From Wikipedia:
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a 501(c)(3) American organization composed of legislators, businesses and foundations which produces model policies for state legislatures and promotes free-markets, limited government, and federalism at the state level.[3] According to the organization's website, members share a common belief that "government closest to the people" is "fundamentally more effective, more just, and a better guarantor of freedom than the distant, bloated federal government in Washington, D.C."[1][4] In a Dec. 2011 opinion piece critical of ALEC which appeared in The Nation magazine, John Nichols described ALEC as a "collaboration between multinational corporations and conservative state legislators."[5]
FROM PR WATCH.ORG BY BRENDON FISCHER
TIME TO REPEAL ALEC/NRA STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS.
ALEC Has Backed More Than Stand Your Ground
The Trayvon Martin tragedy has never been exclusively about Stand Your Ground laws. The case has captured the nation's attention because it serves as a reminder of the persistent racial inequities that continue to plague the country, such as the too-common presumption that young black men are criminals and the ways the criminal justice system persistently fails communities of color.
And ALEC's connections to those issues are not limited to Stand Your Ground. The group was instrumental in pushing "three strikes" and "truth in sentencing" laws that in recent decades have helped the U.S. incarcerate more human beings than any other country, with people of color making up 60 percent of those incarcerated. At the same time ALEC was pushing laws to put more people in prison for more time, they were advancing legislation to warehouse them in for-profit prisons, which would benefit contemporaneous ALEC members like the Corrections Corporation of America.
ALEC has also played a key role in the spread of restrictive voter ID legislation that would make it harder to vote for as many as ten million people nationwide -- largely people of color and students -- who do not have the state-issued identification cards the laws require.
ALEC began to focus on voter ID shortly after the 2008 elections, where high turnout from college students and voters of color helped sweep America's first black president into office. Soon after those elections, ALEC began promoting the myth of voter fraud (with "Preventing Election Fraud" as a cover story on the Inside ALECmagazine), and ALEC corporations and politicians voted in 2009 for "model" voter ID legislation. Bills reflecting ALEC's model Voter ID Act were subsequently introduced in a majority of states.
In some states, voter ID restrictions were blocked by the Department of Justice under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act -- but the U.S. Supreme Court recently held that states subject to Section 5 need not seek pre-approval from the federal government before changing voting rules. After the Court's decision in that case,Shelby County v. Holder, states with a history of legalized discrimination quickly rushed to pass and implement ALEC-inspired voter ID laws.
But "our country has changed," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the decision.
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