ALEC "Scholarships”!?!

One Term That Makes Clear Who's Running Red States

Scholarship: (n)

• “a grant-in-aid to a student” (Merriam Webster)

• “a sum of money or other aid granted to a student, because of merit, need, etc., to pursue their studies.” (Dictionary.com)

• “an amount of money given to somebody by an organization to help pay for their education” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary)

It’s a simple, consistent definition: Financial help to a student. To learn. To get educated. By someone who knows more.

And generally seen as a good thing, right?

But when I came across the term “scholarship” being used in a different context, it outraged me. I must’ve muttered it a number of times. Imagine this scene from one of my favorite movies growing up—but substitute “scholarship” for “refund”:

But the term’s use also reveals why so much is going wrong in states these days.

The Instructor: ALEC and Far Right Interests

As I explain in my book “Laboratories of Autocracy,” while statehouses are the front line in the advance of the far-right’s economic, social and anti-democracy agenda, this is not happening one state at a time, or by happenstance.

It’s coordinated nationally…by an organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC brings together all sorts of corporate and right-wing members and interests, sets an overarching agenda to satisfy the collective interests of these private entities, then advances that agenda through “model bills” that anonymous state legislators enact back in their gerrymandered states.

For ALEC’s private “members,” this is not mere lobbying — it’s better. They basically write the bills and hand them to the legislators to pass in states.

It’s why so many bills look so much alike across different states. It’s how these red states learn lessons from successes and failures in various states, always adjusting as they approach other states. And it’s why it all seems to be happening so quickly. Accelerating.

Bottom line: States and statehouses are where most of the right’s national agenda gets implemented (not DC, where little happens); and ALEC (and now, other organizations like it), is the quarterback making so much of it happen.

The Scholarship Recipients

But the key step in all this is, of course, that those anonymous state legislators agree to do ALEC’s bidding. To play the role they’re asked to play, using public power to achieve the private agenda set by ALEC and its members. Without that, the whole thing falls apart.

So of course, enlisting those public members (the state legislators) is something ALEC and its private members work very hard to accomplish. They create teams of ALEC public “members” within each state, who become ALEC’s ambassadors and champions, leading the charge to push ALEC laws through their statehouses. Team captains among those legislators accept the responsibility of advancing ALEC’s agenda via their public leadership positions. The most successful ones are recognized for their work.

While ALEC itself doesn’t give political contributions to its many legislative members, those funding ALEC are happy to. Between 1990 and 2011, Governing found that ALEC corporate members gave approximately $200 million to state level candidates and another $85 million to state parties. The incentive is clear: keep ALEC happy, and you raise a lot more money than you can back in Clarksville or Manchester. Recently, support for ALEC’s agenda is also emerging through huge amounts of dark money spending.

But ALEC does one other thing along the way.

They and their corporate members fly these public members (the state legislators) all over the country. To the conference rooms where the legislators and private/corporate/right-wing ALEC members sit together to work through the “model bills” the legislators then take home to pass, often under the impression that the legislation emerged from within the state.

And this is where the term that so offended me rears its ugly head.

As I write in Laboratories:

ALEC’s meetings don’t involve field trips to struggling communities so these lawmakers can best understand their needs (i.e. like more broadband) and what legislation will help. No, these trips are to first-class destinations: Orlando. Salt Lake City. New Orleans. Scottsdale. San Diego. Austin. Denver. All places that would excite wannabe-jet setters…more than driving back home.

Even better, the lawmakers don’t pay for the jaunts. As Governing noted: “Not only do legislators often find their attendance at ALEC meetings paid for through corporate “scholarships,” but once they arrive, they are wined and dined and golf-coursed by the group’s private-sector members. Those ‘scholarships’ and other legislators’ travel expenditures totaled around $4 million between 2006 and 2011 alone, funded by pharmaceutical companies, AT&T, Verizon, and others.

So ALEC is paying for air fare, hotel rooms for families, meals, drinks, baseball games, golf, and the like….

And yes, the ALEC community calls the funds that pay for all these goodies “scholarships.”

Stop and think about that for a moment.

On the one hand, as public officials, these legislators take an oath to serve the people of their states, and abide by their state’s and the nation’s constitutions. That is why they are elected, and that is the duty they sign up for. Once in these public roles, they decide everything from the quality and content of our education to the safety of our environment to the level of access to and quality of health care. And they control everything from whether women can exercise reproductive freedom to whether children feel safe in schools. Because of gerrymandering, most of these officials never face any accountability back home for their work in these state capitals.

In short, they wield a whole lot of power—mostly unaccountable power—over the people and communities of their states, on issues that directly impact millions.

But once in the high-flying world of ALEC, these public officials go from being at the top of that power totem pole to the bottom.

They are…scholarship recipients.

Class is in!!

Students. On ALEC jaunts to be educated.

Framing them that way, ALEC and its backers could not be more clearly signaling the power dynamic in the relationship. As ALEC once wrote in a grant proposal, most state legislators “lack the staff and resources to be truly informed on all these issues.”

Indeed, many legislators are new to state government—or new to government entirely—and are usually there for short stints. Most have little experience in the subjects on which they make decisions, and their staffs are small. So ALEC, up to its ears in corporate interests, brings its own research and “experts” to the table to “educate” the legislators on all the things they need to “learn.” These same ALEC teachers will often parachute back into states once the student-members present legislation back in state capitals.

So in the right-wing ecosystem that is driving public outcomes downhill all over America—always advancing toxic, anti-freedom extremism at the expense of everyday Americans—those who represent the public interest are treated as a students in a classroom, learning from the private powers-that-be.

And they’re even bestowed with “scholarships” so they can play their subservient role within the power dynamic. Not just at the fancy conferences, but back in the states where they are supposed to be serving the public, but instead advance the interests of ALEC’s national membership.

Says it all, doesn’t it?

See why the term sets me off so much? Like Mr. Stoller in Breaking Away?

The Big Picture: What Is ALEC Buying Via Scholarships?

Now let’s go beyond the scholarships themselves.

Let’s take a step back and think about the overall tab for active ALEC members. (Not the legislators, whose annual dues are $100 for two years and get so much paid for, but the private side).

The private members pay annual membership dues—starting at between $12,000 and $25,000, and far higher depending on what access they get. They pay $5,000 more to sit on a task force, which secures them a vote equal to a legislator on that task force. They make contributions to ALEC legislator-members around the country. And together, they dole out millions more in “scholarships” to fly thousands of politicians to nice cities, stay in fancy hotels and gorge on fine meals. They then shepherd those politicians into closed- door conference rooms they’re also paying for and entering.

What is all this buying them?

In reality?

A seat at the same table as those legislators.

Not simply access. Not just to give their opinion. But a coveted spot at the table to actually “write” laws together—as if everyone at the table was elected to do so—and with rules that give them at least an equal say (along with a veto).

They are legislating. Not just those elected officials. But the private donors themselves. They are sharing in the exercise of public power. The public members (legislators) were elected to exercise that power; the private members bought their way into the power-sharing arrangement.

And with the scholarships, they’ve flown legislators in from all over the country to get them in that room so they can legislate together, as equals.

They’ve privatized the legislative process of dozens of states, and those private members have purchased themselves a vote equal to elected officials in that process across those states.

It’s like those old ads from Mastercard:

Membership: $20,000

A Task Force Vote: $5,000 Scholarships: millions

Being a private legislator: priceless!

The list of ALEC task forces shows you the breadth of the agenda: Communications and Technology; Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development; Energy Environment and Agriculture; Health and Human Services; Tax and Fiscal Policy; and others. Together, ALEC and these task forces generate hundreds of laws, the common theme of which is that these bills aggressively advance the interests of private players at the expense of the public good. None of them has anything to do with the people of Manchester or Urbana or Clarksville. Sadly, the elected representatives of many of these communities are the very ALEC members whose participation directly undermines their own communities’ interests.

Bottom line: we have a national organization, funded by major private corporations, that has privatized the state legislative process. And it’s juiced that process to entice state legislators from across the country to be part of it all. Through many tools, including….scholarships!

What could go wrong?