Exposed! ‘State Policy Network’ Was Created By ALEC
DeSmogBlog may not be the best-known site in the blogosphere, but they had a big catch on Tuesday. We’re leaving the links from the excerpts cited below intact.
A 1991 report tracked down by DeSmogBlog from the University of California-San Francisco’s Legacy Tobacco Documents reveals that the State Policy Network (SPN) was created by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), raising additional questions over both organizations’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) non-profit tax status.
Titled “Special Report: Burgeoning Conservative Think Tanks” and published by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, the report states that State Policy Network’s precursor — the Madison Group — was “launched by the American Legislative Exchange Council and housed in the Chicago-based Heartland Institute.”
Further, Constance “Connie” Campanella — former ALEC executive director and the first president of the Madison Group — left ALEC in 1988 to create a lobbying firm called Stateside Associates. Stateside uses ALEC meetings (and the meetings of other groups) as lobbying opportunities for its corporate clients.
“Stateside Associates is the largest state and local government affairs firm,” according to its website. “Since 1988, the Stateside team has worked across the 50 states and in many local governments on behalf of dozens of companies, trade associations and government and non-profit clients.”
What makes the revelations particularly interesting has to do with the favorite tax dodge of these political outfits:
ALEC is currently under fire for potentially abusing its 501(c)(3) non-profit IRS charity tax status, acting as a shadow lobbying apparatus and “corporate bill mill” throughout its 40 years of existence.
In response to criticism, internal documents recently revealed by The Guardian show that ALEC created a 501(c)(4) group called the Jeffersonian Project, a move activists said was a tacit admission ALEC has illegally served as a lobbying apparatus from the beginning.
What Campanella understood and cashed in on by creating Stateside Associates was how the “shadow lobbying” process works. Her career move from serving as ALEC’s executive director to setting up Stateside is another indicator ALEC and related groups facilitate lobbying.
The blog post also quotes a former ALEC boss:
[F]ormer ALEC Executive Director Sam Brunelli wrote “winning is what ALEC is all about.”
“Winning is the operative word. It is an experience you can appreciate because winning the public policy debate will continue to have a tremendous positive effect on the ‘bottom line’ of your company,” Brunelli wrote
.
Yes, winning. These days, in the same way as Charlie Sheen, if you catch my drift.
