Who’s Behind Anti-Worker Attacks in Missouri? ALEC

Who's behind all the anti-worker attacks in the Missouri General Assembly, pushing so-called ‘right to work’ and ‘paycheck deception’ bills? The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), among others. Check out all these connections between sponsors and co-sponsors and ALEC:

• Speaker Tim Jones is ALEC’s state co-chair, and has enjoyed numerous ALEC junkets. He is the first co-sponsor of HB77 and HB91.
• HB77 sponsor Eric Burlison has been an ALEC member
• SB71 Sponsor Mike Parson has been an ALEC member
• SB238 sponsor Ed Emery is a former ALEC chairman
• HB95 sponsor Bill White has been an ALEC member
• SB134 sponsor David Sater has introduced other ALEC legislation as his own, even forgetting to remove “{insert state}” placeholders when filing in the Senate
• HB91 sponsor Donna Lichtenegger has been an ALEC member
• House Workforce Development and Workplace Safety Chairman Bill Lant has been an ALEC member
• Senate Majority Floor Leader Ron Richard has been an ALEC member
• HB95 sponsor Bill White has been an ALEC member
• HB95 co-sponsor Rick Brattin has been an ALEC member

Moreover, all of the following so-called ‘right to work’ bills lift mirror ALEC’s model directly, and are not written by Missourians or for Missourians: SB 76, SB 134, SB 238, HB 77, HB 91 and HB 95. A head to head comparison of the bills may be found below.

"Legislators need to be listening to ordinary people, not corporate special interests pushing an extreme agenda," said Sean Soendker Nicholson, Progress Missouri’s Executive Director. "The bills being pushed by ALEC put corporate profits ahead of the well being of average Americans. It's time to make sure that ordinary people--not corporate interests--are in charge of our government."

At least 37 major corporate sponsors have abandoned ALEC in recent months amid mounting criticism of the organization’s extreme agenda, including prominent companies like General Electric, Amazon.com, Coca-Cola, and Walmart. However, corporations such as Koch Industries remain fiercely loyal to the corporate bill factory.

Through ALEC task forces, unelected corporate lobbyists actually vote as equals with state legislators on 'model' bills in closed-door meetings where the press and public are not allowed. Corporations give gifts to ALEC ‘scholarship’ trips for legislators and their families to attend junkets where lobbyists and special interest groups give legislators their wish lists for changing laws. The ALEC corporate bill mill represents the institutionalization of a kind of corruption and distortion of our democracy that is unacceptable to a free people, especially in an era in which corporations and CEOs already have too much influence over our elections and public policies.

Side-by-Side comparison of ALEC Models and bills currently filed in Missouri’s General Assembly: