a much larger problem to be addressed: a problem of nearly $6.5 billion in unfunded liabilities for the state employee retirement system, to be precise.

This is an issue that has been punted repeatedly by legislators past and present who were unwilling to make a hard decision and now change is no longer on the far horizon: it is upon us and it is inevitable.

As far back as 1989 a constitutional amendment was passed by the legislature and approved by voters to amortize the state’s unfunded accrued liability (UAL) payoff over 40 years on a level payment plan (adjusted for inflation and payroll growth projections).

That amendment, however, had one fatal flaw: it allowed the legislature to change the payment schedule by statute. One may as well have turned a fox loose in the henhouse or a child in a candy store.

The latter may be more appropriate since the legislature has a greater propensity to act like the adolescent when the state coffers are rife with revenue. Lawmakers wasted no time in tinkering with the schedule in order that they might fund local projects in the annual budget. The folks back home, after all, don’t care about what’s going in Baton Rouge as long as they get their community centers and golf courses funded.

Now, as we approach the 2029 deadline imposed by that amendment, the state is staring down the barrel of huge balloon payments.

Whether one likes Jindal or not, the problem with the state’s UAL for the various pensions for employees, teachers, school employees and police is no more his doing than the state’s next governor, whoever that may be.

But neither was the problem caused by state workers who now are being called upon to change their retirement plans in mid-stream to accommodate those legislators who in past years shirked their fiscal responsibilities in order to more easily facilitate their own political careers. It is patently unfair to ask rank and file state employees to pay the penalty for past legislative moral malfeasance.

That’s not to say that Jindal has the right solutions in his proposals; we have no way of knowing that at this point. It’s just that it is now his problem to wrestle with in the upcoming legislative session.

It is not likely that Jindal or his staff conceived of these reforms independently.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative coalition of state legislatures, includes the reform of state pensions as one of its “Tools to Control Costs and Improve Government Efficiency” on its state budget reform web page: http://www.alec.org/publications/state-budget-reform-toolkit/.

Other tools specifically recommended by ALEC include the restructuring of state retiree health care plans, delaying “automatic” pay increases, adopting a state hiring freeze, embracing the expanded use of privatization and competitive contracting, establishing a state privatization and efficiency council and selling state assets.

Any of those sound vaguely familiar?

Several corporate members of ALEC have been identified as major contributors to Jindal’s political campaigns.

Of the 126 bills already pre-filed in the House and Senate as of Tuesday, 84, or fully two-thirds deal in some fashion or another with retirement. The breakdown shows that 36 retirement bills have been filed in the House and 48 in the Senate.

Some of the bills in both chambers are different versions of the same proposals, so some of the duplicate bills will be withdrawn before consideration.

Many of those deal with local clerks of court, assessors, sheriffs and municipal employees but just as many—or more—deal specifically with state employees.

Jindal said for now he is addressing only state employees and not teachers, school employees or state police.

Many of his proposals break long-standing promises made to state employees relative to retirement benefits and eligibility.

HB 53 by Rep. Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell), for example, stipulates that employees hired prior to June 30, 2006 may retire after 10 years and upon attaining age 67. Those hired after June 30, 2006 may retire after five years and attaining age 67.

The present law allows a state worker to retire after 10 years at age 60.

HB 56, also by Pearson, chairman of the House Retirement Committee, would increase employees’ retirement contributions from 7.5 percent to 10.5 percent for those employed on or before June 30, 2006 and from 8 percent to 11 percent for those employed on or after July 1, 2006.

But perhaps the bill that would sting the worst is SB 17 and SB 26, both by freshman Sen. Barrow Peacock (R-Bossier City). Each of those bills would change state pensions from a defined benefit to a defined contribution.

That means that instead of employees being guaranteed a set pension based on the current formula of three-year average salary times 2.5 percent times years of service, employees would contribute a predetermined amount to retirement with no guarantee of benefits. Such a program, which would react to market conditions, is similar to the 401K plan common in the private sector.

One bill, HB 55 by Pearson, would alter the formula for computing retirement from a three-year average salary to a five-year average, thus reducing in theory, at least, the employee’s monthly retirement check.

HB 61, also by Pearson, would require a one-time, lump-sum payment to employees with five or more years’ credit upon retirement. The employee may opt to take the lump sum or leave his account balance with the system and draw an annuity.

Because state employees do not contribute to, nor do they qualify for, social security, their retirement income would hinge solely on the uncertainty of their state retirement.

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