You can try to argue that ALEC [the American Legislative Exchange Council] is a private group and can do whatever it wants in the privacy of its own annual convention. You can try to convince me that the \u201cfreedom\u201d ALEC is constantly talking about defending also means freedom from listening to people who don’t agree with you.\u00a0 But you won\u2019t succeed in convincing me, because ALEC\u2014while technically a private lobbying group\u2014exerts tremendous influence over the public laws that are passed by our state legislatures.\u00a0 ALEC pursues a radically pro-corporate, anti-union, anti-worker, anti-employee, anti-middle class, pro-business agenda state legislatures. Its membership roster includes legislators from every state, who, by attending meetings like the one in Oklahoma City [May 2013], are double dealing the voters who elected them by representing the corporate interests of ALEC. Their allegiance to the private interests of ALEC undermines their roles as public servants. In my view\u2014and I\u2019m far from alone in this\u2014that gives the rest of us the right to pierce ALEC\u2019s jealously guarded secrecy and to know what their minions in our state legislatures are up to.<\/p>\n
So, it\u2019s not okay that, when citizens and legitimate reporters tried to observe and [gasp!] report on the goings-on at ALEC\u2019s 2013 annual meeting in Oklahoma City, ALEC circled the wagons, slammed the doors, and treated visitors as criminals.<\/p>\n