ALEC

The dismantling of public schools continues:

We began the long process of retooling our public education system, to make it more focused on delivering positive results for our children...We will never back down from the effort to reform our public schools. No child should be forced to attend a failing school.

We've discussed ALEC's "Parent Trigger" before, but the group actually has several different cookie-cutter bills designed to shift resources from public schools to private. The tone and choice of Berger's words led me to this one, a roadmap for declaring schools educationally bankrupt:

It has come to my attention that Buncombe County’s range war has gone largely unnoticed outside the region. Well, better saddle up, partners. Your town is next. For those who don’t have time for deep reading, here’s the story in a nutshell. It's a complicated story I don't fully grasp myself, so excuse the editorializing and lack of complete detail, but you need to know:

Raleigh is acting like rich, cattle barons.
They want our water rights.
They offer pennies on the dollar.
If we refuse, their henchmen take it by force.

There does seem to be a direct connection between Pope, ALEC, and Rep. Tim Moffitt:

And as usual, poor kids will suffer from their influence:

That’s David Powers. He works as a state lobbyist for Reynolds American Tobacco Company. He’s also on the corporate board of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. New Chair Peter Hans was a senior advisor to three Republican senators. Fred Eshelman funds Right Change.com, a hyper-partisan website.

If there is one drawback to having all (or most) of our large public universities fall under the umbrella of the UNC System, it's what could happen if that system got contaminated with free-market fundamentalism:

And in the process, the people themselves will be muzzled:

OVERBY: Yeah, one proposal is called the ALEC Attorney General Authority Act. And to really boil it down, it would give state legislatures more power to tell attorneys general when they can and cannot file lawsuits. Just for example, it says the attorneys general's client is the state, not necessarily the people of the state.

Before I continue, here's a question for SEC members to ask themselves: If the Parmley fiasco had not occurred, which brought about today's hastily-called meeting, would Don Vaughan still be an active member of ALEC and in attendance this weekend in Charlotte? I think you know the answer to that.

The News & Observer reports a groundswell of support for keeping David Parker as Chair of the NCDP. The N&O report is timely for we can see from the Bluenc online poll that support for Parker’s three announced opponents (Baldwin, Eaton and Vaughan) is tepid at best.

Leading the charge for the retention of David Parker, Bill Franklin is a retired Colonel in the US Army and a longstanding member of the Alamance Democratic Executive Committee and the State Executive Committee (SEC).

In an email blast to the SEC, Franklin argued that concerted efforts to remove Parker amount to an orchestrated plot to sabotage Parker’s reforms at the NCDP that empowered the grassroots.

In his now classic missive, Franklin identified Elaine Marshall as the ringleader of the hostile takeover of the NCDP.

Via Ed Cone's blog wordup:

Many years ago, when I joined the American Legislative Exchange Council it was a nonpartisan group which provided a forum for legislators to discuss issues. However, I agree with the many others who have recently left ALEC. In recent years ALEC has become too partisan. Because of that, I am announcing my resignation from ALEC.

It's a step in the right direction, but I'm not sure I'm ready to classify it as a "dealmaker". The timing suggests it was a "reaction" to the negative perceptions of others, as opposed to a "proactive" move based on personal convictions. Which is not to say Vaughan doesn't have said convictions, but I'd rather not have to wonder. And in answer to Senator Doug Berger's admonishment of my opinion:

Not something I would write home about:

Rep. Thom Tillis (R), State Legislator of the Year - 2011
• Rep. Harold Brubaker (R), William J. Raggio Excellence Award - 2009 (currently an ALEC board member)
• Rep. Julia Howard (R), State Legislator of the Year - 2006/2007

It's important to note the man who Chairs the NCGA Budget Committee (Harold Brubaker) has been a loyal and productive member of ALEC for over ten years:

(Washington, D.C.) April 17, 2012—David Frizzell, Indiana State Representative and 2012 National Chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), issued the following statement today on behalf of ALEC’s Legislative Board of Directors:

“Today we are redoubling our efforts on the economic front, a priority that has been the hallmark of our organization for decades. Fostering the exchange of pro-growth, solutions-oriented ideas is precisely why ALEC exists..."

“We are eliminating the ALEC Public Safety and Elections task force that dealt with non-economic issues, and reinvesting these resources in the task forces that focus on the economy. The remaining budgetary and economic issues will be reassigned.

From an email received from Bold Progressives this week:

BIG NEWS: The right-wing ALEC organization issued a panicked response to our campaign to defund them.

After years of ALEC's coordinated attempt to ram voter-suppression and union-busting bills through states like Wisconsin, they accused progressives of running a "well-funded, expertly coordinated intimidation campaign...against corporate members of the organization."

This week, PCCC members aimed thousands of calls (and Tweets) at ALEC's funders -- and won. We're also preparing ads and events at corporate headquarters to pressure more of them.

Our friends at ColorOfChange made huge news last week by pressuring Coke to no longer fund ALEC. We joined the fight Monday, and after a day of massive pressure got the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to pledge no future ALEC funding!