Model Legislation for Faith and Profit: ALEC
Founded in 1973 to promote conservative positions on social issues like abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) had by the early 1990s partnered with corporate America to become, in the words of Newt Gingrich, “the most effective organization” for promoting conservatism and federalism. It functions primarily as a source of model legislation promoting GOP policies at the state level.
ALEC was first established in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, a co-founder of the Heritage Foundation who is often also credited with coining the term “moral majority”. Through ALEC, he sought to promote conservative positions on social issues like abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment. By the early 1990s, the group had partnered with corporate America to become, in the words of Newt Gingrich, “the most effective organization” for promoting conservatism and federalism. The Center for Public Integrity called it “the nation’s best-known ‘model’-bill factory”. ALEC provides legislators in all 50 states and the US Congress with fill-in-the-blank legislation promoting a broad range of conservative and anti-democracy policies.
Among more than 800 laws documented in a 2011 investigation of ALEC by the Center for Media and Democracy, ALEC promoted laws that made it more difficult for low income, elderly, people of color, and students to vote; opposed regulation of greenhouse gas emissions by the Environmental Protection Agency; and supported changes to the tax code that favored the wealthy and large corporations.
In a more recent report, USA Today, The Arizona Republic, and the Center for Public Integrity investigated ALEC’s output from 2010 through 2018. Investigators found that more than 2,900 bills based on ALEC models were introduced and 600 of them became law.
ALEC’s current model policies touch on issues relating to amending the Constitution and certifying teachers, among many others. One entitled “A Next-Generation Tax and Expenditure Limitation Act” recommends imposing spending limits while making it harder to enact tax increases.
