Legislators and corporate lobbyists meet in secret at Georgia resort

ALEC has been dictating laws that favor corporations to the detriment of citizens for over 30 years. But it was ignored by our so-called liberal media until a few years ago, when people started becoming aware of it because of info shared on the internet. It still rarely gets mention in the mainstream media. I thank this station for being an exception.

http://www.11alive.com/story/news/local/investigations/2015/05/21/investigators-legislators-and-corporate-lobbyists-meet-in-secret-at-georgia-resort/27695105/

Brendan Keefe and Michael King, WXIA-TV, Atlanta
May 22, 2015

The Georgia Legislature has a message for voters: don't ask us about our meetings with corporate lobbyists behind closed doors.

The 11Alive Investigators tracked lawmakers to a resort hotel in Savannah last week, where we observed state legislators and lobbyists mingling in the hotel bar the night before they gathered in private rooms to decide what new laws would best serve the corporations.

The meetings were part of the Spring Task Force Summit of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.

What is ALEC?

"It's really a corporate bill mill," said Sen. Nan Orrock, an Atlanta Democrat who has served in both houses of the Georgia General Assembly for years. "They're cranking out legislation, putting it into the hands of legislators who go back and file it."

Orrock would know. She was once a member of ALEC.

"The corporations that are there have equal standing with the legislators," Sen. Orrock said.

"You mean they can vote?" we asked.

"They absolutely can vote, and truth be told, they write the bills," she answered, referring to the lobbyists.

There really are back rooms where corporate lobbyists have direct access to lawmakers completely out of sight, with no transparency or public filings. They're also wined and dined after hours at these events with nothing recorded on ethics reports.

We know because we saw one of these back rooms with our own eyes, and were kicked out with the aid of off-duty police officers on orders from ALEC staff.

•••••

The 11Alive Investigators filed half a dozen open records requests with Georgia senators and representatives, asking for receipts and reimbursement records for travel to ALEC events.

The legislative counsel, Wayne Allen, responded on Wednesday, "your request is denied." Allen added, "The General Assembly is not subject to the Georgia Open Records law."

That's right, lawmakers exempted themselves from a law they passed to make Georgia government more transparent. But that doesn't stop some lawmakers from talking about the perks to complete strangers in the hotel bar.

•••••

What are these resort meetings all about? By all accounts, the goal is to create new laws in all 50 states. ALEC Task Force Summits, like the one in Savannah, produce 'model legislation' that is later approved at the annual meeting. These are ready-made bills with actual blanks where legislators can fill in their state's name and existing code.

Several laws currently on the books, under which Georgians are governed, were born in back rooms at resort hotels.

Georgia's Asbestos Claims Priorities Act severely limits who can file asbestos claims against corporations in the state. It was passed in 2007, the same year its sponsors received thousands to attend ALEC conferences. The co-chair of the ALEC task force that year was a top corporate defense lawyer.

The 11Alive Investigators tracked the asbestos bill all the way to the place if its birth: The Venetian Hotel and Casino. The Georgia law began as ALEC model legislation first approved in a hotel meeting room in Las Vegas.

•••••

==============================================

For more about ALEC, see the following link:

http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed