ALEC feels the heat from anti-corporate campaigns

“ALEC is where our struggles merge,” proclaimed the ALEC Welcoming Committee, a broad coalition of environmental, student, labor, women’s and radical groups organizing a week’s worth of protest against the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as it gathered for its annual summit at the Grand American Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah, last week.

More than a hundred activists welcomed ALEC for the opening of its five-day meeting with a “Parade of Empty Plates.” They surrounded the hotel, banging pots and pans, to highlight the devastating consequences ALEC’s corporatist lobbying has for the poor and middle class. The action and subsequent temporary occupation of Washington Square Park, across the street from the ALEC meetings, received good local media coverage and highlighted some Utahns’ concerns that Governor Gary Herbert is in ALEC’s pocket.

Just a few years ago, ALEC was one of the most powerful lobby groups that no one had ever heard of. Today, it finds itself the target of a number campaigns, protests and legal efforts that intend to expose the ways ALEC undermines democracy through its promotion of corporatism and conservatism.