Following the 2010 election cycle several states; Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Maine and a few others gained Republicant Governors and majorities in one or both houses. As we all know, since then Governor Walker in Wisconsin, Kasich in Ohio, Snyder in Michigan, Scott in Florida and LePage in Maine are all working on Union busting, eliminating collective bargaining and have picked on public sector workers as a contributing factor to state budget deficits.
What many are unaware of is that in most of those states the same Governors and their Republicant dominated assemblies are also pushing for privatizing their state prison systems. Though on the surface this issue appears to lack the same seriousness as the right to work laws they're trying to implement, or the attacks on workers and Unions, but as you'll discover below, it is just as important - and in fact exposes the real agenda of these conservative lawmakers and Governors...tentacles of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and corporations such as Koch Industries. Many of us were unaware the new Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner was a member of the notorious American Legislative Exchange Council back in the 80's when this agenda was developed and put into operation...or that House Majority Leader Cantor was a 2009 recipient of ALEC's "prestigious" Jefferson award!
A couple of paragraphs of history first...
...When Mitch Daniels was elected Governor of Indiana, one of his first initiatives was privatization. He successfully privatized our only state toll road, attempted to privatize our state lottery and parts of the state Division of Family Services. The toll road was his only success of the three but there were other efforts of privatizing. In that Indiana blog article, an AFSCME official was quoted as saying:
"A politician does not benefit all that much when a bunch of public employees are being paid fairly well to do a job versus the benefits a politician may receive when similar expenditures are concentrated in the hands of friends and well-wishers with low-paid employees. But, that’s just speculation. I, like the Governor, do not have analyses to support my articles of faith. Unlike the Governor, this blog costs the citizens of Indiana nothing."
Daniels also privatized Indiana's prison food service in 2006 to Aramark.
These Indy efforts of privatization exposed a facet of the Republican agenda begun by brothers Bush (Jeb and GW) when they sat as Governors of Texas and Florida. Later as President Bush continued to push for privatization as an answer to reducing the federal government. Jeb continued pushing for privatization throughout Florida, paying particular attention to the prison system. He began contracting with Geo Group to have them run a couple of Florida's prisons, privatized prison food services, canteen sales and operations, visiting park vending, inmate medical services and turned over inmate banking to a private banking corporation.
In Florida and Texas both, corruption ate away at all the privatization (Florida's two Privatized Prison Commissioners were removed, fined and one went to prison himself for embezzlement), the head of the Department of Corrections was indicted, convicted and sent to prison for corruption involving kickback schemes involving the prison canteen contract(s) and the head of Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE) was appointed by Jeb to the Florida Council of 100 and later was forced to resign with other top PRIDE executives. I won't go into the corruption that GW left behind in Texas when he left for DC - most are already aware of those facts. The privatization in these three states was merely the tip of the iceberg. Many other states such as Arizona privatized heavily and have increased their efforts over the past several years. Let's move forward to 2011...
...After taking office in Ohio, Kasich immediately made a key appointment to head the state's Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections. He chose Gary Mohr to head that agency. Mohr is a former Correction Corporation of America (CCA) official. Following this appointment he announced he intends to sell five Ohio prisons and it was reported that CCA may bid on one or more of those facilities. Kasich also says he wants to sell the Ohio Lottery, Ohio Turnpike and privatize state liquor sales.
In Maine, Governor Paul LePage appointed Joseph Ponte, who recently worked for Corrections Corp. of America as a warden in Nevada, for corrections commissioner. He since advised he wants to reverse the state's position regarding privatization of prison facilities. In the same article it was reported;
"Officials in the town of Milo and CCA have been discussing the construction of a private prison there to hold out-of-state inmates for the last three years, but CCA has refused to sign on to the project unless the state amends its laws to allow inmates to serve their sentences in private facilities.
CCA donated $25,000 to the Republican Governors Association, which was ultimately spent on LePage’s gubernatorial race last year. LePage denied allegations that he nominated Ponte because of CCA’s donation or to persuade the company to build a private prison in Milo. Gahagan said a private prison would create jobs in corrections, medical care and food service, as well jobs connected to a possible biomass power plant that may be built in conjunction with the prison. He also said he does not see any other project coming to Milo that can bring jobs and living wages to its unemployed residents.
In Florida Governor Scott had decided that he wants to
privatize Medicaid,
public hospitals,
three mental hospitals and a large part of Florida's state prisons (some articles quote him as saying he wants to privatize two of Florida's 4 Corrections Districts) -
at least three more prisons are expected to go private. CCA already runs 4 state prison facilities, Geo Group runs two and Managment Training Corporation (MTC) runs one. All three corporations contributed to Scott's campaign:
"Those three companies are prime financiers of the Republican Party. GEO Group alone gave more than $400,000 to the party in the past election cycle and another $25,000 to Scott's inaugural bash.
Geo Group's lobbyist, Brian Ballard, hosted Scott at his Tallahassee home to watch the Super Bowl. He also helped raise $3 million for Scott's inaugural."
In Michigan, Governor Snyder has privatization on his mind as well. His current budget includes
privatizing prison food services and canteen operations - and pundits claim allowing privatization of prison facilities may be on the horizon.
In Louisiana, Incumbent Governor, Bobby Jindal plans to privatize three more of the state's prison facilities as well as the Office of Group Benefits.
We are all awake now and understand that privatization is the main course of the Conservative Republicant agenda. We finally get it...but why privatize the stuff that ain't broke and are profitable like; state liquor sales in Ohio, and Office of Group Benefits in LA.? Because they are profitable and some corporation is earmarked to take over reaping those profits. Prisons aren't profitable to the states - and shouldn't be. But, they do cost less to operate when privatized. Savings are not from efficiency of operations by the private company, rather by reducing salaries by replacing experienced staff with new hires and minimum wage guards, reducing caloric intake of the inmates, cutting back on medical care and increasing the costs of inmate phone calls and canteen purchases.
No doubt the Prison Industrial Complex is a thriving growth industry today. Huge profits are amassed by corporations involved in everything from housing prisoners, immigrant detainees, juveniles and mental patients (yes Geo Group now has privatized mental health treatment centers, drug rehab and youth services). Corporations, corporations, corporations and profits. Always corporate profits and politicians pushing state money their way. It's almost like politicians such as those identified above; Governors, Senators and Representatives are somehow sharing in those profits, hmm? Is that really possible? How could this be happening?
ALEC and their current and former members. Our new Speaker of the House of Representatives attended the 2009 ALEC annual conference. In that speech he said he often times called D.C. "a work free drug place" and applauded the participation of the lawmakers belonging to ALEC, but reserved special praise for the private sector members, including Koch Industries, CCA and Geo Group representatives. Watch part one of the two part video where Boehner in 2009, admits he is a former ALEC member!
The answer is as simple and as complex as that at the same time. I've written about the CCA connections to AZ. Governor Brewer and show above, the connections between all of those corporate profits and the Conservative R's now in power across the U.S. The crossroads where all of this comes together is the membership rosters of ALEC's Private Enterprise Board (Corporations), Public Board of Directors (Conservative state lawmakers), Board of Scholars, State Chairmen and ALEC's corporate financial supporters.
These corporations pay large sums of money to join ALEC:
Washington Club $7,000
* 3 contacts on ALEC publications and policy papers mailing list
* Access to Members Only section of the Web site (www.alec.org)
MADISON CLUB $12,000
* 5 contacts on ALEC publications and policy papers mailing list
* Access to Members Only section of the Web site (www.alec.org)
* One Annual Meeting Registration
* One States & Nation Policy Summit Registration
* Invitation to the Leadership Dinner at the Annual Meeting
* Discount advertising rates in ALEC publications
JEFFERSON Club $25,000
* 5 contacts on ALEC publications and policy papers mailing list
* Access to Members Only section of the Web site (www.alec.org)
* One Annual Meeting Registration
* One States & Nation Policy Summit Registration
* Invitation to all ALEC VIP events
* Reserved table seating for the Opening Luncheons at ALEC meetings
* Invitation to Board Reception and Board Dinner at the Annual Meeting
* Discount advertising rates in ALEC publications
NOTE:
All membership packages include the following benefits:
* Opportunity to join any number of Task Forces
* Networking opportunities at the state and national levels at all meetings
* Invitations to Special Events
* Discounted registration for all company representatives to ALEC events
* Discounted exhibit booth rates at ALEC meetings
In addition after joining if they want advance the interests of their Corporation through state legislation, they have to buy seats upon one or more of their nine Task Forces:
Civil Justice $3,000
Commerce, Insurance & Economic Development $2,500
Education $2,500
Health & Human Services $3,000
International Relations $10,000
Natural Resources $3,000
Public Safety & Elections $2,500
Tax & Fiscal Policy $3,000
Telecommunications & Information Technology $5,000
Corporate members can buy as many seats upon one or more of the task forces as they can afford. Belonging to ALEC is not cheap for corporate members. They spend a lot to join and sit across from state lawmakers that have the ability to present legislation beneficial to them.
Right now there are three main private prison corporations in the U.S.; CCA, Geo Group and MTC. There are a few more and once upon a time there were many, but these three corporations bought them or merged them into their companies through stock acquisitions or other means. These three corporations own approximately 90% of all privately owned prison beds in the U.S.
CCA and Geo Group are long time members of ALEC. They sit upon one or more of the task forces and fund various activities of ALEC beyond the cost of membership. In return for their support, they benefit from legislation they want that increases the number of inmates transferred from state housing to their private facilities. Conservative lawmakers make that happen by sponsoring criminal justice laws that increase state privatization, create more criminal laws, lengthen sentences imposed, require inmates to serve 85% of their sentence (truth in sentencing laws), abolishment of parole and minimum mandatory sentencing for drug and gun laws. All of these laws contribute to the increases we've seen in prison populations nationwide that are right now bankrupting many states - California in particular.
In 2003 an independent report on CCA was published "CORRECTIONS CORPORATION OF AMERICA: A CRITICAL LOOK AT ITS FIRST TWENTY YEARS" that exposed their involvement in the changes in state laws I mentioned above through ALEC:
""Attempts to influence public policy. Being in a business in which government is the only customer, CCA has not hesitated to cultivate close ties with public officials and legislators around the country. In its home state of Tennessee, CCA has enjoyed cozy relationships with powerful public figures, up to and including governors. In fact, CCA founder Tom Beasley was a partner with one governor and several leading legislators in a restaurant chain. CCA’s chief lobbyist in the state was married to the speaker of the House. The company’s current chief executive formerly served as commissioner of finance in the state.
"CCA has also used campaign contributions to build new relationships with legislators. The company spends hundreds of thousands of dollars during each state election cycle to try to gain access and build support for its projects. At the federal level, CCA has given more than $100,000 in soft money to the Republican Party since 1997 as well as political action committee contributions to individual members of key Congressional committees. It also doesn’t hurt that J. Michael Quinlan, the former head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, has been an executive of CCA for the past decade.
"Perhaps most controversial is CCA’s involvement in a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC is a powerful force in the promotion of the conservative policy agenda, including tougher sentencing rules, among state legislators. CCA has been a corporate member of ALEC and a member of its Criminal Justice Task Force, which helps write model bills. Through its support of ALEC, CCA is helping to create greater demand for its services as a result of changes in state policies that keep more people behind bars for longer periods."
Corporations that pay handsomely for the ability to rub elbows with legislators that can advance their interests, profit a hundred-fold from that investment.
Corporations that belong to ALEC use that PAC's conservative agenda to advance their own agendas of seeking profits. It's a win-win for all concerned - the Conservatives gain the financial backing of huge corporate interests to advance their ideals and principals and the corporations profit from ALEC's primary goal of reducing government by turning over public duties and responsibilities to corporate control. Rather a marriage made in heaven.
If you haven't taken a moment as yet to look at ALEC's "Model Legislation" you should set aside a few minutes and take a hard look at the proposed legislation they are pushing states to enact. Historically they are able to turn the legislation they propose into law 20% of the time - by their own claims.
Many of the corporations belonging to ALEC realize a further profit from membership and the push for privatization of prisons. Many of them are directly involved in partnering with the state prison industries. They are able to use inmate labor at rates as low as $.20 an hour to manufacture their products. CCA and Geo Group both own and operate prisons with attached prison industry facilities. Why is this important? Sitting alongside of CCA and Geo Group representatives within ALEC, is Koch Industry's Mike Morgan.
Today with 2.3 million incarcerated from the changes in criminal justice laws sought by corporations and advanced by ALEC and their legislative membership, a huge workforce has been created at the state and federal level. At the same time prison industries were expanding and finding jobs for these prisoners, corporations were partnering with the state and privately run prison industries. This resulted in a reduction in civilian jobs in America as more and more corporations moved entire manufacturing, industrial and service operations into prisons. Concomitantly the same corporations and ALEC sought laws and tax codes that rewarded companies for moving jobs from the U.S. to foreign countries. As the tax breaks became profitable, more and more jobs disappeared from U.S. labor markets.
We were losing jobs to insourcing and outsourcing at the same time...while all along the media pointed to outsourcing as the primary cause for lost jobs, they completely ignored the number and type of jobs disappearing into prisons. Congress kept their heads turned as all this transpired.
Now that corporations had a ready available and slave labor workforce and foreign workers doing American's jobs and providing them tax breaks, they had less use for civilian employees. This use of prison labor reduced operating expenses tremendously due to no requirement for benefits such as unemployment compensation, vacations, sick or maternal leaves, health or medical insurance, utilities subsidized by tax dollars and industrial facility leases of as little as $1.00 per year. Now all that was needed was a way to increase profits by not paying taxes on the vast wealth they acquire by all this.
In 2009 President Bush spoke to ALEC, outlining how the Democrats would not allow permanent tax rates/breaks for corporations and the most affluent. He was saddened by this and urged ALEC and their members to continue to push for permanency of those breaks that were due to expire in 2011. President H.W. Bush spoke to the world about the first Gulf War in March 1991 from an ALEC meeting
Who else speaks at these ALEC summits and annual conferences? Newt Gingrich, speaking to them about the health care initiatives in WISCONSIN in 2008! John Boehner in 2009, telling them he is a former ALEC member! Our new House Majority leader, Eric Cantor, also in 2009 accepting the Jefferson Award and speaking of deregulation and the harm the stimulus package had on businesses. Dick Armey in 2008 on various conservative issues. Doug McMillon, President and CEO of Sam's Club spoke at the 2008 ALEC annual conference on stimulus, gas prices and the impact of the economy on their customers. In addition, every ALEC Summit Meeting and Annual Conference has a list of "Exhibitors", such as this one held in 2008. A glance at that list is a wake up call all on it's own.
All of these politicians, Presidents, Senators, corporate CEOs, exhibitors and others have made speeches to and in praise of ALEC and their conservative values, principals and agenda. Together they form a cohesive and powerful collective.
On February 18th of this year, ALEC's Chairman of the Tax and Fiscal Responsibility Task Force spoke to PBS' Judy Woodruff about the need for Wisconsin Governor Walker's push for eliminating collective bargaining. We now know how deeply involved David Koch was involved in funding both Walker and other politicians in their campaigning and initiatives involving union busting and eliminating collective bargaining. Here is ALEC's representative out front in that battle supporting the agenda of Walker and David Koch. As Walker's declarations in Wisconsin sounded the beginning of the next to last phase of this battle, Koch Industries was leasing office space adjacent to the Wisconsin state Capital in preparation for receiving their just due - purchase and ownership of that state's energy producing utilities. Of course, Koch Industries denies this publicly, and calls such stories "speculation", but can anyone believe them? I mean they denied funding the Tea Party Movement through the Koch founded American's For Prosperity foundation or ever attending a Tea Party function - and we now know those were lies. It can't get any clearer than this.
ALEC and their members - public and private - profit greatly from this. The corporations use their accumulated profits to buy more influence and power through lobbying, PAC's and campaign contributions. The recent Citizen's United decision by the Supreme Court insured a way for the corporations to contribute even more of those illicitly earned dollars to fund their political initiatives through advertising and campaign contributions. Lawmakers profit both in monetary compensation from lobbyists, seminars, trips, cruises and juntas paid for by ALEC's corporate donors and travel paid for by the state taxpayers sending them.
It must be concluded that there is a clear agenda advanced by corporations, ALEC and Conservative Republican lawmakers. That agenda involves: the transfer of wealth from state coffers and American worker's wages through; increasing incarceration to over-populate prisons causing a state need for prison privatization (by ALEC members, CCA and Geo Group) which in turns provides a captive workforce to replace civilian workers, exploiting those prisoners in prison industry work for slave wages, profiting off of the sales of those prison made goods, lessening the tax responsibilities for corporations and their wealthy owners, reducing the wages of American workers, eliminating the ability of civilian workers to collectively bargain, deregulation and while doing all of this - usurp the oversight duties, control and position of U.S. government agencies and departments through that deregulation. In addition the agenda provides media must be corporate controlled through acquisition of media outlets and dissemination of material presented to the public "scrubbed" and presented to support and advance their goals and eduction funding must be reduced at all levels grade through college (an educated society presents a real threat and have non-conservative leanings - lesser educated citizens are easily led and manipulated - Fox News viewers as an example).
Lord only knows how many civilian jobs have been lost, how much in taxes have been avoided and how much privately held wealth has been accumulated because of these manipulations by ALEC and those affiliated with them. Look at the number of our children with decreased education opportunities through grants, scholarships and parental funding. This agenda is a huge pyramid scheme designed purposely to transfer jobs and wealth from working class America to the top 1 or 2 percent of the population. Today's influential and powerful Republican leaders; Boehner, Cantor and others work today on behalf of those corporations belonging to ALEC much as other Republicant Presidents and lawmakers have done since 1980. With the huge gains this party made in 2010 through the new Tea Party - bought and paid for by the Koch brothers, their corporation and family foundations - they are poised to realize the dream of control they have held for these past thirty years. They are on the verge of destroying America as we and our parents and their parents know/knew it. They have increased our dependency upon them for goods and services at costs that have spiraled upward at a quickened pace. Collectively the entire cabal have conspired to turn the U.S. into a Corporatocracy run by them on their terms. They stand on the cusp of prevailing. If they succeed - and they are dangerously close - they will have succeeded in a silent coup that will destroy our country and society.
Those that are taken in or lulled by the smooth and silky rhetoric spoken by these groups, individuals and corporate interests will be the ones taken completely by surprise and will have no right to be outraged...that right is reserved for those of us that saw this coming and have tried to stop it. We are already outraged and trying desperately to get the rest of America to wake up and join this fight. Even as demonstrations across the nation have been ongoing for weeks now, many still think it doesn't involve them because they aren't union or public service workers. Well...when they come for your jobs or your freedom by sweeping you up and putting you in their prison work force, it will be too late to complain, object or take evasive action. Time for that will have passed...when they come for me...? there'll be an empty chair and no forwarding address. It's my children and grand children I'm worried about...