Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder’s new Emergency Financial Manager or Management (EFM) Law and massive cuts to education and services to the poor to fund an 86% business tax cut are getting more and more national attention.
Andy Kroll on the Ed Schultz Show, March 24, 2011:
This mess in Michigan and Wisconsin is just the tip of the iceberg of what is happening across the Country in a nationally coordinated effort to put in place dozens (if not hundreds) of bills and laws written by corporate interests (using ALEC) to close the door on not just labor, but completely takeover how America's laws at the State level, systematically state-by-state, are created and introduced.
In Michigan we had 39 bills, then 46 bills, now over 50+ bills in the system. Ask yourself: Where did all this come from?
UPDATE: WI Prof asked to hand over email by GOP immediately following blog on ALEC - Story going viral.
UPDATE: ALEC Issues Press Release "Setting the Record Straight - Much ado about nothing" - FULL Line by Line ANALYSIS
Translation: "Leave us, the most 'powerful' 'secret' corporate 'lobby' alone or we'll cry..."
More on the Mother Jones article and much more to the story with links to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) below...
Cross-posted from Blogging for Michigan.
RELATED: Gov Rick Snyder Sellout? Prefabricated Corporate Michigan (Government) Courtesy of Koch & ALEC Excl.
Posted Wednesday, March 23, 2011 by Andy Kroll of Mother Jones under the title “Behind Michigan's "Financial Martial Law": Corporations and Right-Wing Billionaires”:
Last week, Michigan's Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed into law a fiercely contested bill giving unelected "emergency financial managers" unprecedented power to shred union contracts, privatize city services, and consolidate or dissolve local governments, all in the name of saving struggling cities and school districts. Dubbed "financial martial law" by one approving state GOP lawmaker and "disaster capitalism" by critics, Snyder and his bill have become a target for Wisconsin-like protests. Several thousand demonstrators marched on the Michigan Capitol in the days before Snyder signed the bill. But gone unmentioned is a little-known Michigan think tank that for years has been pushing for the most controversial provisions in Snyder's bill—and that's bankrolled by some of the same right-wing millionaires and billionaires that backed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his anti-union legislation.
The statement getting national attention that the Michigan EFM is a necessary “financial martial law” is attributed to Republican Michigan State Senator Jack Brandenburg of Harrison Township.
Mother Jones’ Andy Kroll continues under the subtitle “The think tank that inspired Gov. Rick Snyder's controversial bill is bankrolled by some of the same donors that funded Wisconsin's attack on unions”:
Since 2005, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy has urged reforms to Michigan law giving more power and protection to emergency financial managers, state-appointed officials who parachute into ailing cities or school districts and employ drastic measures to fix budgets on the brink of collapse. In January, the free-market-loving center published four recommendations, including granting emergency managers the power to override elected officials (such as a mayor or school board member) and toss out union contracts. All four ended up in Snyder's legislation.
Then we get a little bit of a drill down on the Mackinac Center for Public Policy with a couple connections to Heritage and the Koch brothers:
Mackinac is part of a network of state-based groups associated with the Heritage Foundation, the influential right-wing think tank in Washington. Its past and present board members include Robert Teeter, a GOP strategist and '92 campaign manager for George H.W. Bush; Margaret Rieker, a former vice chairwoman of the Republican National Committee; and Joseph Lehman [current CEO of the Mackinac Center], a former vice president at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington.
More connections between Wisconsin events and Michigan (Mackinac Center for Public Policy) and the Kochs and others in Michigan:
The Mackinac Center does not disclose its donors. But a review of tax records shows that the group's funders include the charitable foundations of the nation's largest corporations and a host of wealthy conservative and libertarian benefactors. Between 2002 and 2009, the Mackinac Center's donors included the Charles G. Koch Foundation ($69,151), founded by the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, who, with his brother, David, is a major backer of conservative causes; the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation ($80,000), the charity tied to the son of the co-founder of Amway, the multibillion-dollar direct marketing company; the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, established by the parents of Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who serves as the foundation's vice president ($195,000); and the Walton Family Foundation ($100,000), established by Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and his wife, Helen.
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Political action committees and non-profit groups linked to some of these same donors also helped fund Scott Walker's gubernatorial campaign and his push to eliminate collective bargaining rights for most public-sector unions. Koch Industries' PAC gave $43,000 to Walker's 2010 campaign, while Wal-Mart's PAC chipped in $15,000. Dick DeVos and his daughter, Elisabeth [this is probably Betsy his wife – their relationship with their two daughters has been ‘strained’ since the failed 2006 campaign], also individually donated to Walker's campaign.
Note: Heritage’s subsidiary in Wisconsin is the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute which has been under close scrutiny these days due to it’s support of Governor Walker and the WI GOP agenda.
More to the Story: Nationally Orchestrated and Coordinated…
Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey, just a few of many Heritage’s ALEC Dominos
What this Mother Jones article does not connect this time are all the current relationships between not just the Koch Brothers and other Billionaires, the Mackinac Center / Heritage Foundation, but Heritage’s American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which has been plastered legislation in America’s State Houses in at least 19 states (so far, there are so many now tracking is difficult) from Rhode Island to Arizona, from Florida and Texas to Michigan and Wisconsin.
Back in 2002, Mother Jones was one of a handful of investigators on the trail of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), like Michigan’s Midland based Mackinac Center, an off-shoot of the Heritage Foundation, which at the center of generating dozens, getting closer to hundreds, of bills in the mess in Wisconsin and in Michigan, and in multiple US States across the country.
From Mother Jones in their September/October 2002 Issue in “Ghostwriting the Law” by Karen Olsson:
On August 7 [2002], thousands of state legislators and corporate lobbyists were scheduled to descend on Orlando, Florida, for the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. There, they could play golf, listen to speeches by Secretary of Education Rod Paige and Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, and attend the Thomas Jefferson Freedom Award Banquet, raising a glass to limited government. Those able to resist the lure of Epcot and Gatorland could also attend sessions on "free market" reforms designed to minimize government's role in health care and curb lawsuits by consumers. And all the while, state representatives and business lobbyists would engage in what ALEC calls an "exchange of ideas" about public policy. But that exchange didn't end when the conferees returned to their home states. With more than 2,400 state lawmakers as members -- roughly one third of the nation's total -- ALEC is a year-round clearinghouse for business-friendly legislation. Its nine task forces, each composed of legislators and representatives from private industry, sit down together to draft model bills on issues ranging from agriculture to school vouchers, which are then introduced in state legislatures across the country.
Now vastly improved, on-line, offering multiple services, and even more prevalent in State Houses across the country, the story of ALEC in it’s latest blitzkrieg across the country (and in Michigan) continues to develop on all fronts not just in the form of cut and paste legislation. For example in Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder’s just appointed former State Representative Mary Ann Middaugh, as Head of the State Ethics Committee, who was a staffer in the Michigan legislature for years, and was the Michigan State Chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
The story of ALEC influence in Michigan budget related legislation follows a trail of crumbs left by a Michigan native son, Jonathan Williams, ALEC Director of the American Legislative Exchange Councils Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force. Author of Rich States, Poor States, Williams, a Northwood graduate, has made a number of visits to the Mackinac Center and the Michigan Legislature as well, presenting ALEC solutions and no doubt passing out ALEC ‘model’ legislation to Michigan Republicans. Williams, since his pitch in Michigan on February 16, 2011, has already been in Illinois, Arkansas and Georgia. Has Williams been selling snake oil in your State House too? More on Jonathan Williams, and his 'private sector' partner Bob Williams, within the Michigan ALEC story is a work in progress.
Most recently, opponents to this national GOP blitz in Ohio have discovered they have a budget-base ALEC infestation as well. In the words of Republican Ohio State Representative John Adams, who was an ALEC 'Legislator of the Year':
“While Ohio must take action at both the state and local levels—certainly a difficult task—there are some things we can do to aide our state’s financial outlook that are quick and involve very little controversy. It’s these little things that can add up to quite a bit, and every penny is going to help us at this stage in the game.
That’s why I [Rep. John Adams] like House Bill 2, a performance auditing bill framed on the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) model legislation. This legislation could eliminate millions of dollars in wasteful spending.
This bill requires the state auditor to conduct performance audits on certain state agencies on a biennial basis. Not only will we be able to evaluate the efficiency and practicality of these state funded agencies, but we can also ensure that their services are being delivered in the most practical way for the benefit of our citizens.”
Yeah, the ‘benefit’ of Ohio’s corporate citizens and other ALEC members that is, we know how the ALEC system works and who really benefits.
In Kansas, ALEC legislators and advisors were so lazy that the ALEC content was “cut and paste” in so completely, that it took a day or two to get the ALEC slogans and formatting out of the bills being put up for a final vote, but not before the ALEC material was identified.
The national GOP ‘playbook’ comes from ALEC in a series of nearly identical business and corporate tax cuts, in Michigan 86%, with a focus on breaking any organized resistance in labor or elsewhere, and redesigning each State as low-wage ‘business and/or entrepreneur friendly’ environments, state by state.
The real danger here is not just in Michigan, it is once the Emergency Financial Management (EFM) model is demonstrated an effective tool for conservatives (political power) and corporate interests (greater profits) in Michigan, but the ALEC machine will franchise EFM across the United States, and in your state too.
Here are some basic instructions posted on March 12, 2011 by D.B.A. Press: “Quick and Dirty: Tracking ALEC ‘model legislation’ through real legislatures”.
What is the name of the Heritage Foundation subsidiary/affiliate in your State? And how much legislation have they introduced in your State? You might want to check, it’s not just in Wisconsin where it was first rediscovered, or a Michigan problem, ALEC is everybody’s problem now.