The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) claims on its website that it “is committed to transparency and proactively shares its tax documents with the public.” If this were true, the organization known for its closed-door development of right-wing model legislation would list its donors and make its last three IRS filings — for 2022, 2023, and 2024 — available on its website. As of publishing, the most recent filing available on its website is from 2021.
In July of that year, ALEC CEO Lisa Nelson told The Salt Lake Tribune that her group “fill[s] out the same 990 [tax form] that every other organization does” and that the filings are “available on our website.”
Asked if ALEC’s tax records include “all the funders,” Nelson dodged, saying that the filings “[go] through all our funding.”
A Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) review of ALEC’s 2024 Annual Report and IRS filings for 2019–23 found that the organization raised a total of $59.3 million. ALEC disclosed raising $4.4 million in conference revenue and $331,310 in membership dues in that timeframe — leaving $54.6 million in undisclosed revenue in those five years. Legislators’ dues amount to less than 1% of ALEC’s revenue.
Through an analysis of hundreds of tax filings, annual reports and corporate disclosures, CMD has identified $19.1 million (35%) of this undisclosed revenue from 105 sources. Many of these organizations have yet to file their 2024 IRS tax forms.
ALEC’s largest identifiable funder is the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, which funneled $3.6 million into its coffers between 2019 and 2024. Some of the funds were used to bankroll ALEC CARE, the pay-to-play group’s controversial voter management campaign software.
The Bradley Foundation, which disclosed assets of $987.1 million as of December 31, 2023, is one of the largest funders of the Right, providing millions in grants to right-wing litigation and media outlets along with groups working to suppress the vote, bust unions, and spread climate misinformation.
The second largest identifiable ALEC donor is the billionaire Charles Koch, who gave $2.3 million between 2019 and 2023 through his Stand Together Trust ($1.2 million), Stand Together Fellowships ($584,000), and Charles Koch Foundation ($582,365). For decades, his lead lobbyist Michael Morgan has held a seat on ALEC’s Private Enterprise Advisory Council. Charles Koch may also give to the organization via personal check or through Koch Inc. or Koch Companies Public Sector, though there is no way to know or track these donations.
In 2024, ALEC honored Koch’s Stand Together with its Scalia Award for Restoring the Balance of Government. Of course, the billionaire receives a lot more from ALEC than awards, as CMD President Lisa Graves noted in The Nation. “Of all the Kochs’ investments in right-wing organizations,” she said, “ALEC provides some of the best returns: it gives the Kochs a way to make their brand of free-market fundamentalism legally binding.”
The third largest identifiable contributor to ALEC is Searle Freedom Trust, which gave the bill mill $1.5 million (2019–23).
The trust, which will sunset at the end of this year, built its wealth from that of the G.D. Searle pharmaceutical company, producer of the artificial sweetener aspartame (more commonly marketed as NutraSweet). Like Bradley and Koch, Searle is a major funder of right-wing infrastructure, sending tens of millions of dollars in grants to tax-exempt groups on the Right every year.
Kimberly Dennis, the Searle Freedom Trust’s president and CEO, also serves as chairman of the board of DonorsTrust, the favorite donor conduit of the Koch political network. She co-founded the trust in 1999 with the late libertarian activist Whitney Ball. DonorsTrust funneled just under $1.5 million to ALEC over the five-year period in question.
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