You know those moments when you notice something that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but you let it go because maybe you’ve got it wrong and no one else seems to notice? Well, we have a problem that can’t be overlooked anymore.
We almost made decisions during the Colorado legislative session that would have delayed if not made it impossible to implement the Clean Power Plan in our state, and another that would have rolled back our renewable energy standard. With such profound changes on the table, the public needs to know who is writing proposed legislation and why. During this debate, we were left in the dark.
The policy proposals were based on model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a national outfit that brings big corporations and legislators together behind closed doors to develop and promote legislation, despite being registered as a “charity” in Colorado.
There are at least a couple of problems here. One, an organization that serves up model legislation to lawmakers is engaged in lobbying, plain and simple. But there are no lobbyist disclosures from the organization about this or any other issue in Colorado.
Two, an organization that regularly lobbies lawmakers to pass model legislation has no business masquerading as a tax-exempt 501(c)3 charity. In addition to lack of disclosure, ALEC’s public charity status enables corporations to get tax breaks for their funding of ALEC.
ALEC is well known as an organization with a unique membership — a combination of the largest corporations in America and state legislators. It’s hard to imagine what they might be doing together other than talking about potential legislation (aka lobbying). Even though this is well-documented information, ALEC continues to lobby state lawmakers on behalf of corporations without disclosing its activities.
Last month, ALEC convened state legislators and corporate lobbyists from across the country for a conference in Savannah, Ga. Colorado legislators who attend ALEC’s meetings are able to get corporate-funded “scholarships” through ALEC to attend these meetings, while the original corporations who paid for the legislators’ junkets remain secret to the public.
In new evidence submitted in the ongoing IRS whistleblower complaint against ALEC, Common Cause and the Center for Media and Democracy included statements by 20 major corporations that admit that they joined and maintained membership in ALEC to influence legislation and gain access to lawmakers. The new filing also includes the recent finding of the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board that “ALEC’s primary purpose is the passage of state legislation in the various states and that all of its wide-ranging activities are in support of this primary purpose.”
Yet, ALEC continues to deny that it is engaged in lobbying, submitting annual reports to the IRS with “$0” filled in on a line designated for the amount it spends on lobbying.
Whatever your thoughts on the renewable energy standard and the Clean Power Plan, we need to make sure that the public knows who the players are pushing, or opposing, laws that could significantly change how we produce and consume energy in Colorado.
Katie Dahl is associate director of Colorado Common Cause. Becky Long is advocacy director of Conservation Colorado.
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