By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor

“It is a worrisome marriage of corporations and politicians, which seems to normalize a kind of corruption of the legislative process” – Lisa Graves, Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy

For almost four decades, the American Legislative Exchange Council, known by its acronym, “ALEC,” has worked hard on behalf of corporate America and right wing causes, helping to draft, build support for and pass laws through state legislatures across the nation—and doing so in relative anonymity, even as it skirts numerous state laws limiting corporate gift-giving and other forms of influence-peddling. It was never really clear why ALEC’s existence stayed such a secret, particularly since it wasn’t a secret. It’s just that, somehow, people seemed to ignore it, even though it wielded staggering amounts of power in legally questionable ways.
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