ALEC
The Corporate Bill-Mill
Embedded Files
In ALEC's own words, corporate members have "a VOICE and a VOTE" on specific changes to the law. Corporations sit alongside state legislators in closed-door meetings, help draft model legislation, vote to approve it, and then watch it introduced in statehouses across the country — without disclosure that it originated with ALEC. Approximately 200 ALEC-derived model bills become law every year.
This is happening in your state right now.
What ALEC Is
The American Legislative Exchange Council was founded in 1973 in Chicago — the same year Paul Weyrich co-founded The Heritage Foundation. Both organizations share the same founding ideology, overlapping funders, and interlocking infrastructure. They were designed to work together: Heritage shapes federal policy, ALEC passes it into state law.
ALEC describes itself as a nonpartisan membership association for conservative state lawmakers. Its own internal documents describe it more accurately: a corporate bill-mill where corporations pay to sit alongside state legislators, help draft model legislation, and vote on it. The legislators then introduce that legislation as their own proposals, typically without disclosing that it originated in a private hotel meeting with corporate lobbyists. Over 98% of ALEC's revenue comes from corporations and corporate foundations — not from legislative dues. Britannica
How It Works — The Model Legislation Machine
ALEC operates through task forces on specific issue areas. Each task force includes both state legislators and corporate representatives who draft model legislation together. Once approved, the model bills become available to any member legislator to introduce in their own state.
Corporate members of ALEC sit on all task forces, vote alongside legislators to approve model bills, and have their own corporate governing board that meets jointly with the legislative board. This is not lobbying in the traditional sense. ALEC puts corporations in the room where legislation is written.
Approximately 200 ALEC-derived model bills become law each year. Bills based on ALEC models were introduced nearly 2,900 times between 2010 and 2018. Britannica The legislation your state representative introduced last session may have been written in an ALEC task force meeting — and you would have no way of knowing. ProPublica
The Secrecy Problem
ALEC has never disclosed the names of its legislative members or the actual count of members in any given year. Internal records obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy showed that ALEC had only 897 legislative members in early 2020 — less than half the number it publicly claims. American Prospect
The model bills introduced by ALEC legislators are rarely presented as ALEC-derived. There is no disclosure requirement. Constituents have no mechanism to know that the bill their state representative introduced was drafted in a private meeting with corporate lobbyists.
What ALEC Has Pushed Into Law
ALEC's task forces have produced model legislation Brookings across virtually every area of state policy:
Voter ID and election restrictions — widely adopted across Republican-controlled states; civil rights organizations document disproportionate impact on minority, elderly, and low-income voters
Anti-union legislation — right-to-work laws, restrictions on public sector collective bargaining, weakening of labor protections across multiple states
Environmental deregulation — loosening of state environmental regulations; climate denial framing embedded in energy policy
School privatization — voucher programs, charter school expansion, and the defunding of public education systems
Criminal justice — mandatory minimum sentencing, private prison contracts, restrictions on early release
Tax policy — reducing corporate and top-bracket income taxes, opposing progressive revenue measures
Immigration enforcement — model bills expanding state-level immigration policing, coordinating with federal enforcement operations
The Anti-ESG Campaign — A Direct Attack on Boycotts
ALEC's campaign against ESG investing deserves particular attention because it directly targets the boycott and divestment strategy that holds corporations accountable.
The Energy Discrimination Elimination Act — developed through ALEC's energy task force in coordination with the Heritage Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation — requires states to bar financial institutions from state contracts if those institutions decline to do business with fossil fuel companies. It also requires companies to provide written certification that they will not boycott energy companies as a condition of state contracting. The Nation
This is legislation designed to make boycotts of fossil fuel companies illegal for institutional investors. It has passed in multiple states. The lesson: ALEC is not only passing its own agenda. It is actively working to disable the tools used to oppose it.
Who Funds ALEC
ALEC does not publicly disclose its current corporate members. The Bradley Foundation is ALEC's largest identifiable funder. The Koch family foundations are the second largest. Other documented funders include ExxonMobil, PhRMA, tobacco companies, private prison companies, and telecommunications corporations — consistently funding the task forces that produce legislation affecting their own industries. American Prospect
The 2012 Pressure Campaign — Proof That It Works
In 2012, sustained public pressure following reporting on ALEC's Stand Your Ground model legislation led to major corporate departures: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, McDonald's, Wendy's, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and more than 100 others cut ties with ALEC. Wikipedia
The Bradley Foundation subsequently provided $250,000 to ALEC specifically to help it "respond to the citizen campaigning that resulted in over a hundred corporations cutting ties with ALEC." ALEC used the funds to build communications and opposition research infrastructure to resist future pressure campaigns. SourceWatch
Two things are clear from this: sustained, coordinated public pressure works against ALEC's corporate membership. And ALEC itself recognized the threat seriously enough to seek emergency funding to counter it.
What Can Be Done ✅
Identify ALEC legislation in your state:
ALEC Exposed — the primary database of ALEC model bills, corporate members, and legislative activity. When your state legislator introduces a bill, compare its text against ALEC's model bill database here.
SourceWatch — ALEC — comprehensive documentation of ALEC funding, membership, and legislative activity
Demand disclosure:
Contact your state legislators demanding public disclosure of any ALEC membership and any ALEC-derived bills they introduce
Attend state legislative hearings on model bills and ask on the record where the legislation originated
Support state-level legislation requiring disclosure of model bill sources
Apply corporate pressure:
Research whether companies you purchase from are current ALEC members
Contact corporate customer service and investor relations departments asking whether the company is an ALEC member and whether it supports ALEC's legislative agenda
Support shareholder resolutions demanding disclosure of ALEC membership and political spending
Support counter-organizations:
Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) — primary investigative resource on ALEC
Common Cause — campaign finance reform and ALEC transparency campaigns
People for the American Way — monitoring ALEC's legislative agenda
Documents in this library: 📄 ALEC — Organizational Profile & Threat Assessment
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