State GOP health bills mirror model ALEC legislation

[jaxx]

Vital Signs: State GOP health bills mirror model ALEC legislation

All the fuss this week over ALEC, a right-wing organization said to be the mastermind behind a nationwide wave of conservative proposals and laws, inspired me to look into whether the group has anything to do with a spate of recent health legislation from Gov. Scott Walker and Republican lawmakers.

My first step was to consult an online "study guide" about the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council written by UW-Madison history professor William Cronon. (When I first wrote this post I had a working link to ALEC but the organization seems to have blocked access in the last 24 hours.) The state GOP has filed an open records request seeking access to Cronon's e-mails, and I was curious to see what they were upset about.

A bunch of links and some digging later, I tracked down ALEC's The State Legislators Guide to Repealing ObamaCare, and it looks like our governor and Republican legislators could indeed be following this handy manual. Several health bills the Republicans have proposed and passed this year, or are about to propose (and probably pass, given their majority,) mirror ALEC's "model legislation."

But so what, asks Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, when I call him about my discovery. Fitzgerald says he has been a proud member of ALEC since he first became a legislator in 1994, and is currently the Wisconsin State Chairman. State lawmakers have always turned to such national organizations for help brainstorming ideas and crafting legislation, Fitzgerald says. "These groups are about exchanging ideas between different state legislators from around the country to be sure we're not isolating ourselves in Wisconsin," he tells me.

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/he...002e0.html

[NJMaverick]

Not surprisingly this is another Koch brothers funded venture

Private Enterprise Board: Kurt L. Malmgren, PhRMA; Jerry Watson, American Bail Coalition; Scott Fisher, Altria Corporate Services; Pete Poynter, BellSouth; Michael K. Morgan, Koch Industries; Allan E. Auger, Coors Brewing Co.; Ronald F. Scheberle, Verizon Communications, Inc.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/am...e-exchange

[jaxx]

Those Koch brothers seem to have their fingers in every rotten legislation pie these days. A coordinated effort to rule the states via their teapub governors.

[NJMaverick]

(03-27-2011 10:31 AM)jaxx Wrote:  Those Koch brothers seem to have their fingers in every rotten legislation pie these days. A coordinated effort to rule the states via their teapub governors.

When you have 40 Billion dollars you have the power to destroy nations, including the United States.

[RoyGBiv]

(03-27-2011 10:31 AM)jaxx Wrote:  Those Koch brothers seem to have their fingers in every rotten legislation pie these days. A coordinated effort to rule the states via their teapub governors.

They've been doing this for a long while. It simply took the Wisconsin protests to bring it more firmly into the public view.