Only One Way to Really Stop ALEC

No, this was not a progressive victory and this war is far from over.

Color of Change, which led the boycott, calls ALEC’s move a “PR stunt“:

ALEC’s latest statement is nothing more than a PR stunt aimed at diverting attention from its agenda, which has done serious damage to our communities. To simply say they are stopping non-economic work does not provide justice to the millions of Americas whose lives are impacted by these dangerous and discriminatory laws courtesy of ALEC and its corporate backers. It’s clear that major corporations were in bed with an institution that has worked against basic American values such as the right to vote. Now that these companies are aware of what they’ve supported, what will they do about it? If ALEC’s corporate supporters will not hold the institution accountable for the damage it has caused nationwide, then the ColorOfChange community will hold them accountable.

You know goddamn good and well that ALEC is just going to keep doing the same shit under another name. So the real solution is to fight fire with fire. We need a progressive counterweight to ALEC.

David Dayen at Firedoglake:

The campaign has garnered national attention, but I’ve been wondering where this game ends. The problem with ALEC is of corporate underwriting. Companies support the organization with funding, and Republican state legislators join up as members, sit down with these corporate interests, and share legislation that they model and bring back to their states. What’s getting these corporations into trouble is that they are having to answer for ALEC-modeled legislation well far afield of their core business, like anti-abortion laws or the pro-gun Stand Your Ground law. For consumer operations, this is just terrible branding; Democrats eat at Wendy’s and McDonald’s and drink Pepsi and Coke as well.

But the idea of a central clearinghouse for legislation, to support often part-time, underfunded and understaffed state legislators, is not an inherently evil one. In fact, progressives have been trying to create such a space for 40 years, pretty much since the creation of ALEC.

For example, the Progressive States Network is a group founded seven years ago whose mission is to “engage and build the capacity of state and national leaders to advance public policy solutions that uphold America’s promise to be a just and equitable democracy.” They are but one of several attempts in this space to help coordinate state legislative activities on the progressive side. “We see ourselves as connective tissue,” said Charles Monaco, director of communications and new media for PSN. The organization works closely with state-based groups as well as national policy shops, providing connections to policy research, campaign strategies and legislative initiatives to state legislators and their staffs. “If there’s a great immigration policy in one state, that’s the type of thing that should get traded across state lines,” Monaco said.

Unlike ALEC, state legislators are not formal members. In that sense, it differs from ALEC, which is strictly a pay-to-play operation. State lawmakers who join up with ALEC quite literally pay for access to corporate interests, who they know can support them in future campaigns if they carry their bills for them. That structure doesn’t exist on the progressive side.

“It’s a question we’ve been trying to answer for years in number of ways,” said Monaco of PSN. “We try to get state legislators to think of themselves as a national progressive movement.” But that doesn’t equal the lure of money to finance future elections.

And this is why it has been such a challenge to create a progressive version of ALEC.

Read the whole thing.