America’s Secret Government
by Bob Henderson
Chair, Kay County, OK, Democrats
Let me explain this all-too-real fact of life.
Recently, I wrote that huge corporations are operating an increasingly secret “economic government” of lobbyists, policy institutes, and super-PAC political funds that have more power over our economic well-being than our elected government.
In a move applauded by Republicans, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling two years ago reversed decades of law that had attempted to limit the role of money in politics. This ruling made it legal for corporations, including foreign, to donate unlimited funds, not to candidates, but to “issue” groups that keep the names of their contributors secret.
They are directly counter to your interests.
With names that sound patriotic, these groups attempt to conceal their true identities. Examples are “Club for Growth” and “American Crossroads.” The latter outspent every other political organization except the Republican National Committee in support of GOP candidates in 2010. Voters don’t know where, or from whom, Crossroads gets its money. All they know is it’s headed by Karl Rove.
Just as I sign my name to these columns, I believe all political activities should be public. Voters need to know who is paying, and if contributors’ financial interests are the real motive behind the causes and politicians they support.
Let’s look at just one powerful, almost unknown, organization in the “economic government” that exercises such control over us, and see how it works.
According to Bloomberg News Service, not long ago, Koch Industries and Exxon Mobil were among several corporations that sat down with state legislators from Oregon to New Hampshire. At this “convention,” industry specialists guided the legislators in drafting laws to counteract, at the state level, federal environmental regulations that Koch, Exxon and others oppose because of the added costs they involve.
That “convention” was sponsored by a Washington-based policy institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. Legislators paid $100 each to attend. If a majority of ALEC’s corporate members then approved the laws drafted, ALEC provided them to Republican state legislators.
In other words, unelected corporate representatives quietly helped draft local laws that undo federal environmental protections, then promoted their adoption in states across the nation.
One of ALEC’s “declared missions” is to promote free markets.
Does paying tens of thousands of dollars to belong to ALEC, $100,000 to sponsor a special “convention,” then more thousands to provide “scholarships” to transport, wine, dine and house legislators at fancy resorts, sound like an activity intended to promote a “free” market?
No. It sounds just like what it is: an elaborate and expensive scheme for corporations to pull strings, out of sight, that end in the further channeling of our national wealth into the hands of these very corporations and their owners — all at the expense of working Americans.
The Koch brothers and Exxon Mobil aren’t interested in creating jobs for Americans. They are interested in two things: this quarter’s earnings, and growing the value of their corporations. Indifferent to your family, they promote policies that enable them to ship your jobs overseas.
ALEC coordinated this year’s multi-state attack on bargaining rights of public employees. As a result of another initiative from ALEC, legislatures in 47 states this year introduced voter ID laws that make it more difficult for elder citizens and minorities to register and vote.
So if you believe you are losing your “freedoms,” and you are, blame the clandestine actions of big corporations and their power over our lives.