ALEC Exposed: Now Tell the IRS to Investigate

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ALEC Exposed: Now Tell the IRS to Investigate

ALEC Exposed: Take Action! ALEC – the American Legislative Exchange Council – is a secretive and powerful front group of corporations that are investing millions of dollars a year to write business-friendly legislation at the expense of the middle class.

A new website (ALECexposed.org) reveals that ALEC has drafted more than 800 model bills for state legislators – including bills to make it more difficult for citizens to vote, and even a resolution in support of the horrendous Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates for corporate money in our elections.

Worse, they are lobbying in state capitals across the country, all while claiming to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that they are a charitable organization that does NO lobbying – and therefore receiving certain tax benefits.

Join Common Cause in telling the IRS to launch an immediate investigation into whether ALEC should have its tax-exempt status revoked!

Take Action

Please sign on to our petition to the IRS. Click here to see our full letter.

I strongly urge the Internal Revenue Service to launch an immediate investigation into the activities of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and whether its tax-exempt status as a public charity should be revoked.

ALEC appears to be a platform whereby private commercial interests pay substantial sums of money to put their legislative interests in front of state legislators who can promote appropriate legislation.  It develops and promotes model bills in task forces where only private business interests and legislators participate; there seems to be no attempt to review considerations of public benefit or social good.  The driving force is promotion of corporate business interests.  This would be all well and good for a chamber of commerce, but it is not charitable.

Yet by claiming to be a charity and calling participating legislators “members” ALEC attempts to evade disclosure of its lobbying, allows corporate members to deduct their payments as charitable contributions rather than non-deductible lobbying expenses, and does an end-run around state ethics laws intended to restrict the ability of businesses to buy access to legislators in order to promote their policy agendas.  The IRS should stop allowing the continuation of this farce.

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