A “mortal blow” against workers โ> Ed Pilkington reports for The Guardian that “a network of conservative think tanks with outposts in all 50 states has embarked on a ‘breakthrough’ campaign designed to strike a ‘mortal blow’ against” public sector unions, as a “first step toward ensuring the permanent collapse of progressive politics.” (In 2013, BillMoyers.com interviewed Lisa Graves, director of the Center for Media and Democracy, about this shadowy network.)
Research Cited
Rightwing Alliance Plots Assault to ‘Defund and Defang’ America’s Unions
Mary Bottari, deputy director of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) which tracks the rise of rightwing groups in America, said the fundraising letter and other SPN documents published by the Guardian cast light on the conservative game plan. “It’s very rare to catch conservative thinktanks talking so openly and blatantly about their long-term political aims. These documents reveal to us that SPN’s goals are entirely political โ they have no concern for workers or union members, their only goal is winning elections to advance rightwing causes.”
Bottari added: “An $80m campaign to ‘defund and defang’ public sector unions is remarkable, both in its size and in its ambition.”
How an Eight-Page Memo Ruined Our Political System
So what does ALEC stand for? According to Sourcewatch, the group seeks to “undermine environmental regulations and deny climate change; support school privatization; undercut health care reform; defund unions and limit their political influence; restrain legislatures’ abilities to raise revenue through taxes; mandate strict election laws that disenfranchise voters; (and) increase incarceration to benefit the private prison industry,” as well as “stand your ground” laws among many other issues (the group is most commonly aligned with the Republican Party).
Internal Documents Reveal Right-Wing Plan to Strike Public Unions With ‘Mortal Blow’
The State Policy Network (SPN) documents were obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy and first published by the Guardian.
Center for Media and Democracy describes the SPN, which kicked off its annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas on Tuesday, as “the tip of the spear of far-right, nationally funded policy agenda in the states that undergirds extremists in the Republican Party.”
The 66 think tanks (aka “stink tanks”) that make up the SPN, explains CMD, “operate as the policy, communications, and litigation arm of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), giving the cookie-cutter ALEC agenda a sheen of academic legitimacy and state-based support.”
Inside the Poison Papers
Published by the Center for Media and Democracy and the Bioscience Resource Project, the Poison Papers lay out “a 40-year history of deceit and collusion involving the chemical industry and the regulatory agencies that were supposed to be protecting human health and the environment,” according to Peter von Stackelberg, a journalist who helped establish the online collection, as reported by Sharon Lerner on the news website “TheIntercept.com.”
How an Oregon Activist’s Barn Produced the ‘Poison Papers’
The documents, which cover a range of topics including PCBs and herbicides, detail flaws with laboratory testing, efforts to conceal chemical science and the “extraordinary influence” of chemical manufacturers on regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according Lisa Graves at the Center for Media and Democracy, which funded the Poison Papers project.
“They show in many ways, that public health has not been protected,” Graves said of the documents. “We wanted to create a resource the public could use when trying to understand the failings or problems with the way the EPA might be captured by industry.”
Is Scott Pruitt’s EPA Violating Federal Ethics Laws?
Nick Surgey, Senior Fellow with the Center for Media and Democracy discusses California’s lawsuit against the EPA under the Freedom of Information Act and Scott Pruitt’s conflict of interest in his ties to the corporate elite’s climate denial group, ALEC.
Trump’s New FERC Commissioner Rob Powelson Accepted Gifts from Energy Industry as State Regulator
According to Powelson’s 2014 disclosure, GEE Strategies, an energy and utilities consulting firm, funded his attendance at its Energy Leadership Forum in Falls Church, Virginia. Emails recently uncovered by UtilitySecrets, a joint watchdog project by the Energy & Policy Institute and Center for Media & Democracy, indicate that GEE Strategies has close ties to the Edison Electric Institute, which funded the firm’s Energy Leadership Forum meeting last year.
This ALEC State Report Card Speaks Volumes About Betsy DeVos’s Education Agenda
The Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit watchdog group, says ALEC is intending to ramp up efforts to spread vouchers and voucher-like programs in states across the country and roll back Title IX protections for sexual assault victims.
Utility Companies Quick to Fund Republican Governors and Attorneys General in 2017
As for RAGA, (which is again in the news after the Center for Media and Democracy filed a lawsuit against Utah Office of Attorney General Sean Reyes for his refusal to turn over emails and other documents detailing his dealings with RAGA and its partner organization, the Rule of Law Defense Fund) the largest utility funders in the first six months of 2017 are Southern Company, EEI, and NextEra โ each at $50,000. EEI and NextEra contributed half that amount to DAGA.