ALEC Will End Work on Gun Laws, Plano Legislator Says
As fierce debate continues to surround the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a policy group that backed expansive self-defense laws like Florida’s Stand Your Ground measure announced this week that it will disband the task force — headed by a Texas legislator — that was responsible for gun laws.
State Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Plano, has served as chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council's Public Safety & Elections Committee, which focused on developing policies on crime and elections for state governments. The elimination of the committee means that ALEC will no longer work on gun legislation, he said.
“ALEC has done ...
Comments (13)
Tarbox Kiersted via Texas Tribune on Facebook
crooked from the ground up. and don't even ask what's going under the surface.
Bill Addington via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We have been researching and investigation ALEC activities in Texas and elsewhere for 10 years. We killed one of there House Bills in the Texas Lege. This is a very dangerous organization, which we believe operates illegally
Debbie Spencer via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We don't need any help from ALEC. Anyone who is associated with them is crooked, lazy, and intellectually dishonest in my opinion.
Debbie Mason via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I dont beleive ALEC. They will just use another name.
patricia bird
To think that Alec, a non-elected group of fanatics, is running this country is frightening. They are responsible for the "Stand Your Ground" gun law with Mr. Horn, TX, and Mr. Zimmerman, FL, used to kill three people. They are the ones who made the news; the others who died are just as important. Mr. Madden and his group need to be very careful. I would hope that voters in every State will find out which of our representatives voted for laws that ALEC wrote and sponsored and vote them out of office. It is like the "well dressed, rich" version of the KKK and Mafia.
This country has gone so far towards the extreme agenda, that a moderate no longer, for the Republican party, has a chance to represent the voters.
gypsy314 ne
It is sad blacks are threatening riots to force people to go against what they believe in Companys like coke and kraft have to understand it is a two way street and folks can do protest against them to for not supporting the right of most Americans and what they believe in. I do believe a race war will happen and many will die I hope not but leaders for the blacks are pushing for it and you know what happens when it comes to push and shove. All being said and done we had to have a civil war to free the blacks but Americans screwed up by not making sure they were sent home. Now we are always hearing un fair to the blacks we are keeping them down under the white man well you would think after electing the fraud to office the black issue would have gone away BUT no they play the race card every chance they get enough is enough. Stop playing the race card and if you do not like whites well get over it. AlEC should be able to support who they want with out threats from the blacks. Stop it now you blacks before we do end up in a race war.
audrey fisher
There is a smoke/mirror to Madden's statement: ALEC will no longer focus on Social Issues, just economic issues. If one believes that Private Prisons are unrelated to the economy - then you will believe anything. Everything related to ALEC is funded by a wide variety of corporations - to push for legislation that will benefit their corporate profits - which is the Economy.
Epic rant by a legislator who whined about civic legislation that limits where individuals can / cannot smoke. So how much money did this guy get from ALTRIA - the Tabacco Company who has re-branded itself with a new to so that individuals won't see a clear tabacco company name associated with the lawsuit from which healthcare facilities received huge payouts?
Why does an international alcohol conglomerate pay dues to ALEC - because they don't want any more regulations on the consumption of alcohol - which is an economic issue to them.
Why does the Texas Public Policy Foundation pay dues to ALEC - aren't they smart enough to write their own legislation - or do they just share their POV with legislator's across the nation? Texas was the first to ram through text book changes and now, thanks to ALEC and their share-network - we are educating the future generations to ignore science. Why, well because if we are taught to ignore science relevant to climate change or the dangers of fracking, then companies that benefit from air / water pollution and oil/gas production will benefit...you guessed it, it will improve their profits - which are Economic.
Mr. Madden is talking with a forked tongue and hope that no one notices that everything, including who is elected POTUS and GOV all effect the Economy and are therefore "economic issues".
Dinah Miller
It is time for ALEC to abandon their lobbying for private school vouchers. "Taxpayer Savings Grants" are the latest ALEC scheme designed to drain money from Texas' neighborhood schools.
National PTA and Texas PTA are officially against vouchers.
Why do companies like GE, American Express, Verizon, JC Penney and YUM! Brands fund these lobbyists who write bills which are opposed by PTA?
Kirk Holden via Texas Tribune on Facebook
To recap, one size fits all solutions for the several states from disreputable groups that operate in secrecy -- GOOD. One size fits all solutions from elected representative in Washington -- BAD.
Larry Arnold
So if a criminal attacks you, you should be prosecuted by the state and sued by the criminal's family for justifiably protecting yourself?
Adele Roberson
Oh, Joy... ALEX will stop their work on no gun control, that is, of course, if you can believe them. No one with one brain cell working should believe them. Be that as it may, what about the other one thousand bills they have been responsible for in the last year?
Everyone in the State of Texas, when deciding who to vote for in the next five to ten years should know exactly who they are voting for. Is their Representative in cahoots with the NRA, ALEC, Grover Norquist, the Lunatic Religious Fringe or all of them at the same time. Just who is going to take precedence with their Representative? Does their Rep even acknowledge the Ciitizens in the State of Texas? Or is it just their votes he/she wants ALEC . exposed now as a bunch of hoodlums, have been in business for thirty years.
If you think there are no other organizations like this one the Republicans are hiding in their dark rooms you are naive.
Adele Roberson
While running the State of Texas, when ALEC takes a short break, the NRA takes over. When the NRA takes a short break the Religious Lunatic Fringe takes over Why do we even need a Governorf or any Legislaltive body?
. Those of us who grew up around the NRA are all too familiar with one of the more striking facets of the organization's relentless fearmongering, its paranoid style: namely, it not only traffics in wild and groundless conspiracy theories about "gun grabbers" and Bircherite "New World Order" takeover schemes, but it forms deep associations with the very extremists whose far-right worldview fosters such paranoia.
The most recent example of this has been the way the NRA's fearmongering about President Obama has fostered real violence from right-wing extremists
The folks at the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence have put together a directory of the NRA's board titled Meet the NRA Directors. It's a fascinating site, one that well rewards scrolling through and reading.
Adele Roberson
ALEC IS NOT A LOBBY. iT IS NOT A FRONT GROUP. . It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. We agree. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door.