[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 56 (Wednesday, April 18, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H1920-H1921]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Johnson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I spoke about a secret 
organization called ALEC, also known as the American Legislative 
Exchange Council.
  I talked yesterday about how ALEC promotes model legislation written 
by its corporate members and disseminated to conservative State 
lawmakers around the country. The public, whose votes elect these 
lawmakers to represent them, are kept in the dark about the fact that 
their Representative member is a member of ALEC. The legislative member 
goes on various retreats and junkets. The ALEC corporate members paid 
tens of thousands of dollars a year to be members, whereas the 
legislators pay $50 a year.
  You can see the imbalance there. This is something that is funded by 
the corporations' special interests. The

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lawmakers, just to make it look good, have to pay $50 annually to join.
  We don't know who those lawmakers are, although we do know that 60 
percent of the lawmakers in the entire United States of America are 
members of ALEC. The taxpayers are probably the ones who pay the annual 
membership fee with which the members are then connected to corporate 
interests by way of ALEC committees, and these committees produce the 
model legislation that is then introduced by these same member 
legislators in their respective legislatures.
  That was the way that the so-called Stand Your Ground law--but it's 
really a ``shoot first, ask questions later'' bill--began. That's how 
it started in Florida. It was an ALEC-produced bill. It has now spread 
to one-half of the States in the United States of America. Twenty-five 
States have adopted similar laws despite the fact that self-defense has 
always been a defense available to people who find themselves in that 
situation.
  But the reason why they did this is because they wanted to produce 
more handgun sales. It's nothing but about money. The NRA and the 
corporations that sell firearms through the retail outlets across the 
Nation are benefiting, but we have people dying in the streets because 
of these weapons.
  Now that is one question. There is another committee that has been 
set up by ALEC, and it deals with the private prison industry. Mr. 
Speaker, the United States imprisons more than any other nation in the 
world. We currently incarcerate approximately 2.3 million people.
  America's high incarceration rate is not fitting for a Nation which 
is routinely touted as the greatest in the world. Although high 
incarceration rates hurt the United States as a whole, it definitely 
benefits the private prison industry. In 2010, the two largest private 
prison companies, CCA and the GEO Group, received nearly $3 billion in 
revenue that's taxpayer money.
  The for-profit prison industry is driven by the corporate members of 
the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC. ALEC is a secretive 
organization that has advocated for harsh sentencing and detention laws 
that lead to mass incarceration. It provides State legislators with 
model legislation, and each year ALEC members introduce these bills in 
State houses across the country. This gives unparalleled access and 
authority to ALEC's corporate and legislative members, undermining the 
will of the people and the power of the ballot box. Private prisons 
have vested interests in maintaining and maximizing their profits.

                              {time}  1040

  They are not concerned about public safety or rehabilitation or 
reducing recidivism. Those principles directly conflict with their 
bottom line and mantra, which is more prisoners and more money.
  Mr. Speaker, I will again be back to continue to discuss this issue. 
I discussed it yesterday. Today is another day. I think the American 
people need to know what is going on in the politics of America. If we 
don't do something, we are all at risk for losing the rights that we as 
citizens are supposed to possess: government of, by, and for the 
people--not for special interests.

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