The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the right-wing legislation mill, is on the defensive. From the murder of Trayvon Martin—in which the killer, George Zimmerman, was shielded by an ALEC-inspired stand-your-ground-law—to the voter suppression laws it's been responsible for around the country, the organization has been in the public eye and has suffered for it. They've lost about a
dozen supporters, have been forced to say they are abandoning non-economic issues, and are in desperate need of some shoring up of their public image.
So where do they turn? The right-wing blogosphere.
ALEC Director of External Relations Caitlyn Korb spoke yesterday at a Heritage Foundation "Bloggers Briefing," begging conservative bloggers for help while prepping "a very aggressive campaign to really spread the word about what we actually do." Korb appears to be a new ALEC employee who recently worked for the Cato Institute. Both ALEC and Cato have received funding from Koch family foundations. The Heritage Foundation is an ALEC member. [...]
Korb pleaded for help on social media: "We're getting absolutely killed in social media venues—Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest (I didn't even know Pinterest was a forum for a lot of political opposition, but now it is)—so any and all new media support you guys can provide would be so helpful, not just to us but to average people who don't know much about this fight but are seeing us get really heavily attacked with very little opposition."
It might be too late. They've
lost a Republican legislator, Louisiana Rep. Greg Cromer.
Cromer emailed his resignation today to Laura Elliott, ALEC's director of state programs.
"It has been brought to my attention that there have been meetings and/or activities with ALEC staff members within the state of Louisiana that I have not been privy to," Cromer wrote. "As a courtesy I believe I should have been notified as to any activities that ALEC staff were expected to participate in within the state of Louisiana."
That's an effective way to make sure that his fingerprints won't be on any ALEC-inspired legislation in his state, like the
public employees' pension "reform" ALEC is pushing, sure to get much greater scrutiny now that ALEC has been exposed.
If Republican lawmakers are now jumping ship, too, there aren't enough right-wing bloggers out there to make ALEC's problems go away.