# American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) The most powerful organization in American politics that most Americans have never heard of. ALEC is a nonprofit that brings together **conservative state legislators and corporate representatives** to draft **model legislation** — pre-written bills that state lawmakers introduce, often verbatim, in legislatures across the country. Founded in 1973, ALEC has become the primary mechanism by which corporate policy preferences become state law, and the Koch Network's most effective instrument for reshaping governance from the bottom up. **98% of ALEC's funding comes from corporations or corporate foundations** — including [[Koch Industries]], ExxonMobil, Pfizer, AT&T, and State Farm. ALEC has approximately **300 corporate, foundation, and private-sector members**, each paying annual fees of $7,000-$25,000 plus task force fees. On the legislative side, ALEC counts roughly **one-quarter of all state legislators** in the country as members. ## How It Works ALEC's model is deceptively simple and extraordinarily effective: 1. **Task forces** — Nine subject-area groups (tax policy, energy, criminal justice, telecommunications, education, etc.) where corporate representatives and legislators sit together as equals to draft legislation 2. **Model bills** — The task forces produce template legislation, pre-written and ready for introduction in any state legislature 3. **Distribution** — ALEC-member legislators take the model bills home and introduce them in their state capitols, often with minimal modification 4. **Coordination** — Because the same template is distributed to members in all 50 states, ALEC can launch coordinated multi-state campaigns on any issue simultaneously 5. **Cover** — The bills are introduced by elected legislators, not lobbyists, giving corporate-drafted legislation the appearance of organic democratic action The result is a **legislation factory** that converts corporate policy preferences into law at industrial scale, bypassing the federal government entirely and working through the more permeable state legislative process. ## Greatest Hits: Laws ALEC Has Shaped ALEC's model legislation has been introduced in some form in virtually every state legislature. The most consequential examples: **Voter ID Laws**: ALEC's model Voter ID Act has been adopted in some form in dozens of states. Critics argue these laws suppress minority and low-income turnout; proponents cite election integrity. The political effect is consistently favorable to Republican candidates. **[[Stand Your Ground Laws]]**: ALEC's model Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground legislation — drafted with [[NRA]] input — was adopted in Florida and other states. Florida's version became notorious after the 2012 Trayvon Martin shooting. The backlash prompted several corporations (Coca-Cola, Kraft, Walmart) to leave ALEC, but the laws remain on the books. **Right-to-Work Laws**: ALEC's model legislation weakening public-sector unions has been adopted across the Midwest and South, contributing to the decline of organized labor's political power. **Anti-Environmental Regulation**: ALEC has produced model legislation opposing state renewable energy mandates, blocking municipal broadband, and preempting local environmental ordinances. **Criminal Justice**: Model "truth in sentencing" and "three strikes" laws that expanded incarceration — though ALEC has more recently pivoted toward criminal justice reform, reflecting the Koch network's bipartisan reform position. **Preemption Laws**: Perhaps ALEC's most structurally important innovation — model bills that prevent cities and counties from passing their own regulations (minimum wage, paid sick leave, plastic bag bans, gun control). Preemption legislation effectively allows state legislatures controlled by ALEC-aligned majorities to override the policy choices of liberal cities within their borders. ## The Koch Connection ALEC and the [[Koch Network]] are deeply intertwined: - **Koch Industries** is an ALEC corporate member - The **Charles Koch Foundation** contributed $449,114 (2015) and $551,571 (2016) to ALEC directly - **Greenpeace** documented $525,858 in Koch foundation contributions between 2005-2011 - ALEC's policy agenda mirrors the Koch libertarian platform: deregulation, tax cuts, union weakening, environmental rollback - ALEC works in tandem with the [[State Policy Network]] (Koch-funded state think tanks provide the intellectual cover; ALEC provides the legislative text) and Americans for Prosperity (Koch's grassroots arm pressures legislators to pass ALEC bills) Together, these three Koch-connected organizations form a **state-level policy machine**: SPN produces the research → ALEC writes the bill → AFP pressures the legislator → the bill passes → the cycle repeats. ## Corporate Exodus and Resilience After the Stand Your Ground/Trayvon Martin controversy (2012-2013) and ALEC's association with voter suppression legislation, dozens of major corporations — including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Walmart, McDonald's, and others — publicly withdrew from ALEC. The organization's public reputation suffered. But ALEC adapted. It restructured its task forces, de-emphasized the most publicly controversial issues (guns, voter ID), and continued operating in its core domain: business regulation, tax policy, energy policy, and telecommunications. The corporate exodus was real but ultimately cosmetic — ALEC's legislative output and influence in state capitals has remained substantial. ## Analytical Framework ALEC is the **inverse of the [[Federalist Society]]**: where the Federalist Society captures the judicial branch from the top down (Supreme Court → circuit courts → district courts), ALEC captures the legislative branch from the bottom up (state legislatures → state policy → federal norms). Together, they represent a pincer movement: Leo's judges protect the legal framework that Koch's legislators create. ALEC also demonstrates the power of **asymmetric investment**: a single model bill, drafted once by corporate lobbyists sitting with state legislators at a luxury resort, can be introduced simultaneously in 30+ state legislatures. No progressive organization operates at equivalent scale or with equivalent coordination — a structural asymmetry that has given conservatives a persistent advantage in state-level policy. ## Receipts (canonical quotes) - [[Paul Weyrich - I don't want everybody to vote]] — 1980 Religious Roundtable, Dallas. The strategic principle (suppress turnout to win) that decades of ALEC voter-ID and election-administration model bills implement. - [[Tommy Thompson - disguise them and declare it's mine]] — 2002 ALEC luncheon. The inside-the-room admission, by a Republican governor and Bush HHS Secretary, of how the model-bill mechanism actually works. - [[Lisa Nelson - laboratories of democracy]] — recurring CEO framing. The Brandeis-borrowing public cover that camouflages 50-state coordinated rollout as pluralistic experimentation. ## See Also - **[[ALEC Ecosystem]]** — Full ecosystem map: task forces, corporate funders, model-bill catalog, state-policy pincer, historical arc - [[Koch Network]] — Primary funding source and strategic partner - [[State Policy Network]] — Complementary 66-state think tank network - [[Americans for Prosperity]] — Koch grassroots-lobbying arm; third leg of the state-policy pincer - [[Jeffersonian Project]] — 501(c)(4) sister organization - [[American City County Exchange]] — ACCE, local-government extension - [[Heartland Institute]] — Climate-denial / anti-ESG research partner - [[Charles Koch]] — Network architect - [[Lisa Nelson]] — CEO (2014–present) - [[Paul Weyrich]] — Co-founder; architect of Heritage/ALEC/CNP triad - [[Henry Hyde]] — Co-founder (as Illinois state legislator) - [[Patricia Rucker]] — 2025 National Chair; WV state senator - [[NRA Political Machine]] — Collaborated on Stand Your Ground legislation - [[Dark Money Ecosystem]] — Full dark money architecture - [[Council for National Policy Ecosystem]] — The coordinating elite room ALEC sits inside