At a recent meeting in Washington, Aniello Alioto of ProgressNow Colorado summed up the left-wing's campaign against ALEC: "Never relent, never let up pressure, and always increase."
According to the Washington Free Beacon, ProgressNow was one of several left-wing groups meeting at AFL-CIO headquarters earlier this month to plot their ongoing campaign against ALEC.
Other groups included Common Cause and the Color of Change.
So what's got the left so agitated? Is ALEC involved in organized crime? Has it stolen money from state treasuries? Bribed officials? Polluted the environment? Clubbed baby seals?
Nope. The left is targeting ALEC for the simple reason that it's been effective in promoting pro-business, free-market ideas and policies, mainly by drafting model legislation that lawmakers can use as a template in their own legislatures.
Those bills, mind you, still have to make it through their states' representative bodies, and then get signed by their governors.
In other words, it's democracy at work.
But the mere fact that ALEC has succeeded in pushing back on the liberal state has the left in a state of apoplexy.
Instead of debating the group, or working to counter it with their own liberal legislative efforts, they're trying to shut it down.
For a while, the left had little success, until the Trayvon Martin shooting, which it dubiously tied to ALEC's advocacy of state "stand your ground" laws.
As a Common Cause spokeswoman told Businessweek, "The Trayvon Martin thing was like a gift."
Since then, the left has mounted a fierce campaign to target companies that donate to ALEC, acting like reverse extortionists who threaten a PR nightmare unless the companies stop paying up.
They don't even bother to deny it. Color of Change talks about flooding targeted companies with "thousands of phone calls" and how it will "escalate pressure" with radio ads and threats of public action, the Free Beacon reports.
And the Center for Media and Democracy's Lisa Graves boasted to the Washington Post a while back about the "enormous work and preparation behind the scenes by numerous public interest organizations and researchers and writers and journalists across the country," and how it was finally paying off.
As ALEC's Ron Scheberle correctly described it, "this is an all-out intimidation campaign."
Unfortunately, more than a dozen risk-averse corporations have since capitulated, severing ties with ALEC.
Meanwhile, Common Cause has filed an IRS whistle-blower complaint claiming ALEC violated lobbying rules, and it's asking state AGs to investigate the group.
If it all seems out of proportion, it's because this campaign isn't about ALEC. It's about the left's desire to silence voices with which it doesn't agree, and it's about bullying companies into giving only to left-wing causes.
As ALEC's experience shows, the left doesn't want open debate and dialogue or freedom of speech. It wants forced conformity.
What's worse is the fact that "journalists across the country" — including those at the Washington Post and New York Times — who normally pride themselves as champions of free speech, have decided to play along with this campaign rather than call it out.
http://news.investors.com/article/611679/201205161838/left-targets-alec-for-being-free-market-.htm
According to the Washington Free Beacon, ProgressNow was one of several left-wing groups meeting at AFL-CIO headquarters earlier this month to plot their ongoing campaign against ALEC.
Other groups included Common Cause and the Color of Change.
So what's got the left so agitated? Is ALEC involved in organized crime? Has it stolen money from state treasuries? Bribed officials? Polluted the environment? Clubbed baby seals?
Nope. The left is targeting ALEC for the simple reason that it's been effective in promoting pro-business, free-market ideas and policies, mainly by drafting model legislation that lawmakers can use as a template in their own legislatures.
Those bills, mind you, still have to make it through their states' representative bodies, and then get signed by their governors.
In other words, it's democracy at work.
But the mere fact that ALEC has succeeded in pushing back on the liberal state has the left in a state of apoplexy.
Instead of debating the group, or working to counter it with their own liberal legislative efforts, they're trying to shut it down.
For a while, the left had little success, until the Trayvon Martin shooting, which it dubiously tied to ALEC's advocacy of state "stand your ground" laws.
As a Common Cause spokeswoman told Businessweek, "The Trayvon Martin thing was like a gift."
Since then, the left has mounted a fierce campaign to target companies that donate to ALEC, acting like reverse extortionists who threaten a PR nightmare unless the companies stop paying up.
They don't even bother to deny it. Color of Change talks about flooding targeted companies with "thousands of phone calls" and how it will "escalate pressure" with radio ads and threats of public action, the Free Beacon reports.
And the Center for Media and Democracy's Lisa Graves boasted to the Washington Post a while back about the "enormous work and preparation behind the scenes by numerous public interest organizations and researchers and writers and journalists across the country," and how it was finally paying off.
As ALEC's Ron Scheberle correctly described it, "this is an all-out intimidation campaign."
Unfortunately, more than a dozen risk-averse corporations have since capitulated, severing ties with ALEC.
Meanwhile, Common Cause has filed an IRS whistle-blower complaint claiming ALEC violated lobbying rules, and it's asking state AGs to investigate the group.
If it all seems out of proportion, it's because this campaign isn't about ALEC. It's about the left's desire to silence voices with which it doesn't agree, and it's about bullying companies into giving only to left-wing causes.
As ALEC's experience shows, the left doesn't want open debate and dialogue or freedom of speech. It wants forced conformity.
What's worse is the fact that "journalists across the country" — including those at the Washington Post and New York Times — who normally pride themselves as champions of free speech, have decided to play along with this campaign rather than call it out.
http://news.investors.com/article/611679/201205161838/left-targets-alec-for-being-free-market-.htm
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