Brian Fojtik on the American Legislative Exchange Council:

In recent months, ALEC has become a target of a sloppily-orchestrated, but well-funded effort by conspiracy theorists and anarchists (think “Occupy”) who care more about creating another dark, sinister boogeyman to scare you rather than honestly and seriously confront the challenges before us. …

A number of legislative organizations similar to ALEC exist across the country. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), like ALEC, brings together legislators and policymakers from across the country who listen to and work with members of the private sector in an effort to promote public policy and learn about what’s worked — and what hasn’t worked — in their respective states. …

ALEC is being portrayed as something different than some of those groups. And, ALEC is different. It’s different in that it adheres to its very open and publicly-stated philosophy of advancing the “Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty, through a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America’s state legislators, members of the private sector, the federal government and the general public.” I’ll give you an example of how that plays out in practice. When the federal government imposes mandates upon the states (i.e. Medicaid) while some groups might seek higher federal funding levels or more flexibility to fulfill those mandates, because of its limited government philosophy, a group like ALEC might be more inclined to oppose the mandates outright or suggest even more freedom for states to fulfill a mission (i.e. providing healthcare for the poor) in their own ways, less-restricted (or unrestricted) by federal controls.

Many of the recent attacks on ALEC seem to focus to a great extent on ALEC’s work to promote “model legislation” to be considered in states across the country as some sort of devious plot to avoid the legislative process in the states. Nothing could be further from the truth. These absurd attacks ignore the reality that other groups promote goals and objectives in public policy all the time. It’s a lengthy and tedious process to have proposed legislation achieve “model bill” status endorsed by groups such as NCSL or ALEC. And these “model bills,” if introduced by a legislator in a particular state, have no special status or fast-track to becoming law. They are merely bills written and introduced by a legislator, that must go through the exact same legislative process as any other bill introduced in that state. They must be drafted and introduced by an elected legislator, they’re distributed for cosponsorship opportunities, they’re written about and reported on by the media, and they must go through the committee and legislative process in two houses of the state legislature (except for Nebraska which is a unicameral) and be discussed, debated, criticized, lauded, amended and voted upon — all subject to the same open records and open meetings requirements as any other piece of legislation. …

Much of the criticism you may have seen or will continue to see about ALEC seems to be centered around the fact that the private sector is involved in ALEC and the ALEC process. Frankly, this is a strength of ALEC, rather than a detriment.

Many of the more unhinged attacks on ALEC have come from within these state lines. And you can see why — according to ALEC’s Wisconsin critics, the only ideas the Legislature should be allowed to consider should emanate from Wisconsin. (Instead of socialist Europe, source of numerous brain-dead Democrat ideas. Otto von Bismarck was not a Wisconsinite.)

What kind of fascist ideas does ALEC support?

• “Building priority-based budgets.” (As opposed to budgets with billions of dollars of red ink in them, which gets to another point, “Addressing State Unfunded Liabilities.”)
• Economic freedom, increased employment and limiting government regulation, along with promoting free trade.
• Reducing corrections spending.
• Parental choice in education. (ALEC has committed the mortal sin of questioning the quality of American education. In its Report Card on American Education, Wisconsin ranks 19th in education performance and gets a B-minus grade in education reform.)
• Stopping the Environmental Protection Agency’s “regulatory trainwreck.” (So does the Department of Natural Resources inspire the EPA, or vice versa?)
• Free-market environmentalism.
• Repealing Obamacare, which promises to make health care worse yet more expensive, and replacing it with “free-market, pro-patient health care reforms at the state level.” (State Sen. Leah Vukmir (R–Wauwatosa) cochairs ALEC’s Health and Human Services task force.)
• Restoring the 10th Amendment balance between the feds and state governments.

What a radical list. Indeed, it seems as if ALEC’s proposals follow Article I, section 22 of the state Constitution — “The blessings of a free government can only be maintained by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles” — better than the Legislature does.

Good or bad ideas are not good or bad based on their source. As we’ve seen from the mess within Republican presidential caucuses, primary elections were a good Wisconsin idea. Giving government employees collective bargaining was and is a bad idea. The lack of budget and tax controls in the state Constitution was an error of omission. And nothing ALEC suggests becomes law unless legislators elected by Wisconsin voters vote for it and a governor elected by Wisconsin voters signs it into law.