Corporate America Buys the Statehouse

Feeling just a bit overwhelmed, lately, legislatively speaking? Beleaguered? Under attack?

If it feels like you just can’t keep on top of the constantly more right-wing, not-to-say lunatic legislation—well, there’s a reason. It’s being cranked out like Oscar Mayer cranks out the wieners. And remember the old adage—there are two things you don’t wanna know what went in to: a sausage and a legislative bill?

Well, relax—you won’t know. And why not? Because for the last forty years, a shadowy triumvirate of conservative state legislators, corporations, and think tanks have been beavering away to create more than 800 pieces of legislation, all designed to be tweaked according to state tastes, introduced as legitimate legislation, and then jammed down the throats of the people.

The organization is called ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, though it started out a bit more forthrightly as the Conservative Caucus of State Legislators. And according to Wikipedia, the group has more than 2000 sitting state legislators, or nearly a third of all state legislators.

And what does ALEC espouse? Well, let’s start with the first of three concepts at the top of the group’s website.

Limited government—of course! But mind you, this is not the old Goldwater conservatism of pay-as-you-go, the business of America is business, etc. Here’s what John Nichols, who wrote an exposé on ALEC for The Nation, said on NPR:

According to Nichols, legislation authored by ALEC has as a goal, "the advancement of an agenda that seems to be dictated at almost every turn by multinational corporations. It's to clear the way for lower taxes, less regulation, a lot of protection against lawsuits, [and] ALEC is very, very active in [the] opening up of areas via privatization for corporations to make more money, particularly in places you might not usually expect like public education."^[52] 

Hmmm—is that true? Well, here’s a copy and paste from one of the 800 pieces of model education, taken from the group’s own website:

The Charter Schools Act allows groups of citizens to seek charters from the state to create and operate innovative, outcomes-based schools. These schools would be exempt from state laws and regulations that apply to public schools. Schools are funded on a per-pupil rate, the same as public schools. Currently, Minnesota operates the most well-known program.

How very convenient! So does that mean that the school is free to teach “creation science,” and not evolution? Is geology going to be taught as starting at 4000 years before the birth of Christ? Is daily attendance at chapel going to be funded on my and your dime?

As you might expect, it gets worse; here’s Wikipedia again, with another tidbit of conservative misdoing:

Corrections Corporation of America and The GEO Group, two of the largest for-profit prison companies in the US, have been contributors to the American Legislative Exchange Council. Under their Criminal Justice Task Force, ALEC has developed bills which State legislators can then consult when proposing “tough on crime” initiatives including “Truth in Sentencing” and “Three Strikes” laws. Critics argue that by funding and participating in ALEC’s Criminal Justice Task Forces, private prison companies directly influence legislation for tougher, longer sentences.^[38] ALEC has also worked to pass state laws to create for-profit prisons, which served as a boon to both of the aforementioned contributors.

Say whaaaa?

You’re telling me that we have these draconian laws that have one in three black males going to prison at some point in their lives—all to support a prison industry?

Seems so, for ALEC is divided into 9 task forces, and here they are:

1. Civil Justice

2. Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development

3. Communications and Technology

4. Education

5. Energy, Environment, and Agriculture

6. Health and Human Services

7. International Relations

8. Justice Performance Project

9. Tax and Fiscal Policy

Well, that does cover quite a large tract, hunh? And all of this in secret, because you won’t know where the bills are coming from. Here’s what Arizona Assistant Minority Leader Steve Farley had to say about the group:

I just want to emphasize it’s fine for corporations to be involved in the process. Corporations have the right to present their arguments, but they don’t have the right to do it secretly. They don’t have the right to lobby people and not register as lobbyists. They don’t have the right to take people away on trips, convince them of it, send them back here, and then nobody has seen what’s gone on and how that legislator had gotten that idea and where is it coming from. All I’m asking... is to make sure that all of those expenses are reported as if they are lobbying expenses and all those gifts that legislators received are reported as if they’re receiving gifts from lobbyists. So the public can find out and make up their own minds about who is influencing what.

Seems reasonable, doesn’t it? Well, not according to J. B. Van Hollen, the Wisconsin State Attorney General. He has just declared Leah Vukmir, a state legislator from Wauwatosa, has immunity from turning over her record in the state’s open record standards. And why? Because when in session, the legislators have “immunity” from lawsuits requesting them to turn over records. The problem? The legislature is almost always in session.

"I think the attorney general's position is a radical misinterpretation of that (provisions that are supposed to outline a narrow measure of legislative immunity),” Susan Crawford, a Madison attorney who served as an assistant attorney general and as chief counsel to former Gov. Jim Doyle, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I've never heard a legislator asserting they're above the law, which is what (Vukmir’s) doing. You have to wonder what she's trying to hide."

Do you have to wonder what she’s trying to hide? Probably, if you want the details. But let me spell out to you the general idea:

Frustrated at the national level, corporations have overtaken the state legislatures and are secretly writing legislation that will make them richer, stifle regulation, and ruin the environment at the expense of the American people.

It’s as simple as it is cynical…..

God and Football

OK—random comment time, courtesy of NBC Sports:

According to the Church’s religion, being gay is a sin. As is premarital sex, stealing, addiction etc…

If Butler were to come out in support of any of the other “sins”, then he would also likely would have been asked not to speak because its against the churches beliefs.

The liberal media continues to demonize anyone who has a conservative viewpoint. The church can/ should accept anyone who’s gay, just like they accept anyone who steals, or is addicted to drugs etc. But accepting the person, and promoting and approving of their choices are 2 different things. The church has a right to stick to their beliefs.

Or how’s this?

My only question is which church is practicing true Christianity?

They both claim to be, yet one must be wrong. They can’t both be true! Everyone can fold and manipulate religious text and teachings into whatever fits their “beliefs” or agenda.

I see no problem with them practicing what they believe and denying his speaking.

Whether or not their beliefs are commendable is another story, but it’s certainly within their rights.

Last comment—not because there weren’t many, many more, but because there’s only so much the stomach can take:

The First Church made a good choice “Choice” is so often the word we leave out. They stood for what they believe to be in the best interest for the church. LB may have had a good or great message against bullying. It is easy to see the church was in support of that message. Being a public figure, the church did not want to support his opinions and support of the gay lifestyle. That support would be more harmful to the church and the children they strive to protect. They can be labeled as bullies by the ignorant or called names by So-called Christians who don’t know anything about Christianity. Both views are ignorant. The Church didn’t know before that he would make the statements, they responded after. The second church is part of the shrinking churches that don’t stand for truth.

Now, here’s what all this is about. A professional basketball player, Jason Collins, announced that his is gay. An ex Green Bay Packer, LeRoy Butler, who has a charity supporting breast cancer victims and speaks out on bullying, tweeted a message congratulating Collins. One Wisconsin church cancelled a speaking engagement that they had contracted with Butler, due to his tweet. Another church—St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church, in Madison, Wisconsin—hired Butler, partly to drive the message home: not all Christians believe homosexuality is a sin. So now St. Dunstan’s is scrambling to raise the $8500 needed to pay Butler; it’s money they have, but not for the purpose of spending it on one night of listening to an ex-football player.

On top of it all, St. Dunstan’s is now getting comments like the ones above, though also a considerable number of favorable commentary, as well. And I, rubbing my eyes down here in sunny Puerto Rico, am wondering about it all.

OK—here are my questions: did the church that cancelled Butler have a “right” to do so? Do they have the “right” to make a moral judgment on “homosexuality?” Is the comparison of homosexuality with theft, drunkenness, and other vices justified? Under what circumstances do I have the right to make a moral judgment, and why? Must I respect the right of people to equate my way of life with din and addiction? Lastly, are there circumstances where I have not the right but the obligation to make a moral judgment?

Right—a tall order for a Monday morning. Let me try to make it simpler: currently having no mother, I have borrowed another: Mamina, Raf’s mother. And since it was Mother’s Day, I was sitting yesterday in her living room with everybody else in the family (barring those living elsewhere) watching a home movie shot in the 70’s. We live in a matriarchal society; Wal-Mart Puerto Rico makes more money on Mother’s Day than any other holiday, I would have been disowned had I been absent.

The oldest person in the room was Raf’s father: he’s 83. The youngest was Raf’s nephew; he’s slightly past 10. And it’s significant that he was there, because forty years ago, Mamina had decreed that Raf could not see another one of his nephews. The reason? Raf had come out to his mother and father, and they didn’t want that “influence” on their grandchild.

Yesterday, however, I was busy telling the story of my own mother, who received a call almost half a century ago from the dry cleaner, who had discovered a horde of carrots in the hems of the curtains she had taken to be cleaned. Oh, and did she want the carrots cleaned as well? This led to the question: what were the carrots doing in the curtains? Well, the reason was simple—a carrot rigorously appeared with every lunch, and I had been unable to get the dog to eat the damn things. Was it my fault that the curtains had that inviting open hem?

I was also interrogating the ten-year-old, pumping him for a critique of his aunt, who is also his teacher at the Montessori school he attends. Was she strict, I enquired? What did she do when students didn’t do their work?

Well, I was appalled when the answer came back—she merely raised her voice.

What? Hadn’t she heard: spare the rod and spoil the child?

Spanking, the child informed me, was violence. Oh, and Montessori doesn’t do violence.

“Well, it certainly should,” I said. We went on to have a lengthy discussion on the topic, to the slight annoyance of the aunt, who rightly pointed out that the contrarian views of Uncle Marc would be all over the playground this morning.

Oh, and then another nephew appeared, with whom I try to engage. He went through a rough patch, a decade ago, and Raf and I were called one night when he was physically threatening his mother. So we got him into the back seat of the van, and Raf and I sat on either side of him, as we took him off to the psychiatric hospital. Raf said later that the nephew had held Raf’s hand all the way there.

I tell you this because it’s specific. It has nothing to do with family values or right and wrong or declining moral values or the death of morals or the pollution of minds. When those terms get thrown, I get lost. It may be a failing of mine, but I can only get to the abstract through the everyday stuff.

Which is why I need to know—forty years ago, Raf and I were toxic. Now, we’re, well…Raf and Marc. What happened?

Another question—is it my moral relativism that’s causing the problem? Because yes, if I’m the manager of a Wal-Mart store, and the abusive, gun-yielding estranged husband comes through the door, asking if his wife is working that day, I am NOT going to respond truthfully—“yup, aisle six.” I’m gonna say no, and hope that the security guard drifts by as I do so.

Which is to say that no, I don’t believe that the first church has the right to make a moral judgment about homosexuality. Yes, they have the legal right—it’s a free country, they can think what they want, say what they want (with restrictions), and contract whom they want (also with restrictions). But until they can point to any concrete evidence of the deleterious effect of homosexuality on the family—sorry, they have no moral right to condemn.

Notice the word “concrete” in that last sentence. That means no talk about “traditional values” or “the institution of marriage” or any of that other glop that gets poured into conversation.

Right—so do I get to judge them? Actually, am I morally obliged to judge them?

I may be. Gay teenagers commit substantially more suicides than straight teenagers. Why? Is it because they are intrinsically less psychologically adjusted, or because the social environment created by so many conservative churches has put at times unbearable pressure on kids? If a church is telling a kid—you’re sick and disgusting and going to hell, you freak of nature—well, shouldn’t I make a moral judgment?

I think I’ve defined it, this business of moral judgment that I’ve spent half a lifetime of doing. I think it’s based on damage, on pain, on real concrete suffering. The “monstruo,” as the paper terms him, in Cleveland who has raped and abducted three girls for a decade—it’s easy to point to the concrete wrongs he did, no one needs to hide behind the skirts of “traditional values” or “an errant lifestyle.” But until anybody comes up with anything visible, concrete, and quantifiable, I’m gonna say to those people decrying homosexuality…

No way, you have no moral right to pass judgment.