Inside the ‘ALEC Universe’ | Eye on ALEC, Q&A, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com

Wisconsin Representative Chris Taylor, a Democrat, attended ALEC’s conference last week to learn about the organization responsible for so many of her state laws.

One guy I was talking to, who was from one of these right wing think tanks was saying we need to curb Obama’s reckless power with these administrative regulations, and he wanted a federal constitutional amendment saying Congress has to approve federal regulations. I said, I don’t think most people are going to want to amend the Constitution for that. I don’t think that ignites people. Maybe it does on the far right, but most people don’t really care about that. And he said, “Oh, well, you really don’t need people to do this. You just need control over the legislature and you need money, and we have both.”

That sentiment was underscored so many times to me, that they don’t want people involved in the political process, or in the policy process. And that seems to be the intent in a lot of ways: You have a think tank in every state and all they do is come up with these very, very regressive policies, you have corporations who are going to benefit so they fund it all, and then you have the legislators as your foot soldiers to carry out the tasks.

This is terrifying. The illusion of freedom and democracy is collapsing before our eyes because it’s getting to the point where it isn’t even necessary for those with power to pretend any more. 

Something should be done.

But what?

Inside the ‘ALEC Universe’ | Eye on ALEC, Q&A, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com