Kossacks, including myself, got an introduction to ALEC's local-government-targeting little brother ACCE this week.
Intrigued, I checked with Bluestem Prairie's Sally Jo Sorensen, the Minnesota expert in all things ALEC, to see if she'd heard of these mokes.
Yup, she's heard of them. Oh, boy, has she heard of them.
Follow me past the orange cartouche of grifterdom, if you will.
The American City-County Exchange, or ACCE, touts itself as "the only free-market forum for local policymakers". What it really looks like is a conservative grifter's wet dream: The goal is not only to con local public officials into letting ACCE destroy their local infrastructure, but getting them to pay ACCE to do it.
Seriously.
Along with the "model ordinances" it has ready for Rand-minded Solons eager to lay waste to any sort of local control, antipollution laws, or anything else standing in the way of the John Galt urge to move in, pillage, and skip town, ACCE has form letters (hat tip to Bluestem) they can submit to their bosses, form letters asking for public funds to travel to ACCE conferences where the attendees can perfect the ACCE/ALEC art of trashing the public trust. It's straight out of the conservative "bleed the beast" playbook, as anyone knows who recalls Ayn Rand's collecting Social Security benefits in her old age. And that's not all the "beast" bleeding they do.
The Guardian's Ed Pilkington was around for the official birthing of ACCE last summer in Dallas. Here's some of what he saw (again, hat tip to Bluestem):
The new network, the American City County Exchange (ACCE), will hold its first public meeting in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday. It is timed to sit alongside Alec’s annual meeting at which the parent body will debate its usual menu of conservative priorities – pushing back government regulation, fighting moves to curb climate change, reducing trade union powers and cutting taxes.
A similar emphasis is evident in the first agenda set for the new offshoot, with the distinction that ACCE hopes to influence elected officials in city and county councils while Alec has its sights largely set on state legislatures. An early draft of the agenda for today’s meeting revealingly listed ACCE’s very first workshop under the simple title: “Privatization” – though in the final version the wording had been sanitized into: “Effective Tools for Promoting Limited Government”.
And as Ms. Sorensen notes, they're not satisfied with trashing your city hall. They're coming for your school board, too. She found
this tidbit over at Edvotes:
Meanwhile, ALEC has spawned a new group to attack children, American workers, and public education. It’s called the American City County Exchange or (ACCE). ACCE will zero-in on those politicians connected to city and county governments as well as local school boards who are willing to accept ALEC’s lavish gifts in exchange for helping to move the group’s conservative, right-wing agenda.
According to newspaper reports, ACCE is already making plans to block employees from having a voice in the workplace and prevent workers from taking advantage of minimum wage increases voters overwhelmingly approved in several states including Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
You know what to do. Tell your local elected officials to stay away from these griftertarian leeches.