As readers may or may not know, the American Legislative Transparency Project group here on DK organized and held a protest at ALEC's Spring Summit event in Charlotte this month in conjunction with the Occupy Charlotte. We did this through our non-profit sister organization, Voters Legislative Transparency Project (www.VLTP.net).
The protest around the Charlotte Westin Hotel took place on May 11th from 9:00 am through 6:00 pm and involved such diverse groups as VLTP, Occupy Charlotte, Rainbow Push, UFCW workers, Mecklenburg ACTS, Greenpeace and MoveOn.org. MoveOn provided a mobile billboard calling out ALEC for their involvement in helping spread stand-your-ground laws nationwide.
Following the day of protesting, we held a teach-in at the Wedgewood Baptist Church there in Charlotte who generously donated space and assistance in setting up and completing the teach-in. Wedgewood Baptist proudly advertises itself as a truly "liberal" church and open to all.
The Teach-In was sponsored and organized by VLTP and the Center for Media and Democracy. CMD Executive Director, Lisa Graves provided an introduction about ALEC, their agenda, why they are dangerous to democracy and highlighted several of the ALEC policies - including their involvement in the now notorious "Stand-Your-Ground" laws.
Other speakers Included:
Monica Embrey of Greenpeace spoke on key initiatives pursued by ALEC involving our environment, fracking, and exploitation by gas and oil companies.
Lisa Graves also spoke on tort reform initiatives of ALEC and the cabal.
Bob Sloan I presented on prison industries, the PIECP program allowing private companies access to prisoner labor and prison privatization issues.
Ron Rabatsky from VLTP provided a discussion on education and ALEC's pursuit of privatization of public education - k-12 and college.
Pat McCoy of Action NC spoke on key issues important to North Carolinians.
Peter Grear (attorney) from Occupy Wilmington spoke on issues important to the Black community and ALEC policies and initiatives that exploit African-Americans - such as voter ID legislation and criminal justice policies.
Joe Brewer from Cognitive Policy Works, gave a presentation on the Occupy movement; what it is, why it is necessary and how it should be used to enrich the conversations about ALEC and similar organizations exploiting our nation and democracy.
Sam Brown, former President of Common Cause, North Carolina, presented on the impact of ALEC policies and initiatives upon seniors.
Here is a video taken just before we wrapped up the protest at 6:pm with some of the protesters standing in front of the mobile billboard provided by MoveOn.org:
and here is the billboard in a video capture early in the morning:
This billboard was driven all over downtown Charlotte all day on the 11th. It was present before we began setting up for the protest and still being driven through Charlotte as we broke up and left for the day. Big shout out to MoveOn.org for providing this billboard with it's huge impact. If they had advised that they were doing this before the event, many of us would have worn hoodies to emphasize the stand your ground and ALEC connections.
Of course we had Right Wing media and bloggers present - early in the day before many of the protesters arrived. They shot footage and interviewed a couple of the protesters...and then used that video to claim the protest "failed". Here is one of those videos posted by Breitbart blog, no less:
I was truly saddened that of those they named as being behind the protests, they left out VLTP, Daily Kos, CMD, Common Cause, PFAW, PSN, PDA and Grassroots Leadership. Perhaps this style of video pushback by the RW is due to the protest being:
1. successful without any violence,
2. the message was adhered to and disseminated
3. ALEC members finally came out and attempted to secure media attention so they could lie about their activities - discovered the protesters were knowledgeable of their activities, bylaws, and legislation - sending them back inside to hide, and
4. peaceful and including several local and national groups coming together to inform locals of the dangers of ALEC.
We also had other video coverage of the event that took place the same week as the BoA shareholder's meeting also in Charlotte. Below is a video from PressTV on both events (ALEC Protest coverage begins at 2:13 of the video). I was interviewed holding my now infamous "ALEC for Dummies" sign:
Below is one video from the protest on the 11th. I posted this one here as it is important to demonstrate the dishonest rhetoric and lies provided to the media by ALEC members - and how they feign ignorance of facts when confronted.
In this clip long time ALEC member, Senator Curtis Olafson (R ND) is being interviewed by a reporter for the local NC NPR affiliate and an independent journalist. When asked about the crafting and adoption of model legislation by ALEC, Olafson and a fellow ALEC member (lobbyist) informs the reporter that "nothing is binding upon ALEC members to introduce or support ALEC's adopted model bills." My wife (off camera) loudly accused Sen. Olafson of lying to the press on that issue. I was called over and told what Olafson had been saying (at the 3:00 mark on the video):
To corroborate my statements to the Senator and press, here are excerpts of ALEC's Articles and Bylaws (Exhibit 3) describing the duties of their State Chairmen:
"ARTICLE X
STATE CHAIRMEN AND STEERING COMMITTEE
Section 10.01 Appointment. All State Chairmen are appointed by the National Chairman. All Private Sector State Chairmen are appointed by the ALEC State Chairman, and confirmed by both the Private Enterprise Board Chairman, and the National Chairman. Each ALEC State Chairman shall appoint a Private Sector State Chairman to serve concurrently with the State Chairman.
Section 10.02 Term. State Chairmen serve for a two- (2) year term. and may be reappointed by the National Chairman.
Section 10.03 Duties. State Chairmen duties shall include recruiting new members, working to ensure introduction of model legislation, suggesting task force membership, establishing state steering committees, planning issue events, and working with the Private Enterprise State Chairman to raise and oversee expenditures of legislative scholarship funds."
Senator Olafson's claim that if what I was saying was correct, "it would make his job much easier" if chairmen were required to introduce model legislation - is very telling. This demonstrates how coordinated ALEC's policy agenda is and how it is used to "ensure"
their model legislation is in fact introduced state by state. No doubt Senator Olafson's statement that he was "involved in model legislation being introduced in a number of states" is true, and that by requiring state chairmen to introduce such legislation, his job is no doubt "made much easier".
In a separate confrontation (unfortunately not caught on video) a woman identified as ALEC's Director of the Health and Human Services Task Force, Christie Herrera, exited the hotel and spoke with members of VLTP and the Mecklenberg ACTS protesters. She indicated that those who have lost homes to foreclosure, or are unemployed and who pay no "property taxes"..."are not entitled to public education or healthcare" since they are not paying taxes that are used to fund those services. Though this has often times been expressed by ALEC staffers and members, this was the first time it was openly stated by such a high level staffer, and with a straight face - directly to those protesting their activities.
When not attending task force meetings, or working groups ALEC members, their corporate lobbyists and staff spent their time drinking and discussing unknown topics in the Westin's large lounge...all of them watching Fox News on the TV's behind the bar. Here is a short video that will show you what I'm talking about:
In July we are headed to Salt Lake City (depending upon funding) for another protest and all day teach-in against ALEC and the Koch Cabal. ALEC is holding their Annual Conference there from July 25th through the 28th. Hope many of you can make it out there for the next round of action against ALEC. Lisa Graves from CMD has agreed to attend and speak about ALEC and ALEC Exposed at the teach-in.
The event is sponsored by VLTP/ALTP and other DK members, CMD and of course Occupy Salt Lake City. Already OSLC has been holding teach-ins about ALEC and their agenda in Utah to familiarize citizens about ALEC and why it is important to eliminate them from our legislative processes.
I'm hopeful many of you will continue to support our efforts against ALEC. Funding is in short supply and once again I have to ask for your help to make SLC a greater success than Charlotte or Phoenix has been. Please visit our website at www.vltp.net where you can contribute to our work and read up on everything related to ALEC and their agenda, policies and legislation. Contact me directly through DK Mail if you'd rather send a check or money order to help us out.