The American Legislative Exchange Council is the most influential "conservative" business interest group in America. They write "model legislation" that is then distributed to various hard-right state legislators, who reliably cross out the ALEC logos and present the legislation in their own names. Throughout the entire process everyone pretends each bit of legislation is about "freedom" when in fact they are most typically the result of industry lobbyists writing down client wishlists to be laundered through the "Council" as a means for giving plausible deniability to elected officials enacting them.
The group is now seeking to expand their reach into the nation's individual cities, which are considered entirely too liberal these days. The model for how to do it remains the same: Have industry lobbyists write the legislation, wrap it with some conservative-sounding phrases, and see which suckers might bite.
Though the group is still young, it’s notched some significant accomplishments - most prominently helping distribute model legislation to end the automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks that 12 Kentucky counties implemented in 2014 as a precursor to that state becoming the 28th “right-to-work” state.
The American City County Exchange also distributes model legislation on everything from a taxpayer bill of rights that would require a supermajority to raise property taxes to measures requiring that cities explore all available materials to build sewer pipelines. An official at the city council project, Bruce Hollands, is head of the PVC pipe association.
At the Denver meeting, Hollands gave a presentation to the roughly three-dozen attendees on how cities often rely excessively on iron pipes without enough bidding from manufacturers of other types. Representatives of telephone companies gave presentations on new types of cellular service - and the need for different cellular towers - coming online. And lobbyists from Uber and Airbnb touted the virtue of the sharing economy and state legislation that would prohibit cities from regulating it.
Even if you live in a reliably sane city, then, you may want to consider attending a few city council meetings—because the lobbyists are coming.